One of the most interesting things that someone talked about during the free-write was that, at least for Tolkien, breaking the rules of the world usually results in evil and chaos. I find this to be both true and problematic at the same time. It is true that breaking the rules has consequences. Whether this is in our society or in Middle Earth, there are always consequences to your actions. For our world, if you break a law, there is a good chance you will go to jail. The severity of the punishment, depends on the extent of the violation. This is extremely evident for both Sauron and Sarumon. However, the real world is not quite so simple. The laws of this world are neither good nor bad. They are a set of rules that society has decided that we must follow. However, just because it is a rule/law, does not necessarily mean that it is the right thing to do. For example, think about Germany during World War II. Helping Jewish people was strictly outlawed and punished. However, imprisoning people for their religion goes greatly against what modern society believes. So therefore, what should people do, follow the rules of their own country or follow the rules of the rest of the world?
Rules in our society are constantly changing. There is no definite right or wrong way to do things. Just because it is a law according to our country/society does not mean it is the right thing to do. Therefore, saying that breaking the rules of the land leads to evil and chaos is infinitely problematic. I think that the best that we can do, is to figure out what we see as right or wrong in that situation. Our only guides are our own hearts and while we may not always end up doing exactly what we should, at least then we know we are doing our best. We have to decide what we see as right and wrong on our own before we can come to any sort of conclusion on whether our laws are just.
Goldberry,
ReplyDeleteI genuinely agree with you. Rules are set in order to generally keep order within our world but rules =/ morality. However, it seems as if Tolkein would disagree. As Alanor (I think) pointed out in class, Tolkein has a very stubborn black and white morality view of the world. From what I've seen in his works, he appears to equate rules with morality. Or possible just that rules should be the foundation of your morality.
I want to contend something though if you don't mind; I believe we should follow a combination of our hearts and our head for morality. Sometimes we feel too passionately, or do not feel passionately enough about something to make the correct moral decision. I think we should let our hearts decide our foci for morality and let logic decide "How much should I act on this"? I would enjoy to hear your feedback on this if possible.
Be well,
Elendil
Elendil,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with what you are saying. I think a possible reason that Tolkien has such a black and white view of the world is thanks to his experience with war. From his point of view, a lot of death and grief could have been avoided if more people followed the rules. So for him, breaking the rules does create darkness and chaos. He probably watched a number of his friends die. Going through this likely pushed him to have a firmer stance on morality.
I also agree with your second point. Our hearts are not our only guiding light. Sometimes, we need to use our heads. Our hearts can often get us into trouble for a number of reasons, like speaking out when it would probably make things a lot easier to stay silent or doing something we will later regret but want in the moment. There are certainly moments when using your head is more beneficial, however this can be dangerous as well. Too many people stand by and watch horrific things happen because to their brain, it is too dangerous to stand out from the crowd. Too often, we let ourselves dull and become almost robotic in an effort to think more than we feel. The most important thing is to know the difference of when to use your head and rationalize the pros and cons, and when to use your heart and to feel what is right. No one who was perfectly rational would ever do anything like what Tolkien describes in his books. Going on a journey to destroy the one Ring with about a 1% chance of success and a 99% chance that you are going to die? Who would do that? Rationalizing that would only result in you declaring it to be impossible and therefore, pointless. So while Tolkien preached the use of your brain and thinking through everything and everything being black and white, I still believe he knew the importance of heart.
Good night! Heed no nightly noises!
Goldberry