LOTR: Sauron?s the good guy?
] <a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin"; target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin</a>;
This is a very interesting article. I hope you read it to conclusion and give an opinion.
Was Sauron the good guy? Having lost the war, was Sauron unfairly maligned by the victors, and their 'rewriting' of history?
This is a very interesting article. I hope you read it to conclusion and give an opinion.
Was Sauron the good guy? Having lost the war, was Sauron unfairly maligned by the victors, and their 'rewriting' of history?
Comments
This is one of the few instances where I?d say I tend to agree with you. What was Tolkien thinking? <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
<strong> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> Conservative are you?</strong><hr></blockquote>
What can I say? I have an elephant?s trunk.
Moving now...
I'll set aside the very interesting exploration of the themes of modernists vs. anti-modernists and humansits vs. anti-humanists controversies and their impact on recent culture and history.
It seems like that Sauron character is indeed a fundamentally unsavoury fellow, yet the author does have his own misgivings about his enemies, and is thus very different from the usual sycophant historiographs of ancient kings ( as inÂ?and Divine Mernepetah destroyed his enemies of which no trace remainsÂ?blahÂ?etcÂ?Â?), so I can conclude, based on the initial premises, that the author does give a rather honest. though subjective, portrayal of the character.
Yet, real world dictators and otherwise autocratic powerful figures do find apologists, or advocates claiming Â?they aren't all that bad after allÂ?.
Like that lÃ*der maximo Fidel Castro, a totalitarian dictator for more than forty years, and yet in so many esteemed circles he somehow gets a better image this his mirror image Pinochet.
And one can still remeber that in the 70s there were those who minimised the genocidal mischiefs committed by Pol-Pot and his Khmer-Rouge.
I could go on and onÂ?
The article mentions Hitler, as the book was written at the time this was current affairs, not history. But we should remember that there were many who thought he wasn't all that terrible in the years leading to WW2, when one could hear many phrases beginning with Â?and after allÂ?Â?:
Â?isn't Rheinland part of Germany, and Saarland too, while we're at it?
Â?aren't Austrians Germans too?
Â? aren't those Sudettendeustche also?
Â?isn't Czechoslovakia an Â?artificial stateÂ? anyway? Why should we bother with those faraway unwashed blokes?
Â?what's all that fuss about a few panes of broken glass? Isn't that new chancellor is at least trying? And you can't make an omelette witrhout breaking a few eggs, you know, at least the Berlin streets are much cleaner and safer without all the loose riffraff around, and the regular folks are happier too, just aks them!Â?
You could hear variations of the same themes about that other luminary, Iosip Stalin née Djougashvili.
Or late Chairman Mao.
Why shouldn't fictitious characters get some too.
Thus, that Sauron fellow could certainly get a more positive press, depicting him as the champion of the downtrodden masses oppressed by the evil hero-kings characters and their goody-goody establishmentarianist system; as for Sauron's various misedeeds they could easily be dialectically explained away as Â?objective revolutionary necessities dictated by that only judge of great leaders: historyÂ?.
I shudder at the prospect of the publication of such titles as Â?MiddleearthismÂ? by wannabe refugee Edward Said or Â?Fateful Circles: The Manufacturing Of Fantasy LegendsÂ? by that other idiot savant, Noam Chomsky.
[On edit: this Â?Sauron's the good guyÂ? clause applies unless Sauron's given name is Arik, in which case he's the ultimate bad guy with no possibility of recourse, ever.]
[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Goldstein ]</p>
<strong>Wrong forum. Fireside Chat is for religious and political discussion. This belongs in AppleOutsider.
Moving now...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm. I don't know. That article looked rather political. I don't know though, I just read it.
[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: ShawnPatrickJoyce ]</p>
I asked Brad to move it here. I thought it was a very intersting question to ask but it wasn?t getting much attention at FC. Maybe the AO crowd, who seem to be more into the subject, would give the thread more consideration.
Orc: You. In front. SPEAK!
Reporter: Some have accused Sauron as being the ultimate evil and betrayer, responsible for the corruption and death of human, elf, and dwarf, and that his gift of the rings of power contained a hidden, sinister purpose. Any comm--
Whachunk! Splat!
(Sound of a battle axe cleaving Reporter in two)
Orc (Cradleing axe dripping with blood and sinew): Next question?
[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: jesperas ]</p>
<strong>Yes, you're right SPJ.
I asked Brad to move it here. I thought it was a very intersting question to ask but it wasn?t getting much attention at FC. Maybe the AO crowd, who seem to be more into the subject, would give the thread more consideration.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're right. I'll add a tongue-smiley then.
[quote]Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein:
<strong>
It seems like that Sauron character is indeed a fundamentally unsavoury fellow, yet the author does have his own misgivings about his enemies, and is thus very different from the usual sycophant historiographs of ancient kings ( as in?and Divine Mernepetah destroyed his enemies of which no trace remains?blah?etc??), so I can conclude, based on the initial premises, that the author does give a rather honest. though subjective, portrayal of the character.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I?m afraid that?s not the case:
] <a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index1.html"; target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index1.html</a>;
?Let's not ignore but instead openly acknowledge the underlying racism and belief in aristocracy that J.R.R. Tolkien wove into the books, without even much attempt at subtlety.?
Tolkien doesn?t diverge much, if at all, from the usual ?sycophant historiography? as you aptly put it. If you haven?t the time to read the book(s), I?d recommend you try and get your hands on the audiobook version available on the various p2p networks. Stay away from the BBC production. It?s very much abbreviated, and often lacks the narrative voice.
On the ?very interesting exploration of the themes of modernists vs. anti-modernists?:
] <a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index1.html"; target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index1.html</a>;
This fits the very plot of "Lord of the Rings," in which the good guys strive to preserve and restore as much as they can of an older, graceful and "natural" hierarchy, against the disturbing, quasi-industrial and vaguely technological ambience of Mordor, with its smokestack imagery and manufactured power rings that can be used by anybody, not just an elite few. (Recall the scene where Saruman turns away from the "good" side and immediately starts ripping up trees, replacing them with mining pits and smoky forges. The anti-industrial imagery could not be more explicit.)
Consider the rings. Those man-made wonders are deemed cursed, damning anyone who dares to use them, especially those nine normal humans who tried to rise up, using tools to equalize and then usurp the rightful powers of their betters -- the High Elves.
The nine Ringwraiths aren't just evil henchmen and cardboard monsters. In my opinion, they are among the most important figures of the epic. Tolkien himself calls them tragic figures and dwells on their background. These fallen mortals -- men who were hauled into service to the "dark side" -- can be looked upon as cautionary figures, conveying the universal lesson that "power corrupts."
On that much we can all agree. But I think there's more to the Ringwraiths. To me, they distill the classical Greek notion of hubris -- a concept that Romantics often embrace -- the idea that pain and damnation await any mortal whose ambition aims too high. Don't try putting on the trappings or emblems or powers that rightfully belong to your betters. Above all, don't try to decipher and redistribute mysteries.
In other words, exactly the same morality tale preached in "Star Wars." Romanticism has come full circle, now unctuously praising the very same lords -- the über-men -- that it started out bravely opposing.
And is the very same moral found in the Biblical Tree of Knowledge story. Something for religious zealots to think about.
Also,
] <a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index2.html"; target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index2.html</a>;
?Try as he might, and even confronted with the blatant Romantic excesses of Nazism, Tolkien could not escape his own deep conviction that democratic enlightenment and modernity made up the greater evil. That hated trend, he feared, would ruin all the beauty that he found in tradition. In aristocratic-mystical hierarchies. In the ways of the past.?
On the ?humansits vs. anti-humanists controversies and their impact on recent culture and history. ?:
] <a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index3.html"; target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index3.html</a>;
?My point? Well, LOTR is obviously an account written after the Ring War ended, long ago. Right? An account created by the victors.
So how do we know that Sauron really did have red glowing eyes?
Isn't some of that over-the-top description just the sort of thing that royal families used to promote, casting exaggerated aspersions on their vanquished foes and despoiling their monuments, reinforcing their own divine right to rule?
Ask yourself: "How would Sauron have described the situation?"
And then: "What might 'really' have happened?"
Now ponder something that comes through even the party-line demonization of a crushed enemy -- this clear-cut and undeniable fact: Sauron's army was the one that included every species and race on Middle Earth, including all the despised colors of humanity, and all the lower classes.
Hmm. Did they all leave their homes and march to war thinking, "Oh, goody, let's go serve an evil Dark Lord"?
Or might they instead have thought they were the "good guys," with a justifiable grievance worth fighting for, rebelling against an ancient, rigid, pyramid-shaped, feudal hierarchy topped by invader-alien elfs and their Numenorean-colonialist human lackeys??
And Sauron is the bad guy? <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: zMench ]</p>
<strong>You?ve picked up on much of what I was trying to point out, but one thing you got wrong:
I?m afraid that?s not the case:
<a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index1.html"; target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index1.html</a>;
?Let's not ignore but instead openly acknowledge the underlying racism and belief in aristocracy that J.R.R. Tolkien wove into the books, without even much attempt at subtlety.?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I didn't overlooke his preference of a medieval arsitocratic order rather than an egalitarian (not even in the Marxian terms but in the ?equality before the law? 18th century enlightenment one) one, so I did see his subjectivity in that context.
Yet it was this next excerpt which seemed to indicate that when it came to the characters themselves he did have some honesty and sense of nuance, rather than the usual manichaean thinking.
«In fact, J.R.R. Tolkien was himself far more critical of the situation portrayed in his universe than any but a few of his myriad readers ever chose to notice. Certainly more self-critical than most of his contemporary readers or those watching the new film trilogy.»
But since you seem quite versed in those works I'll take your word for it.
[quote]<strong>Tolkien doesn?t diverge much, if at all, from the usual ?sycophant historiography? as you aptly put it. If you haven?t the time to read the book(s), I?d recommend you try and get your hands on the audiobook version available on the various p2p networks. Stay away from the BBC production. It?s very much abbreviated, and often lacks the narrative voice.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not exaclty my usual (gloomy futuristic tales with 1940s overtones are more my thing), but I admit it piqued my curiosity.
[quote]<strong>On the ?very interesting exploration of the themes of modernists vs. anti-modernists?:
<a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index1.html"; target="_blank">Linked article</a>
And is the very same moral found in the Biblical Tree of Knowledge story. Something for religious zealots to think about.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The glorification of the supra-human, nephilim-like, bigger-than-life heroes, and the vilification of the normal, real-life human, is recurring among those romantics who relished in a world of legend. Last century's brown totalitarianism fed on that like a mosquito on a fat sleeping Damascus two-dinar whore.
And of course I cannot help noticing the current wave of longing to an idealised past, irrationality, and atavistic emotions as an ?antidote? against the numbing effect of humanist decadence.
And decadent humanists themselves seem smitten with the Third-World romatic heroes, like wannabe T.E. Lawrences; the objects of their devotion might blow them to bits and pieces, but they're soooo noble and pure.
[quote]<strong>Also,
<a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index2.html"; target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index2.html</a>;
?Try as he might, and even confronted with the blatant Romantic excesses of Nazism, Tolkien could not escape his own deep conviction that democratic enlightenment and modernity made up the greater evil. That hated trend, he feared, would ruin all the beauty that he found in tradition. In aristocratic-mystical hierarchies. In the ways of the past.? </strong><hr></blockquote>
Which of course, is why so many British aritstocrats (even more after WW2) became so fervent admirers of the USSR, and offered their services as information providers. They quickly detected the underlying aristocratic nature of the Soviet regime, with its huge mass of underlings bearing the yoke of a few higher party cadres, who were often sophisticated people of great erudition.
So to many of those empire-less Brits, the Soviets made a far better impression than those vulgar mongrelised Americans and their ghastly manners, not to mention those smelly postwar British labourites in their puny Cortinas.
[quote]<strong>On the ?humansits vs. anti-humanists controversies and their impact on recent culture and history. ?:
<a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index3.html"; target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index3.html</a>;
And Sauron is the bad guy? <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
Arguably, he must have been able to gather genuine support from all those discarded by the ?beautiful people?, but then that doesn't necessarily contradict him being a bloodthirsty dictator ?bad guy? character, more than his enemies, or not.
If the article did compare between each side's respective record of horrors, I probably missed it.
Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, also had the support of legions made of people who did feel wronged by the previous order and vindicated by their siding with their idols.
Or perhaps it was more analogous to the case of Napoleon I, a prickly tyrant to be sure, but his empire wasn't so much worse than Britain at the time, and certainly better than Prussia, Austria, and Czarist Russia by far.
[ 12-20-2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Goldstein ]</p>
<strong>
The glorification of the supra-human, nephilim-like, bigger-than-life heroes, and the vilification of the normal, real-life human, is recurring among those romantics who relished in a world of legend.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think i should like to expand on my previous remark regarding the Biblical Tree of Knowledge story. If you talk to many a Rabbi, you find this same kind of blind pursuit of a glorious illusion. But here, they not only worship the Garden of Eden or the ?perfect? metaphysical landscape offered in the afterlife, they also worship the here-and-now perfection set forth in the god?s Commandments or Laws. What is disturbing, is that although they, and many others who are not particularly religious, argue the ethics and morality of these Laws, they, at least as far as I can discern, can not really adequately rationlize these ethics and morals independent of them being sanctioned by God. That is, the laws of Moses and the morals and ethics stemming from these laws, are moral and ethical not because they can stand rational scrutiny in their own right or in fact need to, but because God has sanctioned them. They are just an extension of a utopian design. God?s supreme perfection is manifest in the system of laws he set forth for his Earthly Kingdom. It might be a little more abstract, but it?s in the same vein as the Tolkien worldview. The fact that Tolkien was religious I don?t think was a coincidence.
[ 12-20-2002: Message edited by: zMench ]</p>
<strong>
Which of course, is why so many British aritstocrats (even more after WW2) became so fervent admirers of the USSR, and offered their services as information providers. They quickly detected the underlying aristocratic nature of the Soviet regime, with its huge mass of underlings bearing the yoke of a few higher party cadres, who were often sophisticated people of great erudition.
So to many of those empire-less Brits, the Soviets made a far better impression than those vulgar mongrelised Americans and their ghastly manners, not to mention those smelly postwar British labourites in their puny Cortinas.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Interesting point. I never could really guess or understand their underlying motivation in helping the Soviets. I always guessed that perhaps it had to do with their admiration for the Russian language or culture, or maybe the more socialized, top down Soviet economic model. But I accept your explanation. It's now making sense.
[ 12-20-2002: Message edited by: zMench ]</p>
<strong>
Arguably, he must have been able to gather genuine support from all those discarded by the ?beautiful people?, but then that doesn't necessarily contradict him being a bloodthirsty dictator ?bad guy? character, more than his enemies, or not.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I had to think about this a little more, therefore the delayed response..
Let?s take WWII as an example. I think it?s fair to say all sides played fairly nasty. Hitler used ovens but the Americans used nuclear weapons. The brutality of the fight or the number killed on each side doesn?t really tell us anything. And I don?t think in most cases it does.
[quote]Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein:
<strong>
If the article did compare between each side's respective record of horrors, I probably missed it.
Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, also had the support of legions made of people who did feel wronged by the previous order and vindicated by their siding with their idols
</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is where I got my inspiration..
You say they had the support of legions. That might be true. But this support was still of a minority. The leaders were not democratically elected leaders elected by a clear majority. And the natural checks and balances inherent in a democratic system did not discipline them during their exercise of power.
Am I arguing that mob rule makes a possible flawed ideology right? Maybe. But how else can someone accept the legitimacy of an idea? Only time can really tell what works and what?s right. And you need a flexible system that will allow for the market place of ideas to fail some of them in an efficient and prompt manner without causing the usual trauma associated with trying to replace people or ideas that outlived their relevance and usefulness, but which survive due to the authority of the state.
[ 12-20-2002: Message edited by: zMench ]</p>
<strong>
I think i should like to expand on my previous remark regarding the Biblical Tree of Knowledge story. If you talk to many a Rabbi, you find this same kind of blind pursuit of a glorious illusion. But here, they not only worship the Garden of Eden or the ?perfect? metaphysical landscape offered in the afterlife, they also worship the here-and-now perfection set forth in the god?s Commandments or Laws. What is disturbing, is that although they, and many others who are not particularly religious, argue the ethics and morality of these Laws, they, at least as far as I can discern, can not really adequately rationlize these ethics and morals independent of them being sanctioned by God. That is, the laws of Moses and the morals and ethics stemming from these laws, are moral and ethical not because they can stand rational scrutiny in their own right or in fact need to, but because God has sanctioned them. They are just an extension of a utopian design. God?s supreme perfection is manifest in the system of laws he set forth for his Earthly Kingdom. It might be a little more abstract, but it?s in the same vein as the Tolkien worldview. The fact that Tolkien was religious I don?t think was a coincidence.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Here again I am at a loss when it comes to Tolkien (funny name by the way, his real name?) due to my genral lack of knowledge of this area.
The common thread in so many revealed religions is that the ethical rule is set by the ominipotent ominsicent deity, obviously.
Religion naturally lends itslef to extolling the virtue of submitting oneself to self-evident values.
A revealed deity is hidden whenever he/she/it doesn't reveal itself, which is all the time as far as we know (?as we know? as in ?unlike what some of us believe?), so even if one chooses to believe all ethics stem from that deity, one only has what previous people handed down to rely on.
In Judaism, as we know, that problem was handled through the תורה שבעל פה (Oral Law), which included both one view and its opposite being discussed as equally valid. The view that'd previal wouldn't be because it's more ?true?, but because the thenm scholars thought it was more appropriate (with the usual mix of nevessity, subjective judgement, and politics).
Thus, when it came to implemetation of the Law, it could change from one angle ot another due to necessity as well to human judgement as to what is right, like in ?עין תחת עין זה ממון?, which if my old brain doesn't fail me is from בבא קמא פ"ג or something.
Given the initial premice that ?God is the source for all ethics? it had to be ?retroactively? justified as the ?spirit of the Law? (I'm using very common terminology since I fear sliding in the slippery slope of פילפול ) .
I'd say this was a case of them trusting their own judgement while giving God the benefit of the doubt.
Yet, while many practicioners of a 613-commandment-based lifestyle do submit the commandments to rational examination in their intellectual approach, the prevailing view of the Rabbinical authorities is not נבדוק ונראה or even נעשה ונשמע but one of נעשה ונשתוק.
[Damn, this looks like a transcript of a Dvar-Torah with ?Hakham Traboulsi, I knew I should have avoided the religious stuff]
(יוצא בחוץ )
[ 12-21-2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Goldstein ]</p>
[quote]Originally posted by zMench:
<strong> I had to think about this a little more, therefore the delayed response..
Let?s take WWII as an example. I think it?s fair to say all sides played fairly nasty. Hitler used ovens but the Americans used nuclear weapons. The brutality of the fight or the number killed on each side doesn?t really tell us anything. And I don?t think in most cases it does.</strong><hr></blockquote>
While the Allies (even the Western ones) didn't hesitate to commit atrocities when they thought it would further their victory, for Hitler, the atrocities were a goal in themselves, even at the expense of military effort.
Organised indsutrial systematic genocide is what set the Nazis apart.
[quote]<strong>This is where I got my inspiration..
You say they had the support of legions. That might be true. But this support was still of a minority. The leaders were not democratically elected leaders elected by a clear majority. And the natural checks and balances inherent in a democratic system did not discipline them during their exercise of power.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I meant they had the sufficient necessary genuine support to sustain their regime and its aggressive entreprises.
I think the outcry at the liquidation of sick and retarded Germans considered unwertes Leben and the subsequent halt to it, indicates that even totalitarianism is aware of the limits of brutal power.
[quote]<strong>Am I arguing that mob rule makes a possible flawed ideology right? Maybe. But how else can someone accept the legitimacy of an idea? Only time can really tell what works and what?s right. And you need a flexible system that will allow for the market place of ideas to fail some of them in an efficient and prompt manner without causing the usual trauma associated with trying to replace people or ideas that outlived their relevance and usefulness, but which survive due to the authority of the state.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What cause deserves to be seen as ?right? that's a matter of personal preference and therefore there'll never be תמימות דעים (universal agreement) on it, as for the means to be used I do not subscribe to the opinion that whatever works is necessarily right, and I don't have time for what doesn't work, however right it may seem ?on paper?.
So much trial and error is required.
Experience seems to indicate that a flexible representative democracy, in which capitalist economy and state intervention, and a freewheeling culture of Khutspah keep each other in check, to be more favourable to a constructive and less painful trial and error process.
But this lacks the sparkle of wizards, demigods, kings, princesses, swords, and castles; of the sunset of the gods, and of the principle of the leader, which some find appealing. But then ?De Gustibus et Coloribus non est disputandum?.
<strong>
Religion naturally lends itslef to extolling the virtue of submitting oneself to self-evident values.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm,?
What are these self-evident values?
Let?s put on our propeller hats, and start swimming into deeper waters. Shall we? Let me present Dostoevsky?s reply to the utilitarian rationalists, found in his Notes from the underground, and Ivan?s poem The Grand Inquisitor, found in The Brothers Karamazov. See if you can follow my criticism of religion, why I believe it will always be doomed to fail. And really why I am, and shall forever remain a heathen.
In Notes from the underground, Dostoevsky delegates to his antihero, the underground man, the task of exposing utilitarian ideals for all they?re worth. Here Dostoevsky argues with the rationalist utilitarians (Bentham, J.S. Mill), exposing their theories through man?s fundamental psychological antithesis to all philosophical, or sociological archetypes that infringe upon man?s free will. For the empirical manifestation of liberty in general, and personality in particular, is the right to choose a course of action whatever it may be; and no choice is involved when one is good, reasonable, satisfied and happy by conformity to laws of morality which exclude the possibility of negation.
The underground man questions whether a utopian ideal is at all man?s true desire. He grants the fact that ?Man likes to create and build roads,? that man wants to occupy himself with useful and productive activities, but he denies that mankind is longing to achieve the static state of the ?Crystal Palace?, a utopian ideal that would mean the end of history and the end of all further striving, aspiration, and hope. May it not be that man so loves chaos and destruction (surely this is incontestable), because he instinctively fears to attain his goal and to complete the ?edifice? under construction? So that even if the world of the ?Crystal Palace? really existed, even if man really were nothing but a ?piano key?, even if this were proved to him so by science and mathematics, he will devise destruction and chaos, will devise suffering of all sorts, and will insist on getting his way. And, if this suffering and chaos could be calculated and tabulated in advance, then man would purposely go mad to be rid of reason to insist on getting his way.
After all, in the utilitarian utopia, where man is completely re-educated so that he will voluntarily refrain from erring, and so to say, by necessity will not want to set his will against his normal interests, this ?science? will have taught him that he does not really have either will or caprice and that he never has had them. He himself is nothing more than some sort of ?piano key?? so that everything he does is not at all done by his will but by itself, according to the Laws of Nature/God. This is the core of the underground man?s argument against the utilitarian rationalist doctrines.
This seems to me a most piercing argument. That there exists something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest advantage, or (not to violate logic) that there is one most advantageous advantage for which, if necessary, a man is ready to go against all laws, that is, against reason, peace, prosperity, in short, against all those wonderful and useful things if only he can attain that most fundamental, most advantageous advantage dearer to him than everything else. This, for man, is the preservation of his free will. Which may or may not be exercised in harmony with reason but which, in any case, always wishes to preserve the right to choose; and this primary advantage cannot be included in the systems of the ?lovers of humanity? because it makes forever impossible their dream of transforming human nature to desire only the rational.
To look at human history, is to ask oneself whether man ever was, or wished to be, totally rational. The word sticks in my throat.
[ 12-22-2002: Message edited by: zMench ]</p>
[quote]Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein:
Religion naturally lends itslef to extolling the virtue of submitting oneself to self-evident values.<hr></blockquote>
[quote]Originally posted by zMench:
<strong>Hmm,?
What are these self-evident values?</strong><hr></blockquote>
It varies according to the creed in question.
I don't say these values are self-evident, but that they are presented as such by those espousing them.
[quote]<strong>Let?s put on our propeller hats, and start swimming into deeper waters. Shall we?</strong><hr></blockquote>
A moment please, till I don my Cold-fusion-powered turboprop Borsalino? to get in the appropriate mood?
[quote]<strong>Let me present Dostoevsky?s reply to the utilitarian rationalists, found in his Notes from the underground, and Ivan?s poem The Grand Inquisitor, found in The Brothers Karamazov. See if you can follow my criticism of religion, why I believe it will always be doomed to fail. And really why I am, and shall forever remain a heathen.
[?]
To look at human history, is to ask oneself whether man ever was, or wished to be, totally rational. The word sticks in my throat.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I admit I find myself mostly in agreement with Dostoevsky in that respect.
To the dismay of so many believers to the contrary, humans aren't rational, although they are capable of reason, a fact which confuses so many esteemed individuals. It's also obvious humans cannot stand static situations, even moreso Eden-like ones, and will deploy seemingly undepletable resources of effort and ingenuity to erode and then crush such edifices.
While the Pshat of Bereshit present the consumption of the fruit of knowledge as an offence, delving in more intricate levels of understanding one can find interpretations according to which it was a gutsier, wiser move than playing by the rules of the dumb happiness of the Garden of Delights?.
Anyway.
Humans need change and expansion.
The supposed divine instruction of ??? ???? is an observation and an acknowldgement of what man is, rather than an instruction to him.
Which is why a quest for immortality (which has fascinated man forever and is the promise of so many religions) is one for a fate worse than death, since it would excise the change brought by the replacement of one generation by another.
The impression I got from Bereshit is that of God casting himself away from the World, therefore from existence itself for all practical puropses. While throughout the rest of the book the Pshat is replete with tall tales of divine interventions and supernatural events, the notions of Tsimtsum and of Hester Panim are reluctant admissions that these don't happen in real life, and while some will pretend to have a personal line to what's behind the Pargod (like that jokester Amnon Its?haq), the less conspicuous but more honest ones will admit it's beyond reach.
What all religions share is a stake at avoiding and preventing change. It's not limited to the keeping of outdated rituals (if it were, that would be the least of my worries), but the near-systematic favouring of the old to the new, of the static to the dynamic, and the fierce opposition to any social change.
The doctors of the Law, and the Knesseth haGdola before them, were aware of that dissonance, so they devised a system allowing for a constant reform of the interpretation and implementation of the Law; the Halakha whose root ??? signifies constant change, which gave rise to the Talmudic method.
They were opposed every step of the way by the sacerdotal class (for the doctors of the law weren't clerics, they were laymen).
These, most religious of the religious, were the Tsadokim, the partisans of the ?old time religion? (ante-letteram ?Raskolniki??) who clung with their nails to the sacred words of the written scripture and to the stones of the shrine, the horns of the altar so to speak, and they lost to the more adaptable doctors.
But these too couldn't resist the call of the immobility which plagues all religious thought, and thus, once a question had been settled by a Posek it was never to be asked again.
So much so that since some two centuries ago, following the controversy between the Hassidim and the Misnagdim, the prevailing approach is one negating any hint of reform and innovation, thus they cast themselves away to a mythical 18th century Shtetl time-warp.
So this does seem to indicate that religion will seek to grind everything to halt, to keep its flock in a static unmovable spot while hoping for a world-to-come just as static.
But this error is not exclusive to religion, so may visions claiming to seek peaceful, harmonious, human existence, so often paint it as an Eden-like immobile scene, a nature morte. And while these visions, like immortality, do attract man, he is revulsed by them in his deeper, inner fibers: in what makes him human, what the elders called the Yetser. That which is the engine of our self-preservation, our perpetuation, our taste for freedom, and our taste for violence.
Those same ancients said the Yester of man is bad from the time of youth (??? ???? ?? ??????? ) , not inherently or from birth, but from one's earliest years, before we even learn to talk, when we learn to be humans by observing our elders. But while these ancients did concieve of a dynamic process of Tiqun, which integrates rather than expells the Yester, they too fell in the religious pattern of splendid immobility, in which they now stand.
This situation might be satisfying for some (20% of Israeli Jews according to a recent survey), yet it can be observed that most individuals, once presented with a path to secular modernity will take it, forsaking the quaint faith-based lifestyle.
Whether there is a creator or not (which we don't and cannot know), religion was born out of a very human need, this need, while still present, is in its decline, as the trends of the last and preceding centuries are showing.
The various recent offensives of ?revival? and Teshouva being mostly ????? ????.
[ 12-22-2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Goldstein ]</p>
It seems like we?re in agreement on all issues. You?ve acknowledged the problem exactly as I perceive it. What I see as an outside observer is that them laws and interpretations of law have already been ruled upon and institutionalized by the orthodoxy that interprets these interpretations. What could perhaps have been a dynamic and democratic process of investigation and philosophy, amorphosized into a static, often irrelevant and downright repulsive tradition. But I shouldn?t be too hard on the Hassidic Jews. The situation is similar in other religions. Dostoevsky through The Grand Inquisitor, beautifully speaks to this same demonic predicament, but unwittingly, (likely Not) Dostoevsky fierce criticism of Catholics applies to all.
[quote]Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein:
<strong>
But this error is not exclusive to religion, so may visions cliaiming to seek peaceful, harmonious, human existence, so often paint it as an Eden-like immobile scene, a nature morte.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Just to bring this discussion back to topic.. In light of what said above, do you think Sauron was the bad guy?
[ 12-22-2002: Message edited by: zMench ]</p>