Tolkien’s Clash of Civilizations

December 18, 2002 9:00 a.m.
Tolkien’s Clash of Civilizations
Two Towers’s eerie relevance.

f you think about it, making the connection between the obliterated Twin Towers and The Two Towers is a dime-store synchronicity. The World Trade Center was a morally neutral symbol of commercial dynamism (though Tolkien himself would have taken a darker view of those towers). In contrast, the towers of the film's title are twin projections of unambiguous evil. Still, the comparison is irresistible — even director Peter Jackson says he gets an "eerie" feeling thinking about it — because audiences see Jackson's first-rate film versions of the Tolkien books, and immediately grasp the relevance the stories have for our convulsive times.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy explores the nature of individual heroism in the midst of an epic clash of civilizations, one that pits freedom-loving peoples of the West against merciless totalitarians from the East. As the hobbits Frodo and Sam make their way through the bleak and hostile land of Mordor to destroy the Ring of Power, which would bring about the enslavement of the world if it fell into the hands of the Dark Lord Sauron, their companions in the West rally a coalition of tribes to wage war against Sauron's minions living among them.

Some Western peoples of Middle Earth, for reasons of bourgeois comfort, selfishness, or cynical despair, want no part of the coming war, and think mistakenly that they can avoid trouble if they simply lay low. It falls to the good wizard Gandalf, the ascendant king Aragorn, and their followers to convince the West to stand fast and fight for its freedom and way of life. As many of us do when we read stories of the hideous weapons that could be in the hands of terrorists, we know how Frodo feels when he tells Gandalf that he wishes he had not been born into such a time as this.

The old prophet-wizard counsels Frodo to turn away from such futile and self-defeating conjecture, because no man can choose the times in which he lives. Says Gandalf, "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

The Lord of the Rings is about how men, including the humblest of men, choose to act in the face of moral urgency and engulfing peril. It is about the power of humility, the wisdom of mercy, the glory of self-sacrificial valor, the false glamour of evil, the workings of grace, and above all, the necessity of faith. Put more plainly, LOTR screenwriter Phillippa Boyans tells NRO, it's about goodness — an idea that leaves many moderns skeptical and confused.

"We come from a generation that has never had that question put to us," she said in an interview. "It was put to the generation of World War I. It was put to the generation of World War II. 'What are you prepared to do?' 'Are you going to hold on?' 'Are you going to keep going?' 'Do you have to live?' 'Is this a world worth fighting for?' All of this is in there."

In The Two Towers, when a weary Frodo begins to lose faith in his ability to succeed on his mission, and in the prospects for the West's survival, we hear an echo of our own sophisticated cynics and cultural pessimists, who despair of defending our civilization from its enemies because they do not believe we have anything worth defending.

"There are things that people hold onto to keep them going," says his faithful servant Sam Gamgee.

"That there is some good in this world, and that's worth fighting for," Sam replies.

That looks banal on the printed page, but the line has great force in the film. Sam is a simple man, but he knows a few things well, and his chief virtue is loyalty. He doesn't trouble himself with the big picture; all he knows is that his homeland and its people are worth defending against those who would destroy them. That is enough; indeed, it is more than many more intelligent men and women of our day know. It is the wisdom of the common man, the kind of English infantrymen Tolkien knew in the trenches of the Great War. The Hun is still at our borders, which still must be defended.

When Saruman masses his troops in The Two Towers, before the Battle of Helm's Deep, it is tempting to look upon the battalions of Orc-slaves ready to slaughter the men of the West at the command of the Sauron's wizard servant Saruman, and think of the fanatical slaves of Islamism, under the command of mad mullahs. And there would be some truth to that. But as Russell Kirk observed, you cannot pin Tolkien down to any specific historical allegory. "His three volumes are a picture of the perpetual struggle between good and evil; his concern is the corrupting intoxication of power." Tolkien believed in good and evil, but also held with Solzhenitsyn, and traditional Christianity, that "the line between good and evil runs straight through every human heart."

This is why it is a mistake to view The Lord of the Rings films as merely inspirational movies into which we can neatly read self-congratulatory, pro-Western messages in a time of war. Bradley J. Birzer, author of the recently published J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth, asserts that Tolkien's message included "a call to defend all that was best in the long history of Western civilization." But Birzer reminds us that for Tolkien, "Evil does not always come in the form of war or totalitarian terror. Tolkien saw in the impersonal, machine-driven capitalism of the twentieth century, and especially its handmaiden, the democratic bureaucracies of the Western world, a form of soft tyranny almost as oppressive as fascism or communism."

The orthodox Catholic Tolkien saw pride, and the all-consuming craving for power it fosters when unchecked, as the root of human evil. In LOTR, Sauron and his servant Saruman desire to gather all power unto themselves so they can subjugate the natural world and every living creature within it, rather than seek to find their rightful place as reverent stewards of an ordered creation. They were slaves of their desire for raw power, which was symbolized by the Ring. With perfect power comes total enslavement, Tolkien teaches; this is why not even those who think they would use the Ring to do good are lying to themselves.

I want to be careful when I say this, but it seems clear to me that Tolkien would have looked upon the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center as symbols of a form of tyranny to which prosperous and free Western man is susceptible. Of course, there can be no doubt that he would have seen the attack upon them as monstrous, and would have backed some kind of military response to combat the Islamic barbarians. Whatever the contemporary West's sins, there is plenty of good in this world we have made for ourselves, and there is no question that it's worth fighting for.

That said, Tolkien does not let us off the hook easy. We will be judged by how we use the power we accumulated, by what we have done with the time that was given us. Are we an arrogant and materialistic people? Do we restrain ourselves in accordance with principles of justice, mercy, decency, and reverence for life, or do we seek knowledge and riches for the sake of imposing our will on things that ought to be left undefiled? Will we tolerate the intolerable rather than limit our freedom of choice? Is our seemingly unstoppable march to globalization unwisely concentrating power in the hands of the few? Do we see the natural world as merely ours for the taking and selling?

These are the kinds of questions Tolkien's great narrative puts to both the serious reader, and despite the surfeit of action, to the viewer of the films. Both the author and his cinematic interpreter inspire the LOTR audiences to stand firm in defense of our civilization, despite its flaws, without rewarding them with a sense of unearned triumphalism. There is far too much at stake for that: only the souls of individuals, and the soul of Western civilization. Prof. Birzer quotes Tolkien writing that Gandalf was wholly dedicated to "the defence of the West against the Shadow," and the same is true for Tolkien. We are fortunate to have these books, and now these films, in the present moment, to give us hope and a reason to dig in for the long fight ahead.

And yet, even as the shadow cast by Islamofascist minarets is the most immediate source of this present darkness across our civilization, it is by no means the only one.

"I KNOW!! a Crusade!!! How about we meet in Baghdad??

I note that you spend most of your time on the 'Religion' channel of FR. If the only thing you have to offer to this thread...is a slam to the author for being a Roman Catholic, my advice is to stick the religion channel. Thanks in advance and may God's peace be with you.

Dreher wisely chose to ignore comments made by Viggo Mortensen, the actor who plays Aragorn, about the villainous USA, killer of oppressed. Mortensen is incensed that pundits have compared LOTR:TT to anything American.

Dreher instead provides us with a thoughtful explanation of Tolkien's complex morality, including his admonitions about the blurred line between good and evil that runs through each human heart.

I managed to get a look at Two Towers last night. For pure entertainment the movie was worth the cost of admission, but it somehow did not live up to all the hype. I noticed several things which were less than optimal somehow or other.

The thing with the trees was cartoonish; they needed to think about that one a bit more. The orcs and some of the monsters look almost believable, the Golom character was fabulous, but some of the things you see, such as the Belrog, still look cartoonish and the movie seems too busy at times, i.e. too many weirdies flying around.

Moreover, the plot and basic story do not really seem altogether plausible. By way of contrast, the thing which really jumps out at you watching Reservoir Dogs or a couple of Quintan Tarrantino's films is the way in which the story strikes you as SO plausible that you walk out wondering what keeps stuff like that from happening more often and, in that sense, Tarrentino's villians are a whole lot more believable than Tolkein's. I mean, Marcellus Wallace just has it all over Sauron and Sauroman.

Aside from that, the Hollywood lefties basically hate Quintan Tarrantino to pieces, and the idea of Pulp Fiction being named one of the hundred best films of the 20'th century totally fried their minds as I hear it.

A tiny detail was the very elfin and unusual way Legolas mounted a horse in the midst of a battle. Did you happen to notice that?

I did. It was a beautiful thing. Usually, my husband and I comment (to each other) on movies when we watch them (yes, we're that annoying couple down in front). But while watching LOTR2, our only comment was "Whoa! Look at that" whenever Legolas did an elfy thing.

There was just too much action to have time to comment.

I would have sat through a second showing of it in a heart beat.

I hope you catch that second viewing very soon Luis! I just returned from my third view, and this view was the best, so you have some catching up to do!

Miss Marple, I don't want to keep you from seeing the movie again, but I can give you this:

[Warg Attack (2:29 minutes, 7.8Mb Quicktime) Download clip - Right click link - "Save target as"]

"I think the authore is the one making a few leaps of logic."

I have to disagree. The tyranny that he's talking about is the choice before any of us in the modern West. Will we serve profit? Will we enslave our life for the acquisition of wealth for it's own sake? I see people everyday who chase dollars because of greed. Some days I do it myself!

Now, please don't flame me! I'm a full on capitalist, and I believe one of the most potent forms of power is economic power. You can do a lot of good with money. But I'm speaking of people who sacrifice their family, their service to God, their sanity, their allotment of time on earth for something that won't last. It's not a forced enslavement, but a voluntary one, a choice made in the heart of the individual. Money is not intrinsically evil, but there is a deception of wealth that is. So, in that sense, the towers could be seen as a symbol of tyranny to the cynical eye.

Welcome to Free Republic!

Now, have you read down through this thread? Have you even READ the book?

Tarrrantino? "Reservoir Dogs?" "Pulp Fiction?"

Vulgar trash masquerading as cinema art....rather like that desecratedMadonna painting exhibited in New York a couple of years ago.

The post-modern movement is dead as of September 11. Tolkien's Middle Earth calls to the human spirit in a way that Tarrantino cannot even fathom.

Tolkien saw in the impersonal, machine-driven capitalism of the twentieth century, and especially its handmaiden, the democratic bureaucracies of the Western world, a form of soft tyranny almost as oppressive as fascism or communism."

This citation from the article is right in line with Slozhenitsyn's astute criticism of western democratic culture. The knee jerk reaction that many express when our shortcomings are pointed out, "My country, right or wrong," misses the point.

It is good to take a dispassionate look at who and what we are. Indeed, we have done wonderful things; including helping rid the world of two tyrannies in this century. We have also done not so good things; including legalized child murder and creation of inane and obscene entertainments.

Like the good folk of Middle Earth, most of us prefer our ease and comfort. However, as the screenwriter said in the article, in the past, when challenged with evil on the move, we (our parents and grandparents), have responded to the evil.

Today, we have evil enshrined in our institutions (Roe v Wade; Federal protection for obscenity). This evil is not on the move; hence it remains to be seen if we will be aroused ever to confront and defeat it.

For a few weeks after 9/11, with folks filling churches and people just being nicer to each other, I had some hope.

I was always under the impression that the "two towers" were Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul (Ithil), not Isengard and Barad-dûr.

So was I. See Which Two Towers are Meant in the Title of Book II? for a Tolkien-like "clarification". :-)

Incidently, the titles of the "books," which Tolkien thought of as one book, were created by his publisher.

Exactly.

The movie presents Sauruman as a minion of Sauron, carrying out the will of his master. My interpretation of their relationship is that while Sauruman has clearly been corrupted by Sauron, especially after using the palantír, he is not completely under his control and is actually trying to acquire the Ring for himself, thus creating a third power opposed both to Sauron and the forces of the Wise.

Again, correct. He's kind of a tin-plate Sauron, whose depth is revealed when the Ents take some 36-grit to his "fortress" of Orthanc.

Perhaps I do not understand your question. Please allow this ramble in response. To understand the comments, Tolkien's Roman Catholicism must be in the forefront. And to help understand the Catholic position on today's Western Civ, one can hark back to John Paul II's comments on materialism. Remember that after Poland was freed from the Russians (around 1984?) JPII remarked that he hoped Poland would not immediately lunge into the model of civilization represented by the USA (and France, Germany, England;) a model which was consumerist and ostentatiously worshipping sex.

Restraint, humility, prudent use of resources, and other Christian virtues were not then ( and are not now ) traits displayed in American TV shows.

Perhaps this is what Dreher's observation is all about.

Dreher instead provides us with a thoughtful explanation of Tolkien's complex morality, including his admonitions about the blurred line between good and evil that runs through each human heart.

Of course the "line" quote is Solzhenitsyn. and he did not call it "blurred."

"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart."

I believe the rest of the quote is"...and who is willing to cut out a piece of his own heart?

More Solzhenitsyn quotes

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