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Originally Posted by Raynor
However, my point is that one doesn't have to act on a certain desire/intention to be immoral. One cannot say that he delights in evil and still claim complete morality.
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But the sticking point is that we cannot say what is moral and what is immoral. You can't tell me what's moral. I can't tell you what's moral. And even 'God' can't tell us what's moral.
As an aside - why can't 'God' tell us that? Simply because there are many 'Gods' and even those who ostensibly share the same God can have huge differences - e.g. many still think homosexuality is immoral whereas their brothers and sisters in the same faith wholeheartedly believe it to be perfectly moral. These kinds of differences are common across all faiths and ideologies.
Even when we get into questions of 'violence' there are questions of what morality is. Some tribespeople in New Guinea have been cannibals (and are said to remain cannibals, despite attempts to persuade them away from the practise) and this is a deeply held part of of their morality - the enemy must be consumed in order to achieve a complete victory over him. That kind of morality makes Westerners cringe, but it's a morality all the same, no matter if we feel uncomfortable with it. Even in the West similar differences are thrown up by the question of circumcision. A friend of mine was 'honoured' with an invite to a female ceremony in Tanzania and despite finding this act to be immoral had to go along as this was very much moral in that culture; likewise there has been a storm in the UK after a Jewish baby died following a circumcision with both sides throwing around terms like 'child abuse' and 'religious tradition'.
Who's right? I can't say. Nor can you.
So in an infinitely less serious circumstance, that of say whether you find Saruman a bit exciting, is it:
a. even possible or permissible to say someone is immoral just from whether they like x, y or z character in a book, given that morality cannot be determined at some static point anyway.
and
b. is it important anyway? Are we just being a little bit silly?
I have to say that if anyone from outside the Tolkien community saw this they'd be laughing their heads off. Just
how irrelevant and out of touch do we sound? Like it
actually matters if you like the literary creations that are Orcs when there are people out there
right now engaging in real, genuine and truly frightening acts of cruelty. And we're being asked if we want to tar and feather some ordinary kid for being fond of imaginary characters in a ruddy book!
All I'm asking is that we simply Get A Grip.