Absolutely Evil

[Kuruharan]

We squirm in perfect cages.

I don't think anybody certainly identifiable has ever been in a situation of perfection to test this particular proposition of yours. If anybody ever has been, undoubtedly everybody around them thought they were distressingly boring and did not want to pay any attention to them.

Like Tolkien's humans, we're travellers, never happy with the status quo.

Yes.

Striving for the impossible means that you'll never run out of something to work toward. Why bother doing anything if you already have everything?

I've heard somewhere that perfection can only be experienced in an ending. Perhaps this is the reason why.

Adam and Eve experienced perfection and were dissatisfied, defying the only law they had.

-and-

And in that case, men were dissatisfied with perfection, and tested it.

*Sticking self about as far out on limb as self probably should go*

One could probably argue that in this case the imperfection lay within themselves in their inability to be content rather than in their environment.

Indeed, lack of contentment seems to lead to all kinds of trouble...look at Melkor, Feanor, the Noldor in general, the Numenoreans... *drags topic back to Tolkien where it will hopefully remain*

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

But surely 'Perfect' is Perfect & cannot be bettered. Perfect implies absence of any flaws. If a thing can be bettered it is not perfect. And if we are speaking of something made/concieved by a perfect being surely the thing should be beyond improvement?

Again, I don't see why this need be so. I've even given an example where, in myh opinion (and, I'd venture to say, the opinion of a number of musical scholars), one work can be both greater and more imperfect than another. I think that Tolkien would say that Arda Healed is not an "improvement" upon Arda Unmarred; it's a different thing, and greater - even if Arda Unmarred would have been "perfect"

Mozart's 41st is just about perfect as a Classical symphony. Beethoven's 5th is perhaps not perfect, but is more than a Classical symphony.

To take an example closer to home, as it were, I think a great many people feel the Silmarillion is a greater work than LotR, despite the fact that it is obviously more imperfect.

As to the quotes you gave re: Arda Envinyantar - these are only Elvish speculations or hopes, it seems to me, & therefore we cannot necessarily take them as 'facts'.

It certainly seems to me that Tolkien is speaking through Finrod's mouth - I would be very surprised indeed to discover evidence that Tolkien's views on the theology of Arda differed from Finrod's.

But in any case the first bit I quoted is spoken not by an Elf but by Manwe himself!

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I don't think anybody certainly identifiable has ever been in a situation of perfection to test this particular proposition of yours. If anybody ever has been, undoubtedly everybody around them thought they were distressingly boring and did not want to pay any attention to them.

God. Why would an infinite god require anything such as beings whose lot it is to continually praise him? Think that I asked this before, and will most likely get the same responses (prescient I am). Lucky us that Eru decided to create Arda, to not only to relieve its own boredom but also so that we have this forum.

I've heard somewhere that perfection can only be experienced in an ending. Perhaps this is the reason why.

Perfectly dead? Meaning stasis - no change? Is that why the elves were thought to be more perfect then the Second Born, who seemingly just couldn't find contentment within Arda?

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Striving for the impossible means that you'll never run out of something to work toward. Why bother doing anything if you already have everything?

This reminds me of a teammate (co-ed) whom I wouldn't date even though she thought herself 'all that.' She would routinely look herself up and down and state, "What's not to like?"

[davem]

I think the point is that people are seeing 'perfection' as equalling stasis. This is clearly not necessary. A sunset may be 'perfect' but it is a process rather than a 'moment'. You could have a perfect world which involved change, process, without the presence of evil in it. As I said earlier: 'Variety would still exist - colours, shapes, textures, tastes, even sadness & happiness (not all tears are an evil).'

The mistake is to believe that evil is necessary in order for there to be interesting or challenging events. As Bilbo said 'In every wood, in every spring, there is a different green'. Men are fated to be restless in Arda, always looking for something else, but while this may lead some of them into 'sin' sin, in & of itself is not the only response. Men may be seduced into evil acts but they don't have to be. We all do lots of different things to fill our days, but how many of those things are 'evil'? Most of actually do a variety of 'good' or 'neutral' things most of the time. We could all do 'good' things all of the time (or at least neutral things most of the time) if we chose.

I find the idea that evil is necessary because pure good would be boring to be a very dangerous concept....Melkorian, if you will.

[Kuruharan]

God. Why would an infinite god require anything such as beings whose lot it is to continually praise him?

*cough* I believe I said "certainly identifiable." I was thinking more along the lines of identifiable humans where there is at least some possibility of comprehending of what is going on rather than probing the unanswerable that is beyond understanding.

Perfectly dead?

Well, I suppose when you are...you probably are.

Unfortunately, I don't remember the line of reasoning used at the time. I wasn't really paying that much attention and it was a number of years ago. It was just that particular line that stuck in my brain.

I think the point is that people are seeing 'perfection' as equalling stasis. This is clearly not necessary.

-and-

The mistake is to believe that evil is necessary in order for there to be interesting or challenging events.

Hear, hear!!

[Boromir88]

Wow, very interesting discussion this has led to.

It seems like what this all comes down to, and why there can be no "absolute evil," is because good can survive without the existance of evil, but evil cannot survive without the existance of good.

Since evil, is a "rebelling against good," then there must be good for evil to exist. Society can deem "good" to be whatever it wants, and evil would be the "striving against good" or the "rebelling against it." Which means there can be no "absolute evil," since that would mean there is no good, and evil cannot exist without good.

[Legolas]

I'd agree with your last post. I suppose that 'absolute' means evil through and through, from start to finish (or at least, if it has no start, the first signs of its appearance in retrospect).

The idea of 'absolute evil' in Tolkien's world - and likewise, the Christian world - seems impossible because existence (and everything within) has its origin in something that is the antithesis of evil...evil comes out of defying the perfect Creator of all things. Everything within Eru's universe, despite having freewill, has some ultimate good from the beginning simply by its roots in Eru (whether through direct creation - man and elf - or subcreation - dwarf). An "absolute evil" being would have to be a self-existent being, not a created being. But then who is this self-existent being rebelling against? What good is it defying?

What is worth looking for (and in fact, I find it) is a turn towards absolute evil. That is, a decision to turn to evil permanently for evil's sake (simply to defy good).

As I stated in my first post, I have been on the subject of Paradise Lost in my British literature class. I find Milton's Satan to be much like Tolkien's Morgoth and Sauron. Melkor and Lucifer are, in their beginnings, the 'highest' of their kind under Eru/God. However, in time (or outside of time), Manwe and the Messiah are given reign over what Lucifer and Melkor expected or sought dominion over.

On Melkor's desire to be God, and Sauron's following closely (The Silmarillion):

And he feigned, even to himself at first, that he desired to go thither and order all things for the good of the Children of Ilúvatar, controlling the turmoils of the heat and the cold that had come to pass through him. 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.

For he coveted Arda and all that was in it, desiring the kingship of Manwë and dominion over the realms of his peers.

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.

Thinking that they've been treated unfairly, Lucifer and Melkor seek to oust the Messiah/Manwe and ultimately God/Eru with the thought that they are worthy of holding such a position (by self-deception). They have been done no real injustice. Abdiel even points out to Satan that the angels have been done a favor by God's granting reign over them to the Messiah. C.S. Lewis wrote of Milton's Lucifer:

No one had in fact done anything to Satan; he was not hungry, nor over-tasked, nor removed from his place, nor shunned, nor hated - he only thought himself impaired. In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige.

In the opening of Paradise Lost, Satan recounts the reason for his rebellion - "And high disdain from sense of injured merit / That with the Mightiest raised me to contend" (1.98-99). It occurs to me that this 'sense of injured merit' is also what Morgoth and Sauron would cite as their source of suffering and motivation to rebel.

Upon unsuccessful struggles against the One - the Vice Regent and his allies - Morgoth and Sauron turn to the same attack that Satan uses: to mar his Creation. Satan, finding himself in his fallen state, holds a council with his army. They conclude that "some advantageous act may be achieved / by sudden onset, either with Hell fire? / To waste His whole creation” (2.263-265). Lewis noted the cowardice involved in this resolve - it is "only to annoy the Enemy which he cannot directly attack." I can't help recalling Sauron's acts in Numenor, leading them away from their explicit worship of Eru (which lasted until Aragorn's reign).

Satan proclaims his turn to permanent evil - "But ever to do ill our sole delight, / As being the contrary to His high will / Whom we resist” (1.160-163). Why not repent and return to God? Satan could have, and under Manwe and Eru, we know that Morgoth was eligible for repentance as he "could not be enslaved, or denied his part." Satan, with his 'sense of injured merit,' tries to convince himself that he is better off: “The mind is its own place and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven” (1.254-255) and “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” (1.263).

I wrote some loosely related thoughts on this thread.

[alatar]

While listening to FotR this morning, I walked with the Hobbits as the entered the Old Forest. The trees therein, as we know, did not take too kindly to our adventurers and so did what they could to hinder the Hobbits' steps. Eventually the trees steer the four down to the Withywindle where Old Man Willow lay in wait.

In Middle Earth we have the forces for good (Gandalf, Galadriel, Frodo, etc), the Enemy (Morgoth, Sauron, the Witch-King, the Wights, etc) and here the trees with Old Man Willow presumably as their leader or at least the first among them. Which side is the willow on? As Treebeard will state later in TTT, he and the trees aren't on anyone's side as no one is wholly on their side. Is there a third side, neither good nor evil, but benign until threatened, then attacking like a cornered animal?

Or did some taint enter the trees from the Void, siding them with the Enemy?

[Kuruharan]

I think Old Man Willow was malignant. In that sense, he was on the Morgoth/Sauron side. However, like Treebeard he didn't really work in anybody else's interest than his own.

Maybe a comparison with Shelob is appropriate here as well.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I think Old Man Willow was malignant. In that sense, he was on the Morgoth/Sauron side. However, like Treebeard he didn't really work in anybody else's interest than his own.

Maybe a comparison with Shelob is appropriate here as well.

So there is good, bad and rogue?

Would then Bombadil be rogue-good?

[Kuruharan]

Would then Bombadil be rogue-good?

Hmmm...Bravo!! I think we now have a new answer to the "Who was Bombadil?" question.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by alatar

So there is good, bad and rogue?

I know that I'm probably destroying my own argument for lack of absolutes right now, but if you'll follow my perhaps fragmented line of thought, it should still work out.

Good is generally considered that which is best for the society. Bad usually manifests in the form of that which is best for the individual at the cost of the society. So if bad is usually something done for one's own good, you don't have any individual rogue so much as a bunch of them under the wide umbrella of "not-good." You still just have good and bad.

And I'm just pretending Bombadil isn't there, for anybody interested.

[Kuruharan]

What?

It sounds like you are providing a justification for characters like Shelob and Bombadil to fall under the categorizations of Good and Evil...but then telling us you reasoned this out by pretending Bombadil wasn't there.

I'm...confused.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I'm...confused.

Fewwww! Thought that it was just me. Sorry, FotP, but I have no clue as to your post. A rogue post, perhaps?