Seems Like Someone's Rooting for the Wrong Side

[the guy who be short]

First, a defence of moral relativism:

1) Raynor, you don't explain your contradictions. However, I presume the first works as follows. The statements "no moral system is better than another" and "moral relativism is the only logical moral system" contradict one another.

In reponse to this, moral relativism is not a moral system, it is amoral. It does not say "this is good, this is bad, live your life by these rules." It says "good and bad do not exist, they are unnatural fabrications of the human mind enforced by society."

2)

if there is no single standard to judge the value of a proposition, then even moral relativism has its limits and it naturally implies that other standards, contradicting moral relativism, are true as well.

Again, moral relativism is not a morality system.

To relate this to Tolkien:

Viewed from a morally relative, or amoral, perspective, I see no objective evil in supporting evil characters. It's all in the minds of those who are offended.

[Thenamir]

Viewed from a morally relative, or amoral, perspective, I see no objective evil in supporting evil characters. It's all in the minds of those who are offended.

A genuinely curious question -- since you use the phrase in your explanation, would you mind defining "objective evil" from an amoral perspective?

[Lalwendë]

An observation: I'm chucking to myself how the debate seems to have subtly shifted away from people criticising those who just get some fun out of supporting the bad guys into criticising those who take the bad guys as an inspiration for sociopathy. Quite a different thing, and I'd venture to say you're as likely to find someone inspired to acts of sociopathy inspired by Tolkien's bad guys as you are to find a Leprechaun. And nobody would disagree that sociopathic behaviour is bad. Of course, saying that someone who is just into the bad guys and gets some fun out of it is evil or immoral, is actually quite rude to a lot of Downs members, who we know are decent people.

Originally Posted by Raynor

Frankly, moral relativism has no logical standing in a debate.

On the contrary. It takes centre stage in such a debate as this where we are criticising our fellow Downers for liking the bad guys and finding them entertaining (or that's the way it started anyway before the U turn!). Standing back and asking What Is Morality is vital where we are throwing around insults at decent people and casting aspersions on their moral fibre and character.

I aint going to judge others by anyone else's standards, only by my own. I won't be told who to like and who to mark down as 'immoral'.

Sorry but the thought just occurred to me that the point of this whole thread is supremely dodgy! The cheek of it! Why should anyone tell me or anyone else which characters we should like and which we should dislike?!

Can we not get on to looking at the much more fruitful question of why people like bad guys rather than offending people any further?

[Thenamir]

Lal, I truly mean no offense, but either you are missing our points entirely, or you are deliberately ignoring our patient attempts to explain ourselves, twisting our efforts into straw men easier to knock down.

Nowhere have I said nor implied that Tolkien's bad guys inspire people to sociopathy, and I don't think that's the point of the other posters here. The reverse is our real point, that there are sociopaths and near-sociopaths (by far the tiny minority of readers) who empathize with Tolkien's bad guys because those characters are evil.

If you are going to debate these matters, please do us the kindness of actually reading what we're saying.

[Lalwendë]

Here's the thing though. It's not being said that "there are loads of people who like the bad guys and get some fun from them, and tiny, ridiculously small percentage of those might be borderline sociopaths". That would be OK. It's being said that "if you like the bad guys then that suggests you're bit fishy to me".

That's just plain not nice. Nor is it fair.

Aside from anything else, is there any balance provided by looking at the equally tiny number of loons who are into Hobbits or Elves? Not all of them will be 100% nice either. Being into the bad guys is not a 'marker' of someone to avoid.

So anyway...you agree that just because Johnny or Susan think Orcs are fun and likes to write evil characters in RPGs or maybe habitually goes to conventions dressed as the Witch King or has a Balrog theme on their profile or likes to wind up Elf-heads by acting the minion, it does not mean they are immoral or evil?

[davem]

Of course, the underlying assumption seems to be that good & evil in M-e correspond exactly to good & evil in our world. Yet the morality of M-e is Tolkien's morality. Good & evil in M-e are what Tolkien says they are. But the reader's moral value system may not correspond to Tolkien's - & why should it? Why should the reader simply accept that what Tolkien claims is 'good' is actually 'good' - at least as far as the Primary world is concerned? Tolkien may be the 'God' of M-e (ie the creator & to some extent the sustainer), but in the primary world Tolkien is a man with his own values.

The reader has a right to hold to their own sense of good & evil & apply it to the world of M-e - if they choose to take that approach to the story. If the reader prefers the 'evil' characters over the 'good' that is simply their take on things.

It seems to me that there are those whose moral value system corresponds more or less exactly with Tolkien's own & who therefore feel that they can sit in judgement on the moral value system of other readers. One may love Tolkien's creation, his style, his inventiveness, be fascinated by his languages, his creativity, admire the dedication required in producing what he did. But...

One does not have to accept his position on good & evil. One can take any approach, side with any character. To think Sauron was cool & Frodo was a jerk loser is fine & neither better nor worse morally than to hold the opposite view. To think Sauron is cool does not imply one thinks Hitler was cool. A reader who cheered when Morgoth's hordes obliterated Gondolin would not necessarily have cheered when the Twin Towers came down. One may find Sauron cool & not feel Hitler was cool because Sauron & Hitler are not the same - one is a character in a story while the other was a sick & evil human being & Gondolin is not New York.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by the guy who be short

moral relativism is not a moral system, it is amoral. It does not say "this is good, this is bad, live your life by these rules." It says "good and bad do not exist, they are unnatural fabrications of the human mind enforced by society."

Moral relativism is all fine and dandy, until we get to the hard stuff. There are certain horrors and degradations of human behaviour that simply cross cultural boundaries. And this is even more true in Tolkien's world, where evil acts with a mythological-level power.

If the only people who disagree that <<delighting in evil is immoral>> are the same people who consider that <<there is nothing wrong, evil, or immoral about rape, or unnecessary harm, or Melkorian-style nihilism>>, then, frankly, I will happily rest my case.

If it is only all the other people [the ones who consider that <<rape, or unnecessary harm, or Melkorian-style nihilism are wrong, evil, immoral, in and of themselvs>>] agree that delighting in evil is immoral, then I am satisfied. I need not go any further than that.

Originally Posted by Lal

Standing back and asking What Is Morality is vital where we are throwing around insults at decent people and casting aspersions on their moral fibre and character.

Why are you trying so hard to twist arguments about ideas into arguments about persons? No single person has been targeted, only ideas. If a general moral judgement is true, then uttering it is not an insult, so please don't make it look so.

This whole discussion has started when you claimed that there is nothing wrong with liking bad guys because they are fictional. If you make this statement in an open debate, then you must be ready to have it challenged.

The curiosity of this is that, as pointed previously, you implied the existence of an absolute moral value: "it's definitely wrong to say they are wrong for that as it's a free choice." and "We don't fail to see that at all [that "good" is good for all"], but when confronted, you resort to an argument that "there isn't in fact an absolute moral scale", which denies the previous "ok". Unless you qualify your statement as a purely personal position, then it can only be naturally read as presuming an absolute morality. I hope you see the contradiction.

Originally Posted by Lal

you agree that just because Johnny or Susan think Orcs are fun and likes to write evil characters in RPGs or maybe habitually goes to conventions dressed as the Witch King or has a Balrog theme on their profile or likes to wind up Elf-heads by acting the minion, it does not mean they are immoral or evil?

Please qualify your statements. Do they think that orcs can sometimes make jokes or do they think destruction done by the orcs is fun? Do they dress as the witch-king because such clothes are trendy (or whatever adjective, or whatever reason) or because they believe that (almost) irredeemable allegiance to evil is acceptable? I don't understand your last refference to make a comment on it.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Why are you trying so hard to twist arguments about ideas into arguments about persons? No single person has been targeted, only ideas. If a general moral judgement is true, then uttering it is not an insult, so please don't make it look so.

A person's ideas are very personal to them. What you fail to take in is that by saying if a person likes the bad guys in a book that they are immoral you are INSULTING them. And I personally thought that kind of thing was not allowed on here. All I want to do is to defend those Downers who I personally know are decent people and are anything BUT immoral who happen to like one or two of the bad guys. There is NOTHING wrong in what they do.



I'm afraid I want no more part of this. It's offensive, frankly. I will not 'justify', 'prove', 'qualify' or otherwise anything I have said because I am simply defending the right of people not to be insulted for the things in Tolkien which they personally find entertaining.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Lal

I will not 'justify', 'prove', 'qualify' or otherwise anything I have said because I am simply defending the right of people not to be insulted for the things in Tolkien which they personally find entertaining.

Simply because a person has a choice does not make that particular choice moral. If that choice is not moral, then simply stating the truth is not in itself an insult.

If you refuse to qualify your statements and clarify contradictions between your posts, then I guess discussion is indeed impossible.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I'm afraid I want no more part of this. It's offensive, frankly. I will not 'justify', 'prove', 'qualify' or otherwise anything I have said because I am simply defending the right of people not to be insulted for the things in Tolkien which they personally find entertaining.

Oooh, umbrage and high dudgeon. Isn't that the last resort of those left without a leg to stand on?

I still think it would be valuable to consider where Tolkien put the dramatic action, whose decisions he described, how he presented the choices available in Middle-earth.

We don't have to accept his moral vision, but far more interesting than saying anything goes or you're bad if you like orcs is the aesthetic question of what he choose to highlight.

In giving the main focus to the choices and travails of the heroes, without developing the baddies to any large extent, without making them as attractive, as, say, the Byronic heroes were attractive, was Tolkien in fact creating a situation in which the very unwritten parts, the unstated possibilities, in fact create a situation which, likely, Tolkien wished to avoid, that is, an imaginative and dramatic interest in the baddies.

Would we all be as interested in balrog wings if Tolkien had been more direct? I don't think so. So, all this interest in Sauron and Melkor and orcs and Saruman, is it in fact created by Tolkien's avoidance of extensive description of evil. Is this a pursuable line of discussion?

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

In giving the main focus to the choices and travails of the heroes, without developing the baddies to any large extent, without making them as attractive, as, say, the Byronic heroes were attractive, was Tolkien in fact creating a situation in which the very unwritten parts, the unstated possibilities, in fact create a situation which, likely, Tolkien wished to avoid, that is, an imaginative and dramatic interest in the baddies.

Would we all be as interested in balrog wings if Tolkien had been more direct? I don't think so. So, all this interest in Sauron and Melkor and orcs and Saruman, is it in fact created by Tolkien's avoidance of extensive description of evil. Is this a pursuable line of discussion?

I agree; I previously answered to one of davem's post that we can hardly be impressed by the might and splendour of Melkor, since Tolkien dedicates very little space to that.

I would say that Tolkien definitely saw displaying of majesty/power as morally wrong; it was an error for the valar to manifest themselves in majesty fully revealed to bring the elves to Aman; fully revealed power was also forbidden to the Istari; Melkor himself has shown himself in a most majestic form to corrupt Men. I believe there is a theme at play.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by Raynor

I agree; I previously answered to one of davem's post that we can hardly be impressed by the might and splendour of Melkor, since Tolkien dedicates very little space to that.

I disagree with you here. You may not spend a lot of time describing, say, a mountain, yet when you actually see one, it is a splendid sight. That said, I take your point that the Tolkiens may not have wanted that to be a focal point except where it is needed to show valour in other characters. Melkor's might is expressed more in his battle with Fingolfin so that the elven king's fall seems all the more wondrous, given that he wounds the great creature.

[Formendacil]

The thought occurs to me that if one is going to take readers to task for a certain fascination with the evil characters, then one should perhaps berate Tolkien himself for the same reason. After all, if he could invent such compelling evil characters (instead of just the bare minimum of evil bad guy needed for some conflict), then perhaps he deserves as much censure as those who have readerly interest in those characters. After all, Tolkien very often portrays the "good guys" in a poor light, and occasionally gives reasons to sympathise with utterly abhorrent characters.

Perhaps the professor had a soft spot for evil domination himself. It would probably have solved so many of his problems.

[Lalwendë]

Not at all Bb. I am genuinely offended by what Raynor is implying about many good people on here and see no value in continuing such unpleasant discussion while it will be insulting other people. It isn't nice, is it, to be associated with rapists, Stalin, Hitler and other nasties? It brings to mind the similar offence caused by ANOther thread we all know about. One of my good pals here, who I can personally vouch for as being a great guy (and he knows who he is if he reads this) keeps telling us about his replica of Angband in his cellar. Yeah, he's evil he is. Riiiiiiiiiight.

But that's my last word on that. And I will not be drawn on it, thank you very much.

And anyway I shall let you off Bb because you're trying to do what I've tried to do more'n a few times which is draw this thread out of the poison and into more interesting light.

I shall see if it goes on that way before deciding whether to bother any more.

[The Saucepan Man]

Just an observation, but I hope that it might take the sting out of this thread. It looks to me like there is a certain amount of talking at cross-purposes going on here.

As far as I can see, no one arguing that delighting in evil is immoral has sought to suggest that any member of the Barrow Downs is immoral. Nor, as I see it, have they sought to imply as much by suggesting that having a light-hearted “crush” on Wormtongue or building a replica of Angband, or any other such weird and wonderful things that a Downer might do, is immoral. Their case, as I understand it, is that those who take a delight in the deeds of Tolkien’s evil characters, who genuinely find their intent and purpose, as depicted by Tolkien, laudable, is an approach lacking in morality. That, it seems to me, is a proposition which may be discussed without anyone taking offence, save for those falling within that category. And I seriously doubt that anyone who would wish to spend any significant amount of time on the Downs would fall within that category.

Similarly, I do not understand those who are arguing that it is justifiable to find the evil characters interesting, or to have a bit of fun with them (for example, to dress up as the Witch King or write an evil character in an RPG), to be seeking to suggest that the deeds and purposes of those characters, as depicted by Tolkien, are morally acceptable. Their case, as I understand it, is that academic, literary or merely light-hearted interest in the evil characters does not denote sociopathy or immorality.

If my understanding of both positions is correct, then it seems to me that they are largely, if not wholly, reconcilable, and I am really not sure what this argument has been about at all. I would therefore counsel taking the diversion offered up by Bêthberry, rather than continuing it.

[Thenamir]

We have been discussing these characters in somewhat of a vacuum. Tolkien was not silent about these tragic heroes. Let us examine what Tolkien chose to highlight about the subjects to which we refer. Pay attention, there will be a test afterwards.

Morgoth:

From splendour he fell through arrogance to contempt for all things save himself, a spirit wasteful and pitiless. Understanding he turned to subtlety in perverting to his own will all that he would use, until he became a liar without shame. He began with the desire of Light, but when he could not possess it for himself alone, he descended through fire and wrath into a great burning, down into Darkness. And darkness he used most in his evil works upon Arda, and filled it with fear for all living things.

In the powers and knowledge of all the other Valar he had part, but he turned them to evil purposes, and squandered his strength in violence and tyranny. For he coveted Arda and all that was in it, desiring the kingship of Manwë and dominion over the realms of his peers.

But he desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and Men, envying the gifts with which Ilúvatar promised to endow them; and he wished himself to have subject and servants, and to be called Lord, and to be a master over other wills.

Then Melkor saw what was done, and that the Valar walked on Earth as powers visible, clad in the raiment of the World, and were lovely and glorious to see, and blissful, and that the Earth was becoming as a garden for their delight, for its turmoils were subdued. His envy grew then the greater within him; and he also took visible form, but because of his mood and the malice that burned in him that form was dark and terrible. And he descended upon Arda in power and majesty greater than any other of the Valar, as a mountain that wades in the sea and has its head above the clouds and is clad in ice and crowned with smoke and fire; and the light of the eyes of Melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold.

But ever the Noldor feared most the treachery of those of their own kin, who had been thralls in Angband; for Morgoth used some of these for his evil purposes, and feigning to give them liberty sent them abroad, but their wills were chained to his, and they strayed only to come back to him again.

But in the north Melkor built his strength, and he slept not, but watched, and laboured; and the evil things that he had perverted walked abroad, and the dark and slumbering woods were haunted by monsters and shapes of dread...And in that dark time Melkor bred many other monsters of divers shapes and kinds that long troubled the world...

...all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes.

...he [Manwë] saw not to the depths of Melkor’s heart, and did not perceive that all love had departed from him for ever.

...Then Melkor lusted for the Silmarils, and the very memory of their radiance was a gnawing fire in his heart. From that time forth, inflamed by this desire, he sought ever more eagerly how he should destroy Fëanor and end the friendship of the Valar and the Elves; but he dissembled his purposes with cunning, and nothing of his malice could yet be seen in the semblance that he wore. Long was he at work, and slow at first and barren was his labour. But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead.

[Quote]...Thus with lies and evil whisperings and false counsel Melkor kindled the hearts of the Noldor to strife; and of their quarrels came at length the end of the high days of Valinor

and the evening of its ancient glory.

Sauron:

Among those of his servants that have names the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron, or Gorthaur the Cruel. In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself. But in after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void.

...Sauron, greatest and most terrible of the servants of Morgoth, who in the Sindarin tongue was named Gorthaur, came against Orodreth, the warden of the tower upon Tol Sirion. Sauron was become now a sorcerer of dreadful power, master of shadows and of phantoms, foul in wisdom, cruel in strength, misshaping what he touched, twisting what he ruled, lord of werewolves; his dominion was torment.

So, now, let's review. Even for Lalwendë who has her fingers in her ears and isn't listening anymore.

• Arrogant and contemptful of everything except themselves
• Liars without shame
• Selfish in the extreme
• Use fear and intimidation to dominate other wills
• Turn good things to evil purposes
• Usurpers of the rightful realms of others
• Coveting everything for themselves
• Appear in dark and terrible forms
• Tortured, maimed, killed, enslaved, perverted the elves
• Completely loveless
• Envious, jealous and bitter
• Ever striving to insert strife and dissent
• Cunning dissemblers and deceivers
• Instrumental in the downfall of Numenor and the consequent deaths of almost an entire race
• And in the end complete losers and failures.

Yep. Darn fine upstanding citizens, role models for people of all ages, inspirations to generations of Tolkien fans the world over, marks of excellence that we should all strive to achieve. I can only hope my children read and learn from these great heroes of Middle Earth.

Is it possible that some may understand why we might feel a little uneasy around those who uphold these characters as the "good guys"?