Since we just celebrated Easter, and since so many more people in America now no longer claim any faith at all, I thought more about J.R.R. Tolkien’s world of Middle Earth. Tolkien created a moral world, one that operated with the assurance that there was a God who was in control and who, ultimately, had a final plan at work.
Often, to some it would appear that things just happened randomly, but that was never the intent in Tolkien’s writings. In fact, many of his critics complained that Tolkien’s world was too tightly controlled, what with Eagles showing up at just the right time or the good luck of Bilbo or Frodo providing a solution. However, Tolkien was building a moral universe.
In The Two Towers, we see this idea clearly voiced by Aragorn. He hears the prince Eomer voice concern that in the craziness of those days….the King in Rohan has lost his senses, supposed friends like Saruman have turned out to be hidden enemies, peoples from myth like Hobbits turn out to be real….in this world Eomer asks “how shall a man judge what to do in such times?”
Aragorn’s simple answer is a megaphone for Tolkien and speaks to our own world in 2013: “Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear. Nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them as much in the Golden Wood as in his own home.” Through Aragorn’s journey, we see his belief, reflecting Tolkien, that there is a right path, a right choice to make.
This remains true in our own day. Though so many claim that there isn’t any certain “right” other than what seems right to them, instead upon scrutiny we can easily gather evidence that everyone still really believes that there is a moral certainty to the world.
Yesterday, a friend who isn’t a religious person (they might even claim to be an atheist), proclaimed in a discussion about life: “We should let people live the way they wish to live as long as they don’t hurt anyone else.” The clear implication is not that there isn’t moral relativism, but that if someone tries to stop another person from living as they wish that such a someone would be doing evil, doing harm.
If we really let people live as they wish, then if I wish to live in a way that limits other people for whatever reason, then I am in the clear. Even the idea of “hurt” is a term that comes under definition. What is “hurt anyone else?” My words about how someone lives, trying to stop them with logic or even government action isn’t really hurting them, not like using a weapon would “hurt” someone. And, if the other person gains success to live a certain way, perhaps that way they live would hurt me, at least hurt me in the sense of not liking how they are living. But I doubt that this other person would decide worry about the fact that their victory in this matter had now hurt me.
Do you see how hard it is to really live with a relativist position? If Eomer gives in to despair, determining that there simply is no way to figure out how to live, if he chooses to just live in the way that seems right to him, then all is really lost. Tolkien makes it very clear that the Orcs are living wrongly, are on the wrong side of morality. Yet, if we could visit the Orcs at home, in their own world, would they not claim that their way of life is fine? So, there either would be conflict as the Orcs live out their normal way of life (which would include killing and destroying…not a “bad” thing in their view of life), or the “good guys” in the story have to actually leave the story.
Tolkien does not allow for that reality. No matter what they would claim, Tolkien stands firmly with Aragorn that good and evil have not changed, nor are they different for one people, one culture or even one individual. In the end, in Tolkien’s world and in ours, there is a standard that exists above the created ones, in our world us humans, in Tolkien’s world the elves, dwarves, orcs, giants, and yes, the humans. Our actions are judged against the standard created by Eru (God in Tolkien’s world). One of the reasons a book like Lord of the Rings resonates deeply for so many is because there is a right and wrong, a morality.
If there weren’t, then we couldn’t really cheer for one side or the other. Sauron would not be bad or evil for his desire to get the ring…heck, it was his first and he created it. Saruman would not be wrong for betraying Gandalf and the others in his own quest for power…that is simply the way he has been created (for all he knows). Certainly the Orcs are not evil…they are just acting out their manner, their behavioral pattern. With no higher moral standard, then all comes crashing down into a “might makes right” situation. Lord Denethor, the father of Boromir and Faramir, is not a bad guy, but merely someone who “gets it”—he must use the might of the ring to destroy Sauron, and then worry later about whatever lingering bad impact to his own soul or that of Gondor.
No. We cannot descend to that place. Might does not make right. There is a morality that is above the humans, and we must all submit to it even if we don’t necessarily agree with the limitations that come with such submission. Aragorn understood this, and Eomer could see that, and thus be willing submit to the rightful king of the land. He would let the example of Aragorn inspire him to greatness BECAUSE he understood Tolkien’s morality.