‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[davem]

It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. elf & Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; & folk speak with the Lady of the Wood & yet live, & th esword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the father's of our fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times?'

'As he ever has judged.' said Aragorn. 'Good & ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among elves & Dwarves & another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'

'As much in the Golden Wood as in his own house'. As much in fiction as in 'real' life. Fiction doesn't have different rules, & 'personal truth' is not different in fiction. An immoral act is an immoral act, because our standards of judgement are (or should be) constant.

If I judge the events of 9/11, or the recent horrors in the school at Beslan, to be 'Wrong' & the terrorists who commited them judge them to be 'Right', is that really just down to the way I've been brought up? And is my judgement no more 'True' than Osama bin Laden's? Both equally valid? Yet if they aren't equally valid, then on what can I base my claim that my judgement is better, if not to some objective standard?

This kind of moral equivalence of all views is what produces the Saruman's - why shouldn't one see Sauron's point, surely he is doing what he believs is 'right'? In fact, maybe he is right - its all down to point of view after all, & if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'.

I can't understand this approach of judging fiction (the 'Golden Wood') differently from fact ('one's own house'). This approach - our morality is simply what we've been taught is simply another form of denying the artist has anything to teach us, & that all we find in a work of art is what we bring to it, everything is subjective. But that's the way the Ring corrupts, it convinces you that everything is relative, & your own 'good' is as valid as any other, because all there is is 'survival of the fittest' - ie of the 'fittest' 'good'. But that's where the 'wraithing process' begins, because if there's no objective standard by which to judge (''As heever has judged.') then where's the hope?

Tolkien is stating his position very clearly in this scene, & saying that it is based on an 'objective' standard, & if its 'objective' then (for Tolkien at least) it applies in every 'world'.

Originally Posted by Lalwende

The example I often draw upon is the character of Gollum - I could discuss him for a long time and still come to no conclusion about whether he was good or bad.

Its not a question for me of whether Gollum was 'good' or 'bad' he did some good things & some bad things - ie he made moral choices, & immoral choices at different times, & we can all distinguish which was which, because we judge him not by his moral code, or our own, but by an objective standard, as Aragorn points out.