09-29-2005, 02:17 PM
La storia di Italia. The History of Italy. I think "la storia" is also the Spanish word for history. La Storia de España.
All of history is partly story. History can only reports a portion of what went on, a slice of the whole pie, and cannot ever hope to integrate all the factors that went into weaving the tale. As J points out, knowing who the author is and his agendas informs the reader of the purpose behind a given chronicle.
As to the article, methinks the author chooses, in his iconoclastic attempt at revisionism, why Tolkein wrote the story. JRR was grappling with the influence of power on behavior, and Sauron was as much a metaphor for "absolute power -- and its pursuit -- tends to corrupt absolutely" and the negation of Christian (and for that matter Islamic) teachings of submission and sacrifice, and the power of hope and chance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
The contrast was deemed by the author as necessary, in order to throw into sharp relief moral principles of the good, who were numerically a minority, versus the mean and selfish, the greedy, which are the larger mass of easily corrupted and seduced, not to mention easily manipulated and led like rabid sheep, masses. The racial set up, if we recall that it was written before 1950, reflected the conventional wisdom of about 100 years of Darwinist applications to the social sciences, such as they were. In those days, the Spanish Race, the French Race, the German Race, were terms of common currency that tumbled off the pen of many a writer. Note also that the fundemental tensions in the medeival world were the olive skinned Moors, Turks, and Arabs versus the generally fairer skinned Franks, Brits, Germans and Danes. The elves, being founded on a Nordic prototype, were bound to have lousy tans. :rolleyes:
That Tolkein was a Brit and seemed to carry as his common cultural assumption that the White Man's Burden was a reality of history (see again the social and intellectual setting of the author, and the English University system of the Victorian and Edwardian age) probably shaped his decisions on how the superior subset of Man was required to lead the way to rightness, while the inferior subset of Man often ignored the path to rightness out of materialistic/earthly motivations.
There is of course the whole matter of Sauron being partly modeled after Satan in his desire to be Lord of the Earth.
The article strikes me as a rehash of the standard Gnostic and Satanist lines that the Devil suffers from having been the subject of a vicious PR campaign, and is really an alright guy, is a rebel with a righteous cause, and all that other Gnostic wheeze. While an interesting line of inquiry, particularly considering the Apocrypha, it comes up short in an absolute sense.
Regardless of religion, any culture will find a positive resonance in the the moral principle of sacrifice and selfelessness, service to others, as represented in the neary irreligious Numenorian societies, who are depicted as fallen from grace. Their ritual of looking into the West before meat is the last vestige of an older obedience to the Valar and their high moral ideals. The high ideals are of course imperfectly adhered to thanks to the vanity and imperfectability of man. This is set up in opposition to the selfish, materialistic, power hungry, and amoral (even immoral) cultural model taken by the Dark Lord, his servants, and the Dark Lord wannabe Saruman. That Sauron is originally an angel, or a fallen angel, has been suggested as a device that could have just as easily been Sauron as the Sorcerer Smith, and man, a line of critique David Drake pursued in his book "Tolkein's Ring." The key discriminator, in modern parlance, is that Sauron uses force and threat to move his subordinates, while Gandalf uses leadership and motivation to inspire peole to find it within themselves to achieve great feats and deeds.
No matter how you slice the PR campaign for and against Sauron, it is in method of leadership that the universal moral dichotomy comes out, and that Sauron's apologists will be frustrated by. Sounds to me like sour grapes, the article's motivation, trying to blame the media for the loss of the war and the loss or reputation suffered by "The Lord of the Rings: Sauron of Mordor."
Occhi
All of history is partly story. History can only reports a portion of what went on, a slice of the whole pie, and cannot ever hope to integrate all the factors that went into weaving the tale. As J points out, knowing who the author is and his agendas informs the reader of the purpose behind a given chronicle.
As to the article, methinks the author chooses, in his iconoclastic attempt at revisionism, why Tolkein wrote the story. JRR was grappling with the influence of power on behavior, and Sauron was as much a metaphor for "absolute power -- and its pursuit -- tends to corrupt absolutely" and the negation of Christian (and for that matter Islamic) teachings of submission and sacrifice, and the power of hope and chance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
The contrast was deemed by the author as necessary, in order to throw into sharp relief moral principles of the good, who were numerically a minority, versus the mean and selfish, the greedy, which are the larger mass of easily corrupted and seduced, not to mention easily manipulated and led like rabid sheep, masses. The racial set up, if we recall that it was written before 1950, reflected the conventional wisdom of about 100 years of Darwinist applications to the social sciences, such as they were. In those days, the Spanish Race, the French Race, the German Race, were terms of common currency that tumbled off the pen of many a writer. Note also that the fundemental tensions in the medeival world were the olive skinned Moors, Turks, and Arabs versus the generally fairer skinned Franks, Brits, Germans and Danes. The elves, being founded on a Nordic prototype, were bound to have lousy tans. :rolleyes:
That Tolkein was a Brit and seemed to carry as his common cultural assumption that the White Man's Burden was a reality of history (see again the social and intellectual setting of the author, and the English University system of the Victorian and Edwardian age) probably shaped his decisions on how the superior subset of Man was required to lead the way to rightness, while the inferior subset of Man often ignored the path to rightness out of materialistic/earthly motivations.
There is of course the whole matter of Sauron being partly modeled after Satan in his desire to be Lord of the Earth.
The article strikes me as a rehash of the standard Gnostic and Satanist lines that the Devil suffers from having been the subject of a vicious PR campaign, and is really an alright guy, is a rebel with a righteous cause, and all that other Gnostic wheeze. While an interesting line of inquiry, particularly considering the Apocrypha, it comes up short in an absolute sense.
Regardless of religion, any culture will find a positive resonance in the the moral principle of sacrifice and selfelessness, service to others, as represented in the neary irreligious Numenorian societies, who are depicted as fallen from grace. Their ritual of looking into the West before meat is the last vestige of an older obedience to the Valar and their high moral ideals. The high ideals are of course imperfectly adhered to thanks to the vanity and imperfectability of man. This is set up in opposition to the selfish, materialistic, power hungry, and amoral (even immoral) cultural model taken by the Dark Lord, his servants, and the Dark Lord wannabe Saruman. That Sauron is originally an angel, or a fallen angel, has been suggested as a device that could have just as easily been Sauron as the Sorcerer Smith, and man, a line of critique David Drake pursued in his book "Tolkein's Ring." The key discriminator, in modern parlance, is that Sauron uses force and threat to move his subordinates, while Gandalf uses leadership and motivation to inspire peole to find it within themselves to achieve great feats and deeds.
No matter how you slice the PR campaign for and against Sauron, it is in method of leadership that the universal moral dichotomy comes out, and that Sauron's apologists will be frustrated by. Sounds to me like sour grapes, the article's motivation, trying to blame the media for the loss of the war and the loss or reputation suffered by "The Lord of the Rings: Sauron of Mordor."
Occhi
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete