‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Snowdog]

Fordim Hedgethistle, I read with interest your opening post, and I have to say that I have always taken it as such:

Given this idea (which, again, was Tolkien’s own) of the writer-as-historian, then does this not mean that we – the readers – are not only able, but compelled, to seek always to reinterpret the tales from our own standpoint rather than continually try to figure out what the ‘first’ historian made of them? Tolkien can give us important clues and hints into the history and – more significantly – the moral fabric of Middle-Earth, as he was the world’s greatest expert on the material. But in the end, it’s up to the reader to really figure it out for him or herself. That’s, I think, the real strength of Middle-Earth over other imagined worlds: it’s open-ended and incomplete; it’s contradictory; it doesn’t make sense – it’s just like our own (primary) world.

Henceforth, I write bits and pieces of the 'missing' record, and have fun doing it. The limiting factor is to stay within the bounds of the defined world (no balrog/elf breeds, etc.). The world has should be taken on its own, without theological interference from our individual worlds.

Good thread! More later.

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote (back in post 310):

When I said that 'facts' like 'killing is wrong' or 'water is wet', etc are nothing to do with 'Truth' I meant simply that they are facts, which are 'products' of our response to Truth - ie, 'Truth', in the sense in which I am using it, refers not to moral codes or precepts, but to the source of those codes, the thing which inspires them in us.

Ah! I'm glad you said that. That is I think something like the definition I was asking for. "Truth" means "the source of truth" where the uncapitalized is understood in the conventional sense - is that it? That's certainly a definition I can live with - of course in another context I would still dispute whether "the source of truth" makes any sense. But I can certainly suspend that doubt and accept the term as a well-defined one.

My problem in so far as coming to an agreement as to what Truth is, in an attempt to reach some kind of common ground, is that I cannot 'translate' my conceptions of Truth, Joy, etc into terms which would fit your world view, at least not without sacrificing what I mean by them, in order to make them 'fit' - & if I could, we wouldn't really be debating on common ground, we'd be debating on grounds that you had set out, & we would have to remain on that sharply defined ground, if we wanted the debate to continue, & wherever the debate went, it could only go where you allowed it to go.

I understand that, and that's why I said earlier that we had come to an impasse. For if I were to simply accept your Truth/Joy/Tao, we would be debating on grounds that you had set.

The reason I was so interested in hearing your definition of "Truth" is that I wanted to know whether it was a term we could both accept and simply use even if we thought it meant different things.

Since metaphors are so fashionable in this thread: imagine a Jewish theologian and a Christian theologian discussing some subject. They may very well have occasion to refer to "God" in this discussion. Now, each one means a different thing by "God". The Jew means a singular omnipotent being; the Christian means the Trinity (forgive me if I'm oversimplifying this, but you get the point). But, unless they are debating these specific differences, they can quite comfortably use the word "God" with each other and as if they were referring to exactly the same thing. Their ideas about the meaning of the term "God" are different, but they are similar enough to allow discussion involving "God".

But now take a Christian and an ancient Greek "pagan". The Greek also has a word "god". But he or she means something quite different. There will be few topics that the two could discuss in which they can use the word "god" simpliciter.

I was hoping that our disagreement about Truth was like the Christian and the Jew rather than the Christian and the mythologist. That is, I was hoping that we could accept some broad definition for Truth and leave the exact contents of the definition unspecified. It appeared earlier that we cannot in fact do this. So, to be honest, I am a bit confused about why you continued (back in post 310, again) to argue in favor of your concept of Truth. As I see it, you indeed belive that:

If we limit ourselves to the physical, material world, that can be encompassed by current psychological & literary theories, whatever conclusions we may come to would not really be relevant, as central issues would have been rejected.

. . . then I'm afraid there is simply no more to be discussed, for in such a case your definition of "Truth" differs in a way crucial to the subject at hand from any definition I can accept.

You wrote:

My world view includes the metaphysical as well as the physical, but yours seems limited only to the physical, so I would not be allowed to offer metaphysical 'proofs' - which by their nature can only be expressed through feelings & experiences.

If by "metaphysical" you mean something like "supernatural" or "not reducible to logic and physics" then you're right. I don't want a proof of anything; but again, if Truth is in your view necessarily not reducible to logic and physics, then we have no common term.

I have to say that you & SpM seem to get het up at claims that you are missing something, almost as if you're 'demanding' that I, or Helen, or H-I should 'reaveal' the 'secret' to you, or stop implying that there is such a 'secret'. Yet you claim to be so confident that you have understood it all in the way that you want, & that anything we could 'reveal' - if we deigned to let you in on the hidden meaning - would not interest you because it can't be True anyway, because there's no such thing as Truth.

So, here we are, us saying Truth exists, you denying it exists, but demanding that we tell you what it is anyway. If you don't feel you're missing out on anything why do you keep asking us to tell you what you're missing out on?

Well, I hope I've at last made my position clear (as I've been trying and failing to do in the past two or three posts). I am not demanding that you "reveal" anything to me; I simply wanted to know what you mean when you say Truth - just as, if I started using some term like "goomak" in the discussion, you'd want to know what I meant by it. That's a completely separate issue from that of the viability of reading Tolkien's literary theory with Faerie and Truth as psychological objects rather than metaphysical ones.

In connection with this last point, Mister Underhill wrote:

Surely he means more than “the set of true propositions” about the world: 2+2=4, the earth is round, and so forth. Unless I mistake what you mean by “set of true propositions” – which I take to be limited solely to rational, provable, indisputable, factual propositions

I'm afraid you do misunderstand me. The set of true propositions could (a priori) be as abstract as one likes. It could include truths that cannot, even in principle, ever be tested. It could include transcedent truths, if such things exist. And so on.

Now, as for my claim that "On Faery Stories" and the rest can be read with purely psychological definitions for "Truth" and so on - certainly this is not what Tolkien intended, or what he believed. My point is that nonetheless I think his theory is a perfectly coherent and sound one even if one replaced his transcendental truths with psychological ones.

[HerenIstarion]

To post #329 by Child of Seventh Age re:

You are probably right.

And, to lift the heavy lid covering the pan of bubbling and boiling emotions, I would present (again, for your enjoyment ) the following:

Question: Why did the chicken cross the street?
Answers:

DESCARTES: to go to the other side.

PLATO: For his own sake. On the other side of the street there is the truth

ARISTOTELES: It's part of the chicken's nature to cross streets

KARL MARX: It was historically inevitable

CAPTAIN KIRK: To get where no other chicken had ever got before

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: I had a dream where all chicken were free to cross streets without having to justify their decisions.

RICHARD M. NIXON: The chicken did not cross the street - I repeat - the chicken never crossed the street.

SIGMUND FREUD: The fact that you worry about why the chicken crossed the street reveals your strong inner feeling of sexual insecurity

BILL GATES: We precisely have just finish to elaborate the new program "Office Chicken 2004" that, on top of crossing streets, will also be able to incubate eggs, archive important documents, etc.

BUDDHA: asking such a thing is to reject your own inner chicken nature

TONY BLAIR: the chicken was going on a humanitarian mission

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY: The reason is in yourself, but you don’t know it yet. Through a small contribution of 1500 Euros, plus the rent of a lie detector, we will run a psychological test that will help us discover the reason

BILL CLINTON: I swear on the Constitution that nothing sexual ever happened between me and that chicken

EINSTEIN: The fact that it is the chicken who crosses the street or the street which moves beneath the chicken is relative.

ZEN: the chicken might be crossing the street in vain, only the Teacher knows the noise of its shadow against the wall

STALIN: the chicken must be shot immediately, as well as all witnesses of the scene plus 10 people chose by hazard as they did not try to prevent this subversive act

GEORGE W. BUSH: the fact that the chicken crossed the street in all impunity despite the UN resolutions, represents a serious attack to democracy, justice and freedom. This proves beyond all doubt that we should have bombed this street a long time ago. With the objective to guarantee peace in the region and to avoid that the values we treasure are once again attacked by such terrorist actions, the government of the US has decided to send 17 warships, 46 destroyers and 154 frigates, with the land support of 243,000 soldiers and 843 bombers, which will have the mission, in the name of freedom and democracy, to destroy all sign of life in poultry in the 5000 KM around the area, and ensure, with some targeted missiles, that anything vaguely resembling poultry will be turned to ashes and will never again be able to defy our nation with his arrogance. We have also decided that afterwards this country will be ruled by our government, which will create new poultry according to safety standards, handing all powers over to a cock democratically elected by the US ambassador. In order to finance such operation, we will take total control of the entire cereal production of the region for the coming 30 years, with local citizens benefiting from a favorable tariff over part of the production, in exchange of their complete cooperation. In this new land of justice, peace and freedom, we can assure you that never again will a chicken attempt to cross a street, for the simple reason that there will be no streets and that chicken will not have paws. God bless America.


Probably, it would be good for myself to remember chicken in question, each time I put my hand on the branch of a tree with the intention of picking up a coconut

cheers

[davem]

Aiwendil

I'm not sure there would be such a difference between the Christian, the Jew & the Pagan in their concept of the ultimate nature of Deity. I think there is a consensus of a kind to be found between Christian, Jewish & Pagan Mystics. My 'singature' is a quote from a Pagan Neo-Platonist Philosopher, & I don't think many Christians or Jews would find a lot to argue with in it. A Christian mystical text like The Cloud of Unknowing could be accepted by Pagans, Christians, Jews & Moslems quite easily.

If we take a Pagan idea - a 'saviour' figure appears in the world, one of his parents is human (usually the mother) his father is divine. He lives a short life, performs great feats or miracles, is killed, often sacrificed for others, & is brought back to life & goes to spend eternity with his divine parent. Often his death involves some kind of piercing - with a spear or an arrow. He is symbolically a 'child' of both worlds - uniting both in himself, & becoming a symbolic 'bridge' between the worlds, enabling his followers to enter into paradise through him. We can find variations of this idea across the world - though not in a 'pure' & perfect' a form as in Christianity. Certainly Achilles is a demiGod who is killed by being pierced with an arrow, so is Krishna. Lugh, in Celtic myth is killed by a spear, & resurrected by his uncle Gwydion.

To relate this back to Christianity, I came across an interpretation - can't remember where - of the Crucifixion. Christ is 'transfixed' on the cross, & pierced by the spear. Symbolically, He hangs between & so unites, earth & sky, he unites in himself God & Man, creator & creation, life & death. There is an eclipse, so even day & night are symbolically one at that point. We have an 'image' - all the 'opposites', the 'fragments' into which creation was broken with the Fall, constellate around the Crucified Christ, who becomes a new 'centre of gravity' for the broken Creation - so the nails are shown going through his palms, & he 'actively' grasps them, rather than through his wrists. He pulls the universe back together.

Ok, sermon over! but the point is, seen in that light, with so many 'Pagan' images & symbols being contained in the Christian story, a Pagan philosopher would have had a great deal of common ground with a Christian, not just in the idea of a Deity (most Pagan Philosophers understood the gods to be 'aspects' of a single Deity, who was beyond human comprehension), but even in details of their beliefs. The similarities between Christianity & Judaism are obvious.

In other words, I'm not sure that your analogy works. Then again, not being a Christian myself (though having sympathy with it) the interpretation of the crucifixion I've just given may be totally heretical, & I expect Helen & H-I to put me right on it if it is wrong!

But we still haven't solved the problem of interpretation of Tolkien. I would say that a proper interpretation of Tolkien's work, a proper understanding of what he was attempting to achieve, requires us to take into account the metaphysical dimension as a fact. If we don't, then the interpretation we end up with will be missing something that I, H-I, Helen, Child & others feel is of central importance, so it won't work for us. I suspect, though, if it did contain the metaphysical dimension we require for it to work, you would find it unsatisfactory. So, as you say, impasse.

Of course, I'm still waiting for Fordim's answer as to what he wants to 'produce' by this process of interpretation & what he wants any consensus of meaning to do - maybe its just for its own sake - like the revised Sil which you're invovled in.

Its funny to have come so far with this if that's all we're looking to end up with.

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

My point is that nonetheless I think his theory is a perfectly coherent and sound one even if one replaced his transcendental truths with psychological ones.

Hmm. Is the sum of this and your Christian/Jew analogy all to say that you believe in God (in the broadest possible sense of that word) -- but only as a set of psychological principles? I admit that I am still confused.

[bilbo_baggins]

...I am still confused

(Mister Underhill)

If I may say such an over-used cliche: "join the club!"

[davem]

MrU

I have to agree that the idea of God as a set of psychological principles is the kind of thing that sounds fine, but simply doesn't work - especially in the context of what Tolkien is describing in Fairy Stories - how would eucatastrophe work? What is the 'gleam' that comes through? Where does it come from? Tolkien's concept can only work if there is an objectively existing 'spiritual' dimension which fantasy opens us up to, which can affect us.

If its proposed that its some 'unconscious' process or 'function' which is somehow 'activated' by the reading of a particular kind of fiction, or exposure to specific images, then I can't see how that fits in with any current psychological theory, & would, I suspect, be dismissed as nonsense.

No, I can see either dismissing Tolkien's theory altogether, or accepting it at face value - & that requires acceptance that we are dealing with something much more than simply psychological processes.

[Lyta_Underhill]

davem post 333:

I would say that a proper interpretation of Tolkien's work, a proper understanding of what he was attempting to achieve, requires us to take into account the metaphysical dimension as a fact. If we don't, then the interpretation we end up with will be missing something that I, H-I, Helen, Child & others feel is of central importance, so it won't work for us. I suspect, though, if it did contain the metaphysical dimension we require for it to work, you would find it unsatisfactory. So, as you say, impasse.

So authorial intention is brought back to the fore in this way! And it seems that what Aiwendil might be saying is that this particular authorial intention may be co-opted the same as any other, from metaphysical to psychological. It is yet another interpretive act of reading. Personally, I think the way Tolkien wrote many passages leaves such interpretations wide open, that Eru was implied, intentionally, but that He wasn't forced upon the reader, just as the denizens of Middle Earth were not universally aware of Eru's existence or, if so, what part He played.

The closest we come to explicit naming of Eru in LOTR is Faramir's custom at meat in Henneth Annun, when he looks to the West:

we look rowards Numenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.

This suggests, at least, an infinite and unseeable reality, at least from where Faramir is standing. Or, it could be read as a simple psychological ritualization of wondering "where the Sun goes" when it passes West each night, mysteries uncounted, unexplained and far away, the suggestion of their own smallness and the relative 'bigness' of the world (and beyond!). I'm sure there are other ways to read it and probably most of them are more erudite than those my own coffee-soaked brain comes up with. Tolkien suggests something beyond Elvenhome and only gives us a glimpse through a long held custom, thus, even in the sub-created reality, there is the remove of "it is said," rather than a direct revealed Truth. (The sayer, however, is linked back to the old and noble Numenorian race, thus giving his words the force of history in the eyes of one who listens to him). This, I think, gives the reader lots of freedom to interpret and does not necessitate the reader identify Eru explicitly, but Tolkien does place Him as a concept in Middle Earth, explicitly in other writings. So, Eru is intended in a certain way, but not forced through authorial heavy-handedness in the text of The Lord of the Rings.

Personally, the reduction of transcendent and metaphysical concepts to psychological ones is frightening to me, threatening to pull ALL reality inside my own limited brain and reducing my worldview to sadly solipsistic in nature, but then, that's my own view, and perhaps that of some others in the world. Maybe that is why we argue against it, because we do not wish it to be. (I am no psychologist, but I would think proving something true or false in that realm to be tricky at best and the results to be statistically scattered, rather than absolute.)

The concept that one thing can be proven False because another is True does not ring 'true' with me (except in the very fine logical true/false way for simple tests against an arbitrary standard), and I think many interpretations can be made of Tolkien's work, even beyond what he intended in his initial writing of it, but the fact that they are interpretations does not remove the truth from them, but merely removes them from authorial 'canon,' if you will and along that long string of communication towards the reader. I hope that made sense!

Cheers!
Lyta

[The Saucepan Man]

But Lyta, isn't there a difference between accepting the metaphysical elements contained expressly or impliedly within the Tolkien's stories (such as LotR) and accepting the metaphysical implications of his theories (such as that expressed in OFT)? I would say that we have to accept the former as part of the story if we are to accept the story itself, while we are free to reject the latter without rejecting the story.

[Aiwendil]

Davem:

I think that, on anything like a traditional interpretation of Christian theology and Greek mythology, the two would have quite different conceptions of the term "God".

But the whole Christian/Jew/Pagan thing is quite beside the point (and consequently not worth arguing about). I was simply making an analogy. You can take it or leave it; I don't care.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

Hmm. Is the sum of this and your Christian/Jew analogy all to say that you believe in God (in the broadest possible sense of that word) -- but only as a set of psychological principles? I admit that I am still confused.

I'm not sure what it could mean to believe in God as a set of psychological principles. But I honestly don't think that my own beliefs (or lack thereof) have very much to do with Tolkien. All that I meant to say is that if you read "On Faery Stories" with my definitions of Faerie and Enchantment and Truth (i.e. that they are psychologically important concepts) then I think you get quite a sensible theory.