The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy

by Gregory Bassham

  Philosophers and students of culture debate the best way to define “modernism” but most agree that it refers to a wide range of ideas and perspectives that come together as a kind of mood, a sense that everything is impermanent. As Marshall Berman puts it, modernity “is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity: it pours us all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish. To be modern is to be part of a universe in which, as Marx said, ‘all that is solid melts into air.’”1 That is, we experience modernism as the loss of the institutions and philosophies that have guided us. It means that there are new and exciting possibilities before us, but the old certainties are gone. Some scholars see the modern period emerging full-born with the end of World War I, when so much of Europe was destroyed and so many of the shocked survivors questioned why the world’s leading civilizations had fought at all. Others see the seeds of it as early as the Renaissance, when, with Europe’s rediscovery of Greek and Roman philosophy, the Catholic church lost its monopoly as an intellectual framework. In either case, by the time Tolkien set out to write The Lord of the Rings, that modern mood was coloring most contemporary Western academic thought.

  Berman’s definition shows how difficult it is to characterize something that is simultaneously so broad and so nearly universal. Above all it shows that many observers understand modernism as the extreme rejection of traditional values. No matter how dramatically the major modern thinkers disagreed with one another, they shared the sense that previous generations had gotten most of the major questions wrong. One manifestation of modernism was Karl Marx declaring that class conflict was the only significant engine driving history; another was Sigmund Freud insisting that everything turned on the human drive for sex. Both ways of seeing the world insisted that traditional explanations of human activity, ones that came out of religion or Classical philosophy, were not merely wrong but extinct. Philosopher Friedrich Nietszche put it most succinctly when he famously declared “God is dead.” In the modern world, the new—the “modern” in all of its senses—was almost always better than the old and traditional. There simply wasn’t room for ideas that had no direct basis in science, and traditional philosophy and religion struck many leading thinkers as little more than superstitions.

  Tolkien understood that he was in a minority when it came to rejecting modernism. As he put it in a letter to Joanna de Bortadano, “If there is any contemporary reference in my story at all it is to what seems to me the most widespread assumption of our time: that if a thing can be done, it must be done” (L, p. 246). In other words, he wrote The Lord of the Rings, in part, as a protest against the sense that the past no longer had any relevance, that humans could act, in the absence of God, however they wished. Tolkien knew that many of his fellow academics embraced such sentiments, yet he deliberately went in the opposite direction. He went looking for the past, and he tried to find ways to make his discoveries useful to the modern world. He knew that the world was changing—both the real world and the world of ideas—and he reacted to that change by studying forgotten works and reintroducing them to his students and the public at large. In response to the chaos that many others celebrated and even worshipped, he reasserted the importance and value of tradition.

  Above all, Tolkien saw modernism as a self-destructive reaction to the dizzying present that called for eliminating the remnants of the past. As someone who loved nature, it troubled him to see the reckless and unplanned development of much of the countryside that he knew. (In that light, it is easy to see the ents as the fantasy that our forests will fight back if we abuse them too much.) As someone who took his own religious identity very seriously, he seemed to feel a sad sympathy for modern thinkers who dismissed religion, Catholicism in particular, without investigating what they were dismissing. Tolkien saw modernism as, at least in part, a knee-jerk rejection of many of the things he valued. He did recognize that it took intellectual and emotional work to believe in the wisdom of tradition in a generation that had seen World War I, but he also knew that it had been difficult in every age to sort out central, guiding ideas. He saw too many of his contemporaries taking an easy road, abandoning the Western tradition that made possible their own skepticism. He mistrusted the modern mood in most of its manifestations, understanding it as a kind of despair, and he resisted it, in part, by writing a fantasy that showed it as such.

  The Modern Despair of Saruman and Denethor

  The most modern character in the entire trilogy is Saruman, even though he was once, ironically, the most learned in ancient lore. For many of the centuries before the events of The Lord of the Rings take place, he was the leader of the White Council, the most powerful force in Middle-earth resisting Sauron. Even though he becomes a villain in the story, he never stops fighting against Sauron. He wants the Ring so that he can use it to destroy Sauron and take over the world himself. The trouble is that Saruman has forgotten his own wisdom. He has withdrawn into his private study, allowed himself to be distracted by what he learns from the palantír, and has lost faith in the tradition of which he was a noble part. He thinks he knows the world, even though he is a virtual hermit in his tower at Orthanc. As he sneers to Gandalf about the Ring, “Have I not earnestly studied this matter? Into Anduin the Great it fell; and long ago, while Sauron slept, it was rolled down the River to the Sea” (FR, p. 281). He is wrong, of course. The hobbits have the Ring, and we readers have the distinct pleasure of knowing that he is making a fool of himself.

  Saruman’s real mistake is more than just factual, though. It is that he comes to conceive of the world only in the same terms that Sauron does. He cannot imagine victory without the Ring and he can no longer see the virtues of elvish wisdom and natural power. He tells himself that he does not want to see a world ruled by Sauron, but he simultaneously throws away his faith in the traditional powers of Middle-earth. As he says to Gandalf, “The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning. The time of the Elves is over, but our time is at hand: the world of Men, which We must rule” (FR, pp. 290–91). So saying, he sounds a bit like Nietzsche. He sees the old world as spent and withered, and he proposes conquering what’s left. To that end, he makes himself into a parody of Sauron, breeding his own race of orcs and inventing great fiery machines that belch black smoke. He continues to study, but he does even that under the influence of Sauron; he searches through overlooked details of the past for personal power rather than as a means of reconnecting with the gods and powers who have sent him as their emissary from the remote West. In his twisted effort to save Middle-earth, he makes the literal error of seeing the trees without recognizing the forest. Because he makes a strip mine of Treebeard’s forest, the ents rise up and overwhelm him.

  Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, has an almost identical experience, falling from his position as the most powerful man in Middle-earth into paranoia and despair. Like Saruman, he has foolishly made use of a palantír to learn what he can of the world without having actually to venture into it. He should have known from his studies that only the true king could master one, but he tries all the same. He compounds that foolishness by imagining that he really can control what he sees. He is strong enough to resist the eye of Sauron that stares back at him, but he does not realize the degree to which Sauron nevertheless directs his vision so that he sees only dark tidings that demoralize him. As he declares to Gandalf, “I have seen more than thou knowest, Grey Fool. For thy hope is but ignorance” (RK, p. 130). He has turned away from the traditional and valuable course of the stewards who came before him. Rather than acting in the stead of the departed king, he acts as if he were the king. His speculations have shown him that there is no hope, and he never tests them. Instead, he retreats to his rooms and tries to kill his son Faramir so that he can make a glorious end to the great history that he feels certain is about to come to a close. Like Saruman, he finds himself caught in Tolkien’s critique of modernism: if you do not embrace the wi
sdom of the past in a time of crisis, the only choice you have is to try to destroy the present. Although there is still hope, a tiny hope resting on the fading strength of Minas Tirith and the advice that Gandalf has to offer, he decides it is easier to despair than to depend on the traditions and teachings that are the source of his own strength.

  Samwise or Wise-guy Pippin?

  An interesting dynamic of wisdom and the failure to appreciate wisdom plays out between Sam and Pippin. For much of The Lord of the Rings, Pippin is notoriously reckless, forgetting what Gandalf and the others have told him and taking foolish chances. He should know that he has to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible, but he still drops the stone down the well in Moria (FR, p. 351). Doing so alerts the Balrog that they are there, and that leads to the confrontation where Gandalf falls to his doom. Later, he cannot resist stealing the palantír and looking into it. In doing so, he narrowly avoids revealing Frodo’s Quest, and he flouts what he knows is the wise course of staying far away from the stone. As Merry tells him, “Don’t forget Gildor’s saying—the one Sam used to quote: Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger” (TT, p. 216). He knows what the elves would tell him, and he knows that he is flying in the face of the very authority that has helped him survive that far, but he cannot help himself. He is acting on an impulse that Sauron has strengthened—touching the Orthancstone when Wormtongue hurls it at him puts him in reach of its spell—but he could have resisted it if he were more conscious of clinging to what he knows is right and good.

  Pippin is too child-like to be afflicted with anything like the modern despair of Saruman and Denethor, but his carelessness has some of the same roots. When he refuses to respect what he learns from Gandalf and the elves, he shows a disinterest in the values that underlie Tolkien’s most successful heroes. His failing is that he cannot be serious enough. At one level he knows he is part of a Quest that will determine whether the world will survive. At another, he remains so light-hearted that he overlooks the context of that Quest. He loses his concentration at the worst possible moments, acting, in effect, as if he has no restraints other than his physical weakness. He does what he wants, when he wants, and comes across as if he is choosing to reject the wisdom that has come to him. In that way, he is a classic example of the class clown. He isn’t trying to be malicious with his mischief; he is simply not mature enough to stay focused throughout the course of a serious adventure. If he had concentrated on where he was and what he was doing, he might have avoided some of the serious harm he causes.

  In contrast, Sam, whose lower-class manners sometimes make him seem like a clod, studies and concentrates all of the time. He is the only member of the Fellowship who correctly guesses Frodo’s plan to venture off alone, and he routinely insinuates himself into serious meetings, such as the Council of Elrond, where he has not been invited. The Gaffer boasts of him that when he was still a child he had learned everything that he could from Bilbo. As he says, “Crazy about stories of the old days he is, and he listens to all Mr. Bilbo’s tales. Mr. Bilbo has learned him his letters—meaning no harm, mark you, and I hope no harm will come of it” (FR, p. 24). That is, Sam turns out to be an extraordinary scholar for someone born into an illiterate family. By studying with Bilbo, he learns about elves and the history of the First Age, and, with that knowledge, he manages to survive the Tower of Cirith Ungol. He knows that he should rely on Galadriel’s phial and not the Ring to overcome the Watchers, and he knows to use the elvish word “Elbereth” as his secret password with Frodo. Using his limited book knowledge to its fullest, he overcomes one of Sauron’s great barriers, saving himself, Frodo, and the Ring at the darkest hour of the Quest. He is even a Ring-bearer for a brief while, and he and Bilbo are the only ones who are clear enough in their thinking to give it away of their own accord.

  Pippin does eventually reform, maturing to the point that he embraces some of Frodo’s and Sam’s strengths. As a member of the Guard in Gondor, he takes his duties very seriously and so has a role in saving Faramir’s life, and later he is a key leader in rescuing the Shire from Saruman’s vengeful depredations. Even more strikingly, Tolkien tells us in the Prologue to the story that Pippin becomes one of the great librarians of Middle-earth after the War of the Ring (FR, pp. 16–17). Under his guidance, the Took family mansion gathers many of the most important manuscripts of the age, and Pippin himself brings a complete copy of Bilbo and Frodo’s history of the War of the Ring to Gondor where it enters into the main history of Middle-earth. It’s an extreme transformation—in essence he goes from Bart Simpson to Ben Stein—but it underscores the degree to which Tolkien insists that being heroic ties into being scholarly. With the coming of the Fourth Age, the golden era that Aragorn ushers in with his return as the King, many of the characters find that they can put away their weapons and begin to study simply for the sake of study. Pippin, returned from his adventures and mature at last, finds his eventual calling as an important hobbit leader and as a thoughtful scholar himself.

  Escape to Middle-earth

  If remembering the great tradition of the elves and Númenor makes it possible for Tolkien’s heroes to escape one crisis or another, remembering—or discovering—that tradition offers his readers a different kind of escape. Twenty-first-century readers may not find themselves confronting Shelob or orc-hosts, but we do wrestle with a variation of the despair that claims Saruman and Denethor. It may be easier today than at any time in history for us to get distracted. At a trivial level, ask yourself how often you’ve watched television or surfed the net instead of doing something more substantial. More seriously, think about the ways in which you find your motivation sapped by the barrage of images and ideas that come at you from media of every sort. It is hard to stay focused, and the result for many people is a sense of emptiness, a sense of unfulfillment that takes a step toward full-blown despair. As Bruce Springsteen sings, “There’s 57 channels and nothin’ on.” For readers of The Lord of the Rings, though, that isn’t so. It offers the fantasy that there are real truths and real things to believe in. We may be doing little more than sitting around reading a stack of paperbacks with cheesy covers, but it feels as if we are discovering a greater purpose for our life.

  As Marshall Berman understands modernism, there is no way to escape from it. In his view, even if we reject the negative sense that the world we have known is melting, we find ourselves overwhelmed by the opportunities of the contemporary world. That is, he sees modernism as offering the perpetual sense that we can create endlessly new things. As Berman puts it, “To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world—and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.”2 In other words, the modern world promises great power, but it offers no framework within which to exercise it. It holds out the inspiring hope that we can build new things, but it also offers the evidence that nothing lasts, that nothing is intrinsically good. Modernism is beguiling; it attracts us with promises of every variety and shape, but it also betrays us. In the modern world, whatever success we have is ultimately a prelude to disappointment and perhaps even despair.

  In the face of that notion, Tolkien offers his Middle-earth as a fantasy of anti-modernism. Unlike Berman, he imagines a way in which it is possible to create change for the good without relying on power that we cannot control. In that light, the Ring itself is a kind of modernism. The characters who most clearly despair are the very ones who cannot imagine escaping its power. They succumb to evil because they dream of using evil’s power to accomplish the good. In contrast, the ones who “pass the test” of the Ring, the ones who are able to go without using it, manage to escape from what Tolkien presents as a false dilemma. Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf defeat Sauron by making him irrelevant, by finding a way of making him impotent rather than confronting him directly. As a metaphor, that suggests Tolkien’s fantasy toward
modernism. The Ring holds out the false hope of power that people can use to remake the world. Readers can escape the dilemma of modernism, as Berman characterizes it, in the same way that Tolkien’s heroes can: by turning to a mythical past and finding themselves in a history that keeps unfolding.