Posted on 02/01/2005 7:47:02 PM PST by quidnunc
The always eminent writer and historian Victor Davis Hanson compares modern Europe to the Middle Earth of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic “The Lord of the Rings”, recently turned into one of the most successful movie trilogies in history by New Zealand director Peter Jackson. Like the inhabitants of Tolkien’s imaginary world, Europeans are accustomed to living in peace and prosperity. But their sedate way of life is starting to come under threat, although not all of them have noticed it yet. The shadow of an ancient foe is rising in the East, an enemy that has not threatened us for so long that we had almost forgotten about it, and how dangerous it can be.
Memories of past battles have become dim, to the point where we treat them almost as Fairytales. The enemy was defeated last time, but not destroyed. It has been lying low since then, retreated into its heartland and waited for the next opportunity to strike. And now, it senses weakness.
The One Ring, the Ring of Power, which triggers a major war deciding the future of freedom in Middle Earth, is a great analogy for Islam. Many men have become enticed by the undeniable power of the Ring, hoping to use it for their own gain in the vain belief that they can control it. But the Ring of Power has a will of its own, and is inherently evil. It cannot be used for anything good. It will slowly corrupt the ones using it, replacing whatever was noble and positive with darkness, leaving nothing but an empty shell. Like the Nazgûl or Ring Wraiths, once great kings of men, now soulless tools at the hands of evil.
A long time ago, the area from Egypt via Syria to Iraq, Iran and Pakistan was the seat of the earliest civilizations known to man. Today, Islam has long since consumed these vibrant cultures, and replaced them with Islamic backwardness, terrorism and hate, with no other purpose in life than to be at the service of the Ummah. This is the fate of France, too, unless the French wake up and change their ways. The French elite are on an insane quest: The primary enemy for them is not Islam, but the Anglo-American rivals they have been fighting a losing battle for supremacy against since the age of Napoleon, if not before. They think they can ride the tiger, and “use” Islam to regain some of their former glory. The equivalent of Saruman, the traitorous wizard, would have to be Jacques Chirac and the French political elite behind the Eurabia project. They are the enemy within, pretending to be on our side while having joined the forces of darkness a long time ago, and they may drag others with them when they fall.
Outsiders have been puzzled that a fantasy tale such as the Lord of the Rings could spellbind generation after generation. Perhaps the answer to the riddle is that despite being full of Elves, Trolls and strange beasts, it is essentially a very human story, a tale of cowardice, treachery and death, but also of hope, new beginnings and unexpected courage. Above all, it is a story about the quiet people, the little people, like the Hobbits or the Ents, suddenly rising to the occasion and showing bravery and zeal nobody had expected from them, not the least themselves. People who are ripped out of their daily lives to face a mounting evil gathering outside the gates, threatening to destroy everything they hold dear. Many of the individuals who are there to protect us and our civilization shrink in front of the challenges facing them. Some, like Saruman or the Eurabian elites, hope to increase their own power. Others, like Denethor, Steward of Gondor, are paralyzed by indecisiveness, overcome by defeatism and their own personal delusions, leaving their nations defenseless while the enemy is about to attack. Yet some, like Théoden King of Rohan, have had blinders drawn before their eyes by the likes of Grima Wormtongue, the John Espositos, the Tariq Ramadans and the multicultural Islam-apologists of the world. They can still be redeemed in the 12th hour, and return to lead the defenses.
It is easy to watch many of our leaders fail in standing up to or even identifying our adversary, witness the sheer numerical size of the enemy, and conclude that we have lost the fight. It is also wrong. As Tolkien shows us, some of those in power will inevitably fail to handle their responsibilities. But others, who had not been taken into the calculation by either friend or foe, will rise up to the occasion at the last moment and tip the scales in favor of the forces of good. If the big people prove too small for the task at hand, then the little people will have to grow and carry the load. The real will to identify the Islamic enemy and his weak points today is not found in the media, in the overpaid think-tanks and certainly not in our “progressive” universities or among most of the politicians. It is found in small websites by ex-Muslims, such as SecularIslam.org, KnowIslam.info, FaithFreedom.org, ApostatesOfIslam.com and IslamReview.org, and some others by non-Muslims like JihadWatch.org. It is picked up and its message carried throughout the world by the blogosphere, the global community of weblogs and private websites that is increasingly asserting its influence and challenging the major networks. Big Media will have to follow their lead, or decline in trust and significance as more and more people contrast their apologist stance with better arguments and analyses given elsewhere.
It is not for us to decide the time we live in. All there is for us is to decide what to do with the time that is given to us. This task has been appointed to us. And if we do not find a way, than no one will. Perhaps it is time to throw evil back where it came from, be that the fires of Mordor or the glowing sands of Arabia. Much hangs in the balance, maybe even civilization itself. Only time will tell if we are up to the challenge.
No, Tolkein was Catholic. Lewis was the Protestant, actually. although, whether deliberately or not, he created wonderful allegories for distinctly Catholic doctrines.
I think Tolkein objected to his work being called allegory the way that Beethoven might object to his work being called jingles. Myth is deeper than allegory, not the absence of comparable representionalism.
Now, the oblique criticism of mainline (Protestant) Christian churches made in the "Screwtape Letters" makes a little bit more sense.
When I first saw the theatrical trailer for "The Return of The King" I wondered if President Bush was going to use it as a back drop for his campaign. I don't have it memorized, but there were sayings on the screen like "There is no victory without loss." One of the major themes of The Lord of The Rings is that evil only grows if you don't face it. The longer you wait, the more dangerous the task of overcoming it. But fight you must. One does not serve evil, one either conquers evil or becomes evil.
Shalom.
Several have intimated it already, but the one unifying call of Europe, when they evicted the Moors {Moslem} in 1492 and earlier, was a solid base of Christianity.
Having lost that, what philosphy does Europe have to even oppose Islam?
I love Hanson's analogy, {In fact just about EVERYTHING Hanson writes}, but I'm not so sure Europe is The Ents. Maybe rather the Orcs -- who used to be Elves.
>> Seems to me that the biggest single villain in the story is Richeleau. <<
Oh, dear. If you think so, you've missed it all quite badly. Calling Richelieu the villain in the collapse of European Christianity is like calling Nixon the villain in the war against socialism, taken to a further extreme.
Just as Nixon gravely harmed the cause of conservativism in America by allowing his grave failures to aid the political success of American socialists, Richelieu did grave harm to the cause of authentic Christianity. But like Nixon, he was actually fighting for the faith.
History has been very harsh to Richelieu: He made Catholic enemies with the Spanish and Austro-Hungarian empires by aligning himself with foreign Protestansts, yet made war against Protestants in France. While he is hated by Protestants for fighting that war, the peace he won in that war earned him the name "The Pope of the Huguenots" among his Catholic detractors. He, thus, is remembered for everything bad about him, and has no-one to sympathize with what he attempted to do, or defend him against exaggeration, mythicization or slander.
But, like Nixon, in the war against modernism, he was mostly trying to do the right thing.
I'd prefer to consider the invading Islamic horde; the European partisans who exploited the fact that the armies of Christendom were distracted with fighting the Islamic horde to make political mischeif and sow insurrection; the royalty, like Henry VIII or Marie Antoinette, who saw the theological disputes and moral failures of the time as an excuse for their own personal evil licenstiousness; the hedomistic humanists, and unleashed forces of evil like Napoleon; and most especially, like Mel Gibson reminded us in The Passion of The Christ, my own moral failures to provide a counterexample.
Your concept of what "myth" means is thoroughly modernist, and directly contradictory to what Tolkein meant. A bunch of damned liberals started using "myth" to mean "false rumor," and an antonym to "fact," and now that's what everyone thinks it means.
A myth is a story used to tell a deeper, archetypical truth. There are things we cannot explain, and so we write stories to illustrate a truth we cannot fathom. But whereas allegories teach us of specific instances, and demonstrate one-to-one representationalism, myths are universal.
The bible is a great example of something which is often both historically true and mythically true. When Christians teach us that we have crucified Christ, they speak in a mythical sense; I have not held physical nails to Jesus' flesh. (Yet it is also historically true that Jesus was crucified.) And whether it is historically true or not, we have all shared in the fault of Adam which gained for us a redeemer in Christ. While David wrote of his tribulations in war, we find in his writing the mythic truth of our struggle against evil; while Solomon wrote of his love for his Beloved, we find in his writing the nature of God's love for man.
Tolkein's goal was to tell us stories about the universal nature of man, which are true, even though they had not been revealed through history the way the bible was. Thus, he wrote myth. In comparison, allegory is much shallower; it is the mere attempt to present stories of specific temporal incidents or individuals in the language of symbolism and fancy.
I used two dictionaries before I responded to your post. Perhaps my modernistic view is because I live in this century and I speak modern American English.
I appreciate your explanation of Tolkien's use of the words. You are probably correct. Tolkien was a master of linguistists and knew older meanings.
I understand your point now; I guess you don't want to understand mine.
I don't see what "damned liberals" have to do with anything.
Good day.
:^)
You know Tolkein wrote the "H" and "W" sections of the English Oxford dictionary, don't you.
Btw, the reference to "damned liberals" was simply a reference to all the pamphlet and web-page literature like "Top Ten Myths About Cigarettes," "Top Ten Myths About Dietary Fat," "Top Ten Myths About SUVs," "Top Ten Myths About the Slave-Holding, Racist, Homophobic Founding Fathers." I need to check my sardonism around strangers. :^)
P.S. I keep a 1943 dictionary in my room, so I can always look up what words really mean. I hate all these modernist dictionaries which are simply grossly inaccurate thesauri. :^)
P.P.S. My goodness, I'm sliding from neo-con to paleo-con, aren't I?
I see your point. Well, Nixon and the subsequent establishment of Campaign Finance Reform in 1975 may yet prove to have been the death knell for liberty, too.
While there are some secular humanists, e.g. Christopher Hitchens, Orianna Fallaci, among others, who have the intellectual fortitude and moral character to combat the menace posed by Islamic expansionism, I don't believe that the vast majority of Europeans-who are not reliant upon immutable biblical/moral truths-have the capacity to resist very long in the Dar al-Harb.
A most excellent post & comments.
Orcs were never elves; their genes are elven, but they are born as orcs.
Europe was not born evil. Hers is the inheritance of a wealth of Christianity, and from her blossomed much of America.
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