LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 03 - The Uruk-Hai

[davem]

Something about the idea that evil is 'merely' a perversion of Good strikes me - doesn't that make evil more dangerous than if it was an opposing force in its own right? Surely evil is more likely to seduce the unwary individual because of the 'Good' it originally was?

How can you tell the difference - at least at first sight? Isn't this why Eomer, for instance, had such a struggle over what his response to Aragorn & the others should be. If evil still contains the seeds of Good in it - which it must if those who have chosen it still retain the capacity to repent, then it is likely to attract some to it out of their own ignorance, or simplicity.

This idea of evil actaully makes things more difficult for the individual, as its not a matter of simply choosing the Good side & rejecting the evil one, because Good can be perverted into evil so easily. Boromir committed an evil act, but he wasn't deliberately choosing evil over Good - he was motivated by the desire to do Good.

So, the Orcs, & their capacity for repentance - do they actually think of themselves as 'evil'? Haven't they simply been seduced into evil without fully realising? Perhaps, like Boromir, they believe they are the 'good' guys.

It seems that the whole issue of Good & evil is not one of choosing a clearly defined option & simply sticking to it - one can 'fall' into evil at any time, by the making of an apparently simple, 'innocent' choice - & perhaps not even realise that one has 'switched' sides.

Perhaps we come back to Tolkien's Christian belief here - creatures cannot save themselves. Only an external force of ultimate Good can offer the chance of 'salvation'. Within the creation things can be so confusing that it may be impossible to know even where the line is, let alone when on has crossed it.

[Lalwendë]

One of the primary purposes of religion is to teach and guide, to show us what is right and wrong, what is good and evil. We are only simple humans with busy lives, and not having that guidance can be difficult because then we have to stop and think for ourselves. And in many cases, other beliefs can sometimes take us over, such as political beliefs; it is as though humans are empty vessels waiting to be filled with other people’s perceptions of good and evil.

We are sentient beings, all with the capacity to think for ourselves, but we are all also subject to the actions of other people thinking for themselves. I think that this one of the reasons ‘evil’ has been personified as an external force; it is easier for our minds to deal with the possibility that something ‘other’ has taken a good person and made them bad. And this is why I do not believe in such a concept as the devil - it seems to me to be an excuse, to shy away from considering the possibility of evil within ourselves and dealing with it.

The danger in this is that with guidance we can also be persuaded into believing that what is essentially wrong is in fact right; example in point might be being persuaded to kill someone of a different colour because your ‘guidance’ tells you they are evil. The Orcs clearly believe they are right to pursue and kill their enemies, and there is nobody to tell them otherwise. But can we blame them for following this faith so blindly?

The danger in not having any guidance is that we are vulnerable and must learn to think for ourselves, something a lot of people seem to disdain, and some are seemingly incapable of this and just ‘run with the pack’, as an example look at youths who are influenced by peer pressure into committing anti-social acts. Or even at people who have been swept up in consumerism; those designer clothes might look very nice, but do we know whether they have been made by exploited workers in the far east? This is a very modern example of something evil being hidden within something we might find attractive.

I don’t think we as humans necessarily have the capacity to think for ourselves and see what is good and evil, so for some, religion works; for others though, it does not work. Where religion goes wrong is when it influences people to commit acts of evil, but are those people themselves evil or is it the force which drove them that is evil?

I think if there is any message it is that we must all learn to think for ourselves and not blindly follow. Boromir is shown to have thought for himself at the end, and he sees what is right, what is in the common good. The figure of Gandalf is interesting because of his moral position; he has clearly been ‘sent’ to guide, but he is not didactic, he encourages others to think, to consider, to come up with the answer for themselves. And in a world where there is no organised religion to guide or teach. This is an essentially Christian way of thinking as I see it, yet is the church itself always like this? Very interesting thinking from a Catholic writer.