June 21, 2002

Re: Christianity, LotR, and Environmentalism
Matt

Beans I agree with you 100% on the area in which you think I disagree with you.

I am simply trying to say that as a Christian, one should realize the dangerous nature of power. But I do not think that one needs to be Christian to believe power is corruptable.

As to whether or not the LOTR if a Christian allegory, I do not believe it. An allegory is a direct one-to-one relationship between a character in a novel and with a character or thing in real life. The LOTR's is not this. As Tolkien said, just because it is "applicable" does not mean it is an "allegory." They are two entirely different meanings.

The LOTR can be applied to America's war on terrorism, WWII, and to other things. However, that does not mean it should be read as an allegory.



Now I would like to depart for a moment and talk about Tolkien and the environment.

It is absolutely true that Tolkien cared for the environment in the "old sense". Tolkien loved nature and its surrounding and was skeptical of technology. But there is a gigantic difference between Tolkien's environmentalism and the modern day sense of environmentalism.

I believe that reading the LOTR as an environmental book is misleading. Thinking of good characters as ones "in harmony" with nature and bad characters as "opposed" to nature is wrong and leads away from the main focus of the book: the corruption of the individual to the desire for power.

It is not that Saruman is cutting down trees that is the problem. (For almost every other race has to cut down trees to do anything; build houses, mills, etc.) But it is that he is cutting them down and manipulating their purpose. He is using them to create another race (the Urak-Hai) for the purpose of domination. The same goes for Sauron.

A scene that displays the difference between Tolkien's environmentalism and modern day's radical environmentalism is in the mirror of galadriel. Sam, through the mirror, sees his homeland being destroyed and the old gaffer being forced to flee. Then, after Frodo offers Galadriel the ring Sam says "she would put things right back at home." But Galadriel simply laughs and says that it would start out that way, but would turn towards an evil purpose.

The difference lies in the fact that modern day environmentalist's seek political power to "destroy" social aspects of society. (Again, not all, but the extreme element.) Most of the time they ignore evidence suggesting they are wrong or listen to people who have solutions differing from their radical agendas.

Tolkien's environmentalism was that of preservation. To preserve what was great about society while allowing (Even if he wasnt crazy about it) progress. For instance, Tolkien hated technology, but appreciated factories because according to him they "put all the machines in one place"

Modern day environmentalist's hate factories. There are other differences but I think everyone here gets my drift.