LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 09 - Flotsam and Jetsam

[The Saucepan Man]

... to correct a possible misapprehension.

Originally Posted by Encaitare

It's like SpM's sig: "Everyone always complains about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it." We feel like we, as the dominant race, ought to have full control over our environment.

Although it might have originally been intended that way (it is attributed, I believe to Mark Twain), my own reading of my sig is the opposite. We all complain about the weather, but (despite big words) there seem to be few concerted efforts to mitigate the potentially disastrous consequences of our effect on it.

While I am not totally sold on the prophecies of doom in connction with global warming (as the evidence goes both ways), it is certainly food for thought. And davem's comments about this Chapter and what it has to say on the issue also provides food for thought.

[Encaitare]

We all complain about the weather, but (despite big words) there seem to be few concerted efforts to mitigate the potentially disastrous consequences of our effect on it.

Hmm.. different interpretations, completely different meanings. I took it to mean that we're control freaks; it seems you take it to mean that in this case we're just apathetic or ignorant. Do correct me if I'm wrong!

I didn't even get it exactly right, either... that's what I get for being lazy and going by memory.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem -

What a great post! When I read this chapter (and a number of others as well) similar thoughts have crossed my mind.

Does that mean there's something of Saruman in us, in our own worship of the Machine & our contempt for the natural world?

I'm of two minds on this. I would like to say no, but I am leaning towards a yes. Still things aren't totally one-sided.

Believe me when I tell you that it used to be even worse than it is today at least in terms of awareness of the kind of danger a Saruman poses. Back in the 50s except for lone voices crying out (and Tolkien was one of a scant few in literary/academic circles) most people were simply unaware of the extent of ecological damage. If there was one aspect of the books that attracted 'sixties college students, it was the sense that Middle-earth was a living, breathing world and the author cared about what happened to it. That seemed so different than what was going on at the time.

In many respects things have improved. There are laws on the books for one thing. Not perfect ones but better than nothing. There are groups trying to protect what's still there, and some species have actually fared better than in the past. Yet, at the same time, the areas of green continue to shrink, acres of rain forests are being burnt to the ground every day, and the list of endangered species grows. Many places of sanctuary I knew when I was a kid have been taken over by cement, something I personally lament.

I know these questions are complex: it's not always so open and shut. How can someone from an industrialized country that's been blessed with comparative wealth look 'poorer' countries in the eye and demand that they wait and find another way that is 'less exploitive'? Sometimes it seems easier just to follow a Saruman.

Sadly, then, I do think Saruman is alive and kicking. When I read LotR it's not Sauron who sends chills up my back. It's Saruman. I have trouble imagining a Sauron taking over things completely in our modern world. I have absolutely no problem imagining a Saruman or two or even more....in government, business, education, and a dozen other situations.

Tolkien was not the most optomistic man in the world, and I can empathize with that. Sometimes it seems that nothing will really change unless we transform our values. And what is the likelihood of that happening? But, if it doesn't happen, what a price there is to pay in the long run. We've already lost so much of the wonder, and every time we hack down a tree, I think we lose another piece. And that lesson is part of the tale Tolkien was weaving in this chapter.

[Lalwendë]

An angry Ent is terrifying. Their fingers, and their toes, just freeze onto rock; and they tear it up like bread-crust. It was like watching the work of great tree-roots in a hundred years, all packed into a few moments.

"They pushed, pulled, tore, shook, and hammered; and clang-bang, crash-crack, in five minutes they had these huge gates just lying in ruin; and some were already beginning to eat into the walls, like rabbits in a sand-pit.

I like how Tolkien has used some of the known effects of nature on the built environment, but depicted them 'speeded up', showing how the might of an organic structure can eventually destroy that which we have built and assumed to be solid and permanent. Anyone who has seen the effects of certain aggressive plant species (Virginia Creeper, Ground Elder, Bamboo etc.) which have mistakenly been brought into the urban environment will understand this. The description of the destruction also has echoes in how the effects of ice can erode and crumble rock. But it is the image of Ents eating the walls which is most disturbing!

Originally Posted by Child

Sadly, then, I do think Saruman is alive and kicking. When I read LotR it's not Sauron who sends chills up my back. It's Saruman. I have trouble imagining a Sauron taking over things completely in our modern world. I have absolutely no problem imagining a Saruman or two or even more....in government, business, education, and a dozen other situations.

I don't have trouble imagining a Sauron, though thankfully I can only think of one leader whose heart was so blackened he resembled Sauron. I think his evil is more of an absolute, symbolic evil (yet very real in terms of Middle Earth), the like of which is thankfully rare to find in our own world, certainly coupled with the power to realise that evil. The evil of Saruman is all around us however, in those who seek power within their own sphere of life, to 'empire build', to manipulate and take advantage. This is reflected in the text. We never physically 'meet' Sauron, but we do meet Saruman, as do many of the characters; he is very much 'real' and all the more frightening for it.

Is the ecological message of LotR still as strongly heard today as it was 30 years ago? Sometimes it seems that this message is not as important to readers as it once was, and I feel disappointed in that because it is more important then ever. So I feel encouraged when I read comments like this from Encaitare:

Originally Posted by Encaitare

We feel like we, as the dominant race, ought to have full control over our environment. What we forget is that there are older things than us inhabiting our world, and greater forces at work, and this was Saruman's mistake too.

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Quote: Encaitare:
Then again, half of them were quite mad


And quite drunk too...

And possibly taking large amounts of laudanum...

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by Child of the Seventh Age

Sadly, then, I do think Saruman is alive and kicking. When I read LotR it's not Sauron who sends chills up my back. It's Saruman. I have trouble imagining a Sauron taking over things completely in our modern world. I have absolutely no problem imagining a Saruman or two or even more....in government, business, education, and a dozen other situations.

...and in my own self. Unless, following Mr. Moody, 'constant vigilance' button is not turned 'on' most of the time.

Can not recall exact quote, but the whole Saruman/Sauron comparison reminded me of C.S.Lewis and Screwtape's advice. It ran along lines similar to the following: 'there is no need for great and spectacular sin to get sinner to our father below (i.e. Hell) - repeated practice of common everyday sins is sufficient'. And self-righteous confidence of "Surely, that's me who's doing things right" is the key to open the process up. (U.S. intelligence investing into Bin-Laden, German bourgeoisie backing up Hitler - paragons of 'means/ends' confusion, philosophy of 'we'll always be able to get rid of this unreliable partner later')

General flaw of human outlook. Let me set up my neighbour just once today. Not that good it will do him, but it will be profitable for me, and that's what counts, eh? Let me just have this new car today, and to heck with what happens to oil resources tomorrow. It extends to our own hröar even - part of nature, aren't they? Let me smoke and enjoy (my sad case here) this cigarette now, and to heck with what x-ray may show tomorrow as the black hole in the place I'm supposed to have lungs.

I definetely agree - we have mini-Saruman deep down inside. Or maybe not that deep, just one peel away. MiniSaruman, fruit of pride and arrogance not yet overwhelming to ripen Saurons, but enough to have [wo]man concentrating on his/herself and own wishes (not needs - what I want and what I need are often quite distinct things)

On a lighter side, it is not up my back and not exactly chills that take the route of sightseeing, but rather down the central channel of my spine chord (which, with reference to 'Dumbing Down' thread, luckily has no axe embedded into it yet (do office chairs count?)), and it's shivers rather...

[drigel]

HI
Sadly yes, I can attest that office chairs DO count
Though we may be taking this chapter's themes to a philosophical level unintended by the author, I second everyone's Saruman's point. We have had a Saruman with us since we harnessed fire, Im afraid.

But it does lead me to ponder.... The struggle you guys have eloquently expressed causes me to look at the ent/entwife struggle. Isnt their rift similar to the struggle described afore here? One side embracing the Sheparding of the land, the other embracing Nature, unmolested. The inevitability that those camps would part ways, never to join as one again... how sad....

[Child of the 7th Age]

The struggle you guys have eloquently expressed causes me to look at the ent/entwife struggle. Isnt their rift similar to the struggle described afore here? One side embracing the Sheparding of the land, the other embracing Nature, unmolested. The inevitability that those camps would part ways, never to join as one again? how sad....

Drigel

I am not sure if the contrast is that stark, although some may feel differently. At least I do not sense such a sharp dichotomy in my own mind and that of the author. Tolkien never seemed to have trouble accepting the fact that a landscape touched by man could have its own beauty. The prime example is the Shire. The problem lies not in the crafting of gardens but in a disregard for the needs of the earth.

I do think it's possible to live and have respect for the land yet still use it productively. The balance, of course, is subtle. Yet we are subcreators and part of that instinct could be reflected in someone like Sam who had a gift to protect and tend the earth.

Perhaps the problem with Ent and Entwife did not lay in the different pursuits they had chosen but rather in the lack of communication between them.