Irrationalism in 'Rings'? So sayeth he...

[DaughterofVana]

I thought that this would be a more fitting forum for this little jewel that I found in the newspaper tonight (IE, "Advanced Discussions of Middle Earth," stress on the 'advanced'), though the author of this article, like most laymen, deal exclusively with the movie aspect of LOTR. I hope everyone can keep their heads (if there's any danger of losing them).

Here goes...

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Title: The 'Ringworld' vs. the abyss of our real world
Author: James P Pinkerton, Newsday
Source: The Waterloo Courier

Let me write a nation's songs, so goes the saying, and I care not for its laws. That is, culture trumps politics.

And so, with the second installment of the 'The Lord of the Rings' Trilogy showing at theatres, one might learn more about the direction of America by watching that film than by watching the fate of Al Gore or Trent Lott.

The first "Lord" movie--a tale of good vs. evil coincidentally released just after 9-11--crystalized the mood of the country. We were grimly resolved to settle accounts with evildoers. The film was a huge hit in the United States, selling more than $300 million in theater tickets and another 20 million in VHS and DVD units.

And now comes "Lord the Rings: The Two Towers." From the eerie edginess of the title to the mystical militarism of the storyline, the movie is three hours of encouragement to the combat-bound. At the beginning the climactic battle scene, a good king declares, in resident cadences, "If this is to be our end, then I would hope to make an end that is to be worthy of remembrance." To which a heroic warrior responds, "Your men will follow you to whatever end."

Indeed, to enter into the Ringworld and its realm of elves and orcs, is to be reintroduced to what "Rings" creator JRR Tolkien called "that noble northern spirit"--that is, Nordic lore. Yup, we're blasting back to the past, to paganism, to the blood-and-fire bombast of Richard Wagner operas, to a rejection of Judeo-Christianity in favor of a different vision, a vision of violent gods with names such as Wotan and Thor.

The historically minded will remember that the Natzis loved this mythology. The whole of teh Third Reich was awash in runes, lightning bolts and Valkyries riding. Yet Adolph Hitler discredited these sagas when he went off to his own 'Gotterdammerung' in 1945.

But now the Norsemen, minus the swastikas, are making a cultural comeback. The "sword and sorcery" genre--seen in games and movies such as "Dungeons and Dragons," "Conan the Barbarian" and "Harry Potter"--dominates much of the youthful imagination. For years, the Marine Corps sponsored a commercial featuring a warrior fighting a fire-spouting monster, then becoming a uniformed Marine. The spot was 50 percent medieval adventure, 50 percent video game--and 100 percent cool.

And why not? Who wants to live in ordinary borikng times? Who, especially the young, wants to miss the call of trumpets, the heroism and hoopla of what in World War I was called "The Big Parade"? What youthful heart fails to beat faster after hearing Henry V's oration--"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"--on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, in 1415, as imagined by Shakespeare? Never mind that the real Agincourt was just another bloody battle between dynasties that solved nothing. The Bard's words have such poetic potency that they became the title of a best-seller and then an HBO miniseries lionizing American soldiers in World War II.

But amid all the energy and adrenaline, amid all the presidental war speeches and cable-news war specials, the question remains: Does a celebration of martial magic and mysticism provide the basis for rational policies aimed at preserving peace as opposed to perpetuating war? Can we have a culture that imbibes the drama of Vikings and Valhalla and a politics that embraces such dull virtues as security and multilateralism?

Right now, of course, most Americans don't care. They are cheering the rise of armed and armored values and thrilling to the collective soul-feeling that comes from uniting behind firefighter martyrs and Hellfire missles.

And now, as a booster, the next "Rings." The forces of the evildoing Saruman get clobbered in the film, just as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have been wasted a trillion times in video games. It's all fun for the moment, but countries must think soberly for the longer haul. National leaders are supposed to do more than give belligerent speeches; they should have learned lessons from history, full as it is with cautionary tales of overreach, however righteous. And all Americans might recall that the basic irrationalism exalted in "Rings" once led other peoples into the abyss.

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Oh, boy. (Cringes) Thoughts?

-'Vana