'high', purged of the gross: culture

[mark12_30]

Gorwingel wrote:

he could have, very possibly, been trying to change the lives of his readers by subconsciously sneaking in his own observances on habits in our culture, and telling us (subconsciously again) how to effect our culture by mildly changing the way we act (manners, language, etc.).

Very intriguing; who agrees?

Has it worked on you?
On other Tolkien enthusiasts that you know?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

I'm not sure that he was deliberately intending to affect people in this way. Regardless, he has affected me in this way! JRRT didn't expect the book to have such a huge influence as it has. It was almost condescending (perhaps that's the wrong word) of him to write the book this way. It was as if he was saying "This is what I like and what I think is good, you probably won't like it but I don't care because you're wrong."

That's probably quite harsh on Tolkien but I was able to say that because it rings true to my sentiments, so I would applaud him for thinking that way.

[Formendacil]

My personal response to this (very old) thread would be in a similar vein to something I have written recently elsewhere.
I actually rediscovered this thread (which predates my joining of the Downs!) by trawling through the old archives in the Mirth forum and found a reference to it--which is basically right up my alley.

In response to the original question, although I think that "high, purged of the gross" is something that I specifically strive for, at least in some parts of my life, and although I definitely would attribute some of this to Tolkien's influence, I do NOT think that this is necessarily a fandom-wide response.

For one thing, you have only to delve into a fanfiction archive to realise that either "high, purged of the gross" means different things to different people, or it isn't a goal of a number of Tolkien's fans: and we're not talking just about moviegoers here. We're talking about Silmarillion fanfiction from people who have clearly spent as much time on the HoME as I just did in the archives of this forum. That is not to say that fanfiction is written by bad people, but there is ample evidence that aiming for any sort of moral height is not to be found in this significant, invested part of the fan community, and a lot of the time their work may be spent putting elements of the gross back into the story.

As for the Barrow-downs, while I do think we have our own distinct culture that aims for a version of Highness (and our sternness regarding the Off-Topic could be considered a self-purgation of a type of self-defined grossness), I'm not sure whether it's safe to say that we necessarily take this to heart in day-to-day life. It's probably not fair to define anyone's life by the ebullience expressed at a BDer moot, but it's definitely true that a high stateliness is not the first mode expressed at one. Actually, that makes me wonder if it's even fair for me to say that "high, purged of the gross" is something I can be said to aim for in my own life, since one of my favourite BDer Moot activities is shocking people with just how much more irreverent I can be in real life than online.

My chief response to that self-generated line of thinking is that the key word in this phrase of Tolkien's is "purged." After all, he isn't saying that his characters exist in a world that doesn't include the gross, but that he is writing a tale that purges this element from the telling. It is an aesthetic decision to remove this, an aesthetic decision I am inclined to appreciate and to at least aim for in written discourse... but I don't know that it informs my non-written life as much as I would want.

[Faramir Jones]

Thanks for restarting this thread, Formendacil!

Tolkien was, of course, well aware of the 'gross' parts of the time he lived in, including how badly people behaved towards each other, from among other things his military service in the First World War, including in the Battle of the Somme.

He alluded to this in letters to his son Christopher, then serving in the RAF in the Second World War. In a letter to him of 30th April 1944, Letter 64 of the published Letters, he said that he first began to write the ‘H.[istory] of the Gnomes[Noldor]’ in ‘army huts, crowded, filled with the noise of gramophones’. In another, Letter 66, dated 6th May, he said that ‘lots of the early parts’ and ‘the languages’ of Morgoth and the History of the Gnomes were done ‘in grimy canteens, at lectures in cold fogs, in huts full of blasphemy and smut, or by candle light in bell-tents, even some down in dugouts under shell fire’.

[Guinevere]

originally posted by Formendacil:
We're talking about Silmarillion fanfiction from people who have clearly spent as much time on the HoME as I just did in the archives of this forum. That is not to say that fanfiction is written by bad people, but there is ample evidence that aiming for any sort of moral height is not to be found in this significant, invested part of the fan community, and a lot of the time their work may be spent putting elements of the gross back into the story.

Indeed!!

with reference to Gorwingels post # 8:

he could have, very possibly, been trying to change the lives of his readers by subconsciously sneaking in his own observances on habits in our culture, and telling us (subconsciously again) how to effect our culture by mildly changing the way we act (manners, language, etc.).

I think there might indeed have been a desire to influence his readers, going back to the youthful enthusiastic ideas of the "TCBS" before WWI. Tolkien and his friends talked about what was wrong with the world and how their creative efforts would change it. Their goals were in essence to restore the recognition of truth and real beauty to a world they felt had lost sight of them.

His friend G.B.Smith wrote in a very moving letter, right before he was killed in the war:

My dear John Ronald... my chief consolation is that, if I am scuppered to-night - I am off on duty in a few minutes - there will still be left a member of the great TCBS to voice what I dreamed and what we all agreed upon...... May God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot.

The Lost Tales, and then The Silmarillion, were never published in Tolkiens lifetime, but in the long years it took to write, The Lord of the Rings deepened from "the new hobbit story" into something he wrote about in 1971:

from letter #328

From letter #328
Looking back on the wholly unexpected things that have followed its publication - beginning at once with the appearance of Vol. I - I feel as if an ever darkening sky over our present world had been suddenly pierced, the clouds rolled back, and an almost forgotten sunlight had poured down again.

[Marwhini]

The terms "High" here have a great many meanings.

To begin with, you need to learn (as far as what Tolkien meant by these terms), about the Theology of Boethius, Augustine, and Francis of Assisi (as just a few).

And in how the term applied to Chivalric Romance, where there was a distinction between different emotions, and whether they were applied to purely "Spiritual" or to "Physical" aspects of the world.

As to whether Tolkien Fandom "buys into" those things....

Well, that very much depends upon what you mean by "buying into."

If we are talking about interpretations of events within Middle-earth, then it is an absolute necessity to know what Tolkien meant by these terms.

As there is a difference between internal and external views regarding Middle-earth.

I agree with next to nothing that Tolkien believed about the Real World (The world that both he and I inhabit, as well as the readers of his works inhabit).

But that is irrelevant when dealing with the beliefs as they relate to the Internal Aspects of Middle-earth.

Because as Tolkien points out in MANY different places, Middle-earth has a Metaphysics, an Ontology, and a Theology that is distinct from our world, even if based upon it. So we might take, as a basis, the foundations of our Physical Laws as a starting point for the operation of Middle-earth. But within Middle-earth these Laws have distinct divergences from our world.

Thus we need to know what is meant by the "High" and the "Low" as it applies to both our world (where these are Subjective reference frames), and internal to Middle-earth (where "High" and "Low" are Objective reference frames).

But obviously this is a very deep subject.

This is why I tend to make a primary issue out of the Metaphysical, Ontological, and Theological Assumptions one has about Middle-earth.

Because these will create a framework that will provide answers for all other questions that might be asked about Middle-earth. And with a Consistent, Coherent Metaphysics, these answers will contain no contradictions.


Edit: The "High" and "Low" aspects of Middle-earth also reveal characteristics of the operation of Physiognomy within Middle-earth.

MB