Aristotle’s insights about the importance of close relationships are strongly supported by contemporary social psychology. Studies show that people with intimate, supportive relationships tend to be both happier and healthier than those who lack such relationships.12 Studies show, for example, that
•The happiest university students are those who feel satisfied with their love life.
•Those who enjoy close relationships cope better with various stresses, including bereavement, job loss, and illness.
•College alumni who preferred a high income and occupational success to having very close friends and a close marriage were twice as likely as their former classmates to describe themselves as “fairly” or “very” unhappy.
•People report greater well-being if their friends and families support their goals by frequently expressing interest and offering help and encouragement.
•Asked, “What is necessary for your happiness?” most people mention—before anything else—satisfying close relationships with family, friends, or romantic partners.13
No doubt if some hobbit-Aristotle had written his or her own Nicomachean Ethics, the goods of friendship and connectedness would have featured at least as prominently as they do in Aristotle’s version.
4. Cultivate Good Character
In a draft letter to Peter Hastings, Tolkien remarks that one of his aims in writing The Lord of the Rings was “the encouragement of good morals” (L, p. 194). One way Tolkien tries to do this is by the traditional literary, moralistic, and prophetic device of linking happiness with good moral character.
With very few exceptions, happy characters in The Lord of the Rings are good and come to good ends, whereas unhappy characters are bad and come to bad ends. Think, for example, of Sam, Aragorn, Faramir,14 and Gandalf among the good characters, and Gollum, Saruman, Wormtongue, and Denethor among the bad. This pattern is not invariant: Aragorn’s mother, Gilraen, for example, suffers a premature and unhappy death (RK, p. 376). But for the most part, Tolkien’s Middle-earth is a conventional fairy-tale world in which the good guys slay the dragon and win the princess and the bad guys bite the dust.15
But is this fairy-tale world anything like our world? Isn’t ours a world in which “nice guys finish last” and a great many Sharkeys and Pimples wind up with most of the good beer and pipe-weed? Well, “not so hasty,” as Treebeard would say.
It is clear that, in this life at least, some happy people are not good and some good people are not happy. This shows, in philosophers’ lingo, that goodness is neither a “necessary” nor a “sufficient” condition for being happy. Nevertheless, as many philosophers and psychologists have noted, there is a strong causal connection between goodness and happiness.16
Flip back to page 50 in this chapter and look again at the factors researchers have found to be most strongly associated with lasting happiness. Notice that among these are “intimate and supportive relationships” and “a focus beyond the self.” Clearly, if you are a complete jerk, your chances of achieving these things will be practically nil. Humans, by nature, need to feel loved, respected, trusted, and appreciated. We need to feel as if we’re contributing to something larger than ourselves, that the world will be just a little bit better for our having lived. As Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of the best-selling book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, remarks,
Human beings have a need to be good. . . . Our human nature is such that we need to be helpful, thoughtful, and generous as much as we need to eat, sleep, and exercise. When we eat too much and exercise too little, we feel out of sorts. Even our personalities are affected. And when we become selfish and deceitful, it has the same effect. We become out of touch with our real selves; we forget what it feels like to feel good. . . . [O]nly a life of goodness and honesty leaves us feeling spiritually healthy and human.17
Hobbits didn’t need psychologists to tell them these truths; they knew them in their bones. And so do we, really. Sometimes we just need to be reminded.
5. Cherish and Create Beauty
Happiness and goodness are strongly linked in The Lord of the Rings. So too are happiness and beauty. Rivendell and Lothlórien (not to mention Eressëa, Númenor, and Gondolin) are places of light and great beauty. Mordor, Orthanc, and Minas Morgul, in contrast, are dark, barren, and ugly. Unhappy characters in the novel tend to be physically ugly (Sauron, Gollum, and the orcs), whereas happy characters tend to be strikingly beautiful (Arwen and Galadriel) or at least pleasant in appearance (Frodo and Faramir). Moreover, happy peoples in Tolkien’s writings are almost invariably described as artistic and creative. This is true of the elves, the immortals of Valinor, the Dúnedain of Númenor, and the mighty builders of Gondor in its prime. Even the rustic hobbits, we are told, have “long and skilful fingers” and can make many “useful and comely things” (FR, p. 2). In contrast, the orcs live in dark, ugly dwellings, wear filthy garments, eat vile food, and try to destroy beauty wherever they encounter it.
Tolkien is right: we need beauty in our lives. In our schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods, ugliness enervates and depresses, while beauty inspires and refreshes.
Tolkien is right, too, in seeing a connection between creativity and happiness. Often our happiest moments are periods of unself-conscious absorption that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow.”18 Such experiences, Csikszentmihalyi found, are particularly common in artists, dancers, writers, and others engaged in creative tasks. Creative people, says psychologist Abraham Maslow, are “all there, totally immersed, fascinated and absorbed in the present, in the current situation, in the here-now, with the matter-in-hand.”19
Why is it that humans (and hobbits and elves) have such a need for beauty and creativity in their lives? For Tolkien, as a Christian, the deepest explanation was theological: “we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”20 The Christian God creates the world, and as a creator, he is, in a real sense, an artist. According to this conception, all humans made in His likeness are also artists. We find happiness in beauty and creativity because we have our source in, and are ultimately oriented towards, Beauty and Creativity itself.
6. Rediscover Wonder
One of the happiest characters in The Lord of the Rings is undoubtedly Tom Bombadil. Completely absorbed in the natural history of the little realm he shares with Goldberry, fearing nothing, lacking nothing, Tom is a veritable fountain of jollity and mirth. Tolkien never tells us who or what Bombadil is. But in his letters Tolkien does explain that Bombadil has taken a kind of “vow of poverty” (L, p. 179). He has renounced all control, has “no desire of possession or domination” (L, p. 192), and takes delight in things for themselves, “because they are ‘other’ and wholly independent of the enquiring mind” (L, p. 192; italics omitted). So free of desire is Bombadil that the One Ring of Power itself has no hold on him.
The elves have a similar, but lesser, capacity to become absorbed in “the other.” They are, as Treebeard observes, “less interested in themselves than Men are, and better at getting inside other things” (TT, p. 70). As immortals, elves dwelling in Middle-earth are grieved by the flow of time (FR, p. 437) but do not easily succumb to ennui, or boredom. Unlike humans, who have a “quick satiety with good” (L, p. 344), elves have an almost endless appetite for poetry, songs, gazing at the stars, and walking in sunlit forests. Whereas humans see a beautiful sunset and say “ho-hum,” the elves see it with ever-fresh wonder and delight.
Here Tolkien is saying to us: Learn from the elves. Cultivate wonder, delight, freshness of vision. As poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman writes:
The world we take for granted wobbles with mysteries and sensory delights . . . Come to the window and look at all the marvels bustling through one slender moment: Lens-shaped clouds signaling high winds aloft. Roof shingles overlapping like pigeon feathers. A magnolia tree’s buds already burgeoning with fuzzy flower pods . . . Such is the texture
of life, the feel of being alive on this particular planet . . . When we pause to sense [such things], we become wonder-struck and experience a richly satisfying frame of mind that—for lack of a better word—we call joy.21
Frodo has a sensory reawakening of this sort when he arrives in Cerin Amroth, the heart of the ancient realm of Lothlórien. While his companions lie on the grass,
Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. . . . He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. (FR, p. 393)
And later, as he climbed a rope ladder up a tree, Frodo
laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder: never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and texture of a tree’s skin and of the life within it. He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself. (FR, p. 394)
In his neglected essay, “On Fairy-stories,” Tolkien calls this regaining of freshness of vision “recovery.” Recovery, in Tolkien’s sense, involves regaining a “clear view,” cleaning our windows so to speak, “so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness and familiarity.”22 It is thus a “return and renewal of health,”23 a healing of a spiritual blindness. And this healing, Tolkien believed, is one thing that fairy-tales and works of fantasy like The Lord of the Rings can do. By juxtaposing the enchanted with the familiar, the magical with the mundane, such works allow us to see the world with fresh eyes. Having encountered ents and towering mallorns, we forever see elms and beeches differently. The blue ocean and silver moon suddenly appear wondrous and strange. The green earth again becomes “a mighty matter of legend” (TT, p. 29). We pierce what C.S. Lewis calls “the veil of familiarity” and begin to see the world as elves see it: as miraculous and charged with the grandeur of Ilúvatar the Creator.
Tolkien: Fantasist and Philosopher
In the Foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien remarks that his prime motive in writing the book “was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them” (FR, p. ix). He certainly succeeds in this. But he also does much more. Through his portrayal of happy hobbits and elves and the strong, healthy communities they build, he becomes our philosophical guide, pointing us to ways of living and thinking and perceiving that can help us to lead richer, more joy-filled lives.24
_____________________
1 Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus,” in Whitney J. Oates, ed., The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers (New York: Modern Library, 1957), p. 32.
2 David G. Myers, The Pursuit of Happiness (New York: Avon, 1993), p. 206; and David G. Myers, “Research-Based Suggestions for a Happier Life,” online at www.davidmyers.org/happiness/research.html.
3 Myers, The Pursuit of Happiness, p. 41.
4 Henry David Thoreau, Walden, in Walter R. Harding, ed., The Selected Works of Thoreau (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), pp. 305, 247, 298.
5 Ibid., p. 304.
6 Olive Ireland Theen, “Grandfather’s Quaker Dozen,” in William Nichols, ed., A New Treasury of Words to Live By (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959), p. 218.
7 See St. Augustine, City of God, translated by Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1950), pp. 676–680; John Henry Newman, “Equanimity,” in Parochial and Plain Sermons (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), pp. 988–996.
8 See Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, in The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers, pp. 522–23; Epicurus, “Letter to Monoeceus,” pp. 30–31.
9 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 1155a10–25.
10 Ibid., 1169b10.
11 Ibid., 1155a5.
12 Myers, The Pursuit of Happiness, Chapters 8 and 9.
13 Ibid., pp. 149–150.
14 For many viewers, one of the most disappointing aspects of the Peter Jackson film version is the way in which Faramir is portrayed as a morally conflicted character. Readers who have seen the films but not read the books should be aware that in the books Faramir is unambiguously good.
15 Or at least this is true of the period covered in The Lord of the Rings, the end of the Third Age. The picture that emerges in The Silmarillion is distinctly darker and more tragic.
16 For a discussion of this issue, see Chapter 1 of this volume.
17 Kushner, When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough, pp. 180–81, 183.
18 Myers, The Pursuit of Happiness, pp. 132–33.
19 Quoted in ibid., p. 133.
20 J.R.R Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” in The Tolkien Reader (New York: Ballantine, 1966), p. 55.
21 Diane Ackerman, “Come to the Window and Look,” Parade Magazine, January 13, 2002, p. 4.
22 Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” p. 57.
23 Ibid.
24 My thanks to Joe Kraus, Tod Bassham, John Davenport, Abby Myers, Leanne Bush, Bill Irwin, David Ramsay Steele, and especially Eric Bronson for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.
5
The Quests of Sam and Gollum for the Happy Life
JORGE J.E. GRACIA
Tolkien’s heroes and anti-heroes are extraordinary beings. Think of Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White, the good and bad wizards who wield enormous magical powers; of Aragorn, a man greater than life and a king of old; and of the Dark Lord Sauron the Great, the very embodiment of evil. Even those who, like Bilbo and Frodo, are not quite extraordinary in themselves, are vested with unusual qualities by their heroic quests. As narrated in The Hobbit, Bilbo goes on to defeat Smaug, an evil dragon with plenty of resources and cunning. Frodo engages in the most difficult task that anyone could possibly undertake: the destruction of the Ring of Power coveted by Sauron. And at the end of the story the ultimate reward of both Bilbo and Frodo is to sail, in the company of Gandalf, on a ship into the Uttermost West (RK, p. 339). These are beings whose lives transcend ordinary bounds, and it is for this reason that it is difficult for us to learn anything from them that can directly apply to our lives. Yes, we accompany them in their quests, observe their difficulties, desires, and temptations, and approve or condemn their actions. But we do this only at a distance, for we are too removed from the reality in which they exist to understand fully what they are about, or to empathize with their successes and failures.
Not everyone in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has the same heroic stature, however. There are many characters that are closer to our size, and it is from them that we can more easily learn something suitable to our situation. They are good and bad in ordinary senses we can grasp, and their search for a happy life, whether successful or in vain, is also within our limited understanding. They are not wizards, kings, or mighty warriors; they are ordinary beings who succeed and fail, just like us, and who have to make do with ordinary resources. In particular, I have in mind two characters who are cut very much from our mold. They play key roles in Tolkien’s epic, but their roles are not heroic, and their qualities are made of a stuff to which we can relate. They are Sam Gamgee and Sméagol (also known as Gollum because of the peculiar noises he makes with his throat).
Of the two, Gollum is the more fascinating character. In director Peter Jackson’s New Line Cinema movies, Gollum is brought to life as an ugly but humane computer generated character, whose own psychology drives much of the plot. He represents the good gone bad, something which is always intriguing for those of us who are struggling to stay with the first. Sam represents the good that stays good even under temptation. Both Sam and Gollum want the same thing: to be happy. Both work hard at it. But only one of them succeeds: Sam reaches his goal and Gollum ends in disaster. Why? This is the momentous philosophical question, because it concerns the nature of the good life, the life of happiness. We need to answer i
t, because in answering it we can perhaps also learn something important about how to achieve happiness for ourselves.
Two of a Kind
Sam and Gollum present us with significant and useful contrasts and similarities because they share the same nature. If it is true that happiness depends on one’s nature, the kind of being one is—as Aristotle claimed—then it would not be very helpful to compare the happiness of beings that are naturally different. It would not make sense, for example, to compare how elves and wizards are happy, for it is quite possible that what makes them so are quite different things. But Sam and Gollum are both hobbits. The first came from the Shire and the second is descended from a branch of hobbit-kind “akin to the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors” (FR, p. 57).
But not only do they have the same hobbit nature, they also have a similar culture. True, Gollum has forgotten much of it as a result of his solitary lifestyle, and the Stoors lived a wilder and more primitive life than the hobbits from the Shire (L, p. 290), but the culture of both has the same roots. As Gandalf explains to Frodo when he is recounting the story of the original encounter between Bilbo and Gollum: “There was a great deal in the background of their minds and memories that was very similar. They understood one another remarkably well, very much better than a hobbit would understand, say, a Dwarf, or an Orc, or even an Elf” (FR, p. 59). When Bilbo runs into Gollum in the caves of the Misty Mountains, they both know how to engage in a game that was going to prove tragic for Gollum, the Riddle-game (H, pp. 73–80). Indeed, they both know the same riddles, and it is Bilbo who breaks the rules of the game by asking a question rather than posing a riddle when he runs out of ideas. Bilbo is pressed to challenge Gollum in order to escape: “What have I got in my pocket?” (H, p. 78) Gollum’s mistake, which he realizes when it is already too late, is to accept the question and to try to answer it. “Not a fair question. It cheated first, it did. It broke the rules” (FR, p. 63). Like the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gollum should have said that the question was not allowed by the rules, and therefore he was entitled to reject it. But once he accepted the question and tried to answer it, even though he demanded three guesses, which is unusual, he was bound by his promise. Gollum, like all hobbits, attaches great weight to riddle contests.
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy Page 7