The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy

by Gregory Bassham

  Even so, the teaching that history moves in a circle with all events eternally repeating themselves serves a couple of important purposes. First, it undermines the view that life has meaning. For, of course, that view becomes much less plausible if history is not progressing toward some cosmic climax. Second, one who sees eternity not as an otherworldly, pie-in-the-sky experience of heavenly bliss (or, alternatively, as a weeping-wailing-and-gnashing-of-teeth experience of hellish torment) but rather as the infinitely continuous recurrence of the events of this life cannot help but view the here-and-now differently. As Nietzsche writes:

  If this thought [of eternal recurrence] gained power over you it would, as you are now, transform and perhaps crush you; the question in all and everything: ‘do you want this again and again, times without number?’ would lie as the heaviest burden upon all your actions. Or how well disposed towards yourself and towards life would you have to become to have no greater desire than for this ultimate eternal sanction and seal?14

  So, by his lights, taking eternal recurrence seriously (if not literally) transforms one’s life by presenting one with a new standard by which to guide oneself.

  Übermensch: Man of Power

  To summarize the discussion of Nietzsche’s thought to this point: God is dead. Or, to put the point differently, we find ourselves unable to believe in God. Moreover, as God has died, so too have our innocence and naiveté. No divine revelation can distinguish good from evil for us; indeed, “good” and “evil” are interpretations that we assign to things, not actual features of the things themselves. The world, it turns out, is an ugly place filled with much suffering. If that suffering served some greater purpose, we might then be able to bear it. But, alas, it does not! For life is meaningless; we may create beauty to help us cope with this fact, but we cannot change it. History goes monotonously on and on, with the same series of events repeating itself over and over again. Or, at least, so says Nietzsche.

  So God is dead, and things go downhill from there. Surprisingly, however, Nietzsche sees the death of God as cause for celebration rather than mourning. “We philosophers and ‘free spirits’,” he writes, “in fact feel at the news that the ‘old God is dead’ as if illumined by a new dawn; our heart overflows with gratitude . . .”15 But, given that God’s death makes life meaningless and our suffering (as well as our joy) pointless, why does Nietzsche rejoice in it? What opportunity does he see that others of us do not? Perhaps the following passage gives us a hint.

  God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives—who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it?16

  God’s demise, Nietzsche tells us, is not debilitating; it is liberating. We have the opportunity to step into the void left by God’s death. With God dead and the established moral order undermined, we resemble painters with clean, white canvases. Anything is possible, if we have the will to make it so!

  Thus, like history on Nietzsche’s account, we find ourselves back where we began: will and power; will to power. He calls us to face the meaninglessness of life head-on without blinking. He calls us not merely to face it, but to embrace it. He gives us clean, white canvasses. But what shall we paint? Whatever we will; whatever pleases us, he says. And what will guide us? Not morality, for it has been overthrown; not reason, for it too has been overthrown. What then? Taste; our taste will guide us. “As an aesthetic [or, perhaps, artistic?] phenomenon, existence is still endurable to us,” Nietzsche writes, “and through art we are given eye and hand, and above all a good conscience, to enable us to make of ourselves such a phenomenon.”17 To embrace the meaninglessness of life and make for oneself a life magnificent according to one’s own taste—that is the task Nietzsche lays out for us. And he who achieves it is the new man, the overman (sometimes translated as Superman), the Übermensch whose coming Nietzsche heralds.

  Frodo and Sam, Überhobbits

  Sauron, whose own will to power initiates the great conflict chronicled in The Lord of the Rings, seeks to make for himself a life magnificent according to his own taste. And, while Nietzsche himself argues against both uncultivated taste and technological tedium, his philosophy does not clearly repudiate brute force. Thus, Sauron seems like a candidate for the title Übermensch (or overman). But, in The Lord of the Rings, the desire to control, to dominate, to establish one’s will over others—in short, the unabashed will to power—characterizes not a brave, new kind of person but rather plain, old-fashioned evil. And Tolkien’s account of the struggle against Sauron leaves us repulsed by that evil.

  The violence of Mordor and its Dark Lord obviously compares quite unfavorably with the beauty of Ilúvatar’s children striving together against them. Thus, while Tolkien may not have had this in mind as he wrote The Lord of the Rings, he nonetheless gives us a compelling alternative to Nietzsche’s vision of reality.18 Coming by way of artistry rather than argument, this vision challenges the other one on its own terms. Nietzsche, so to speak, presents to us a grand, panoramic portrait of reality; Tolkien presents a rival portrait. Which portrait is better? Which vision of reality is more compelling? If we make the decision on the grounds Nietzsche suggests, we will make it on the basis of which vision is more beautiful. What is decisive, after all, is our taste.

  Of central importance to Tolkien’s vision of reality is community. No hobbit is an island. Dwarves accompany Bilbo on his adventure in The Hobbit; in The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo sets out on his trip to Rivendell with Merry, Pippin, and Sam, who refuse to let him go alone. Not surprisingly, given its title, the first book centers around the Fellowship, each of whose members—even the faithless Boromir—contributes to the Ring-bearer’s Quest. Sam accompanies Frodo all the way to Mordor and Mount Doom. And it is good that he does; Frodo’s Quest surely would have ended in disaster if not for the faithful Sam.

  While each member of the Fellowship contributes to the fulfillment of the Ring-bearer’s task, that task would have remained undone if not for the help of many others. So, for instance, Fatty Bolger stays at the house at Crickhollow to maintain the appearance that Frodo is still there. Tom Bombadil rescues Merry and Pippin from Old Man Willow; he later rescues Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Sam from the Barrow-wight. Nob, Barliman Butterbur’s employee at The Prancing Pony in Bree, rescues Merry from the Nazgûl. Bill, the pony whom Butterbur purchases for the hobbits from Bill Ferny, bears the hobbits’ burdens—including Frodo himself after his wounding on Weathertop—from Bree to Rivendell to Moria. Glorfindel’s horse carries Frodo to the Ford with the Nazgûl close behind. Gwaihir the Windlord, the Great Eagle, rescues Gandalf from Orthanc; Shadowfax, a horse from the Riddermark, provides the wizard a swift ride when speed is greatly needed.

  Bilbo himself gives Frodo the sword Sting and a mithril shirt, each of which plays an important role in the Ring-bearer’s Quest. Elrond, the Elf-king of Rivendell, heals the wound Frodo received near Weathertop and establishes the Fellowship. The Galadrim protect the Fellowship from marauding orcs, providing them sanctuary in Lothlórien. As the Fellowship leaves Lothlórien, Galadriel presents to its members gifts that later turn out to be greatly needed. All of these examples come from The Fellowship; discussion of The Two Towers and The Return of the King would add significantly to their number, but they suffice to make the point: The success of Frodo’s mission depends ultimately on a very wide community.

  Since each member of the Fellowship has a hand in the outcome of the events that shape Middle-earth, a full discussion of the ways in which its various members contribute to the success of Frodo’s mission would take much more space than I have here. Still, I want to single out three of their contributions for comment—Gandalf
’s sacrifice of himself on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, Frodo’s merciful treatment of the miserable Gollum, and Sam’s refusal to use the Ring himself.

  So that the rest of the Fellowship may escape Moria, Gandalf stands alone on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm to face the Balrog. Of course, Gandalf is not human. “There are naturally no precise modern terms to say what he was,” Tolkien writes. “I [would] venture to say that he was an incarnate ‘angel’” (L, p. 202). Of the members of the Fellowship, then, Gandalf is the most powerful. Yet he allows himself to be killed for the sake of the others. He subordinates his own good to the good of the community. Such humility and sacrifice demonstrate not a desire to control or dominate others, but rather a willingness to serve others even at great personal loss.

  Frodo, following the lead of Bilbo years earlier, has pity for Gollum and treats him mercifully on several occasions. Twice, for instance, he asks Faramir to spare Gollum’s life. “If you come on him,” Frodo says to Faramir at their first meeting, “spare him. Bring him or send him to us. He is only a wretched gangrel creature, but I have him under my care for a while” (TT, p. 297). Later, at the Forbidden Pool, Frodo pleads for Gollum’s life:

  “The creature is wretched and hungry,” said Frodo, “and unaware of his danger. And Gandalf, your Mithrandir, he would have bidden you not to slay him for that reason, and for others. He forbade the Elves to do so. I do not know clearly why, and of what I guess I cannot speak openly out here. But this creature is in some way bound up with my errand.” (TT, pp. 331–32)

  When Faramir insists that Gollum must be “slain or taken,” Frodo offers to go quietly to Gollum so that he may be captured, and, he volunteers, Faramir’s men may “keep your bows bent, and shoot me at least, if I fail.” Here we see not only pity but also a willingness to sacrifice oneself. Whereas Gandalf sacrifices himself for the sake of the Fellowship, Frodo offers himself for the sake of the pitiful, wretched Gollum.

  Frodo’s pity for Gollum turns out to be deeply important. For, when the Ring finally has him in its grip and he cannot bear to throw it into Mount Doom’s fires, Gollum unexpectedly aids the Ring-bearer’s Quest. Treacherously attempting to get the Ring from the hobbit, Gollum bites it—and one of Frodo’s fingers—off his hand. In his excitement at having reclaimed the Ring, Gollum then stumbles, falling to his death in the fire of Mount Doom. Thus, the Ring is destroyed. In the end, then, the Quest comes to completion despite Frodo’s failure to destroy the Ring himself. And Frodo’s pity becomes his—and Middle-earth’s—salvation.

  Sam, according to Tolkien, is the chief hero of The Lord of the Rings (L, p. 161). We get perhaps our most interesting glimpse of this apparently unheroic hobbit when the Ring tempts him with a vision of “Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land.” Two things enable Sam to resist this temptation: his love of Frodo and his unpretentious “hobbit-sense.” Sam understands, “in the core of his heart,” that he is not big enough to take on any such grandiose role.

  The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command. (RK, p. 186)

  His refusal to use the Ring for his own glory stems from the hobbit’s deep-seated humility together with his love for Frodo. As with Gandalf and Frodo, who both subordinate themselves for the sake of others, so also Sam subordinates himself for the sake of the Ring-bearer’s Quest. He declines to pursue his own glory at his master’s expense.

  The portrait that Tolkien presents to us, then, is one of community, humility, love, and sacrifice. To be sure, the heroes of Middle-earth have their flaws. Humans long for the immortality of the elves; for their part, the elves long for the mortality of men. Dwarves and elves have deep-seated prejudices against one another that cannot be easily overcome. Frodo himself ultimately gives in to the Ring’s temptation. Even so, Middle-earth’s heroes overcome their weaknesses—not with power plays aimed at dominating others but rather with humility and self-sacrifice. Strength, according to Tolkien, manifests itself most clearly not in the exercise of power but rather in the willingness to give it up. “The greatest examples of the action of the spirit and of reason,” he tells us, “are in abnegation” (L, p. 246). Abnegation, the subordination of one’s own will for the sake of others—that, according to the portrait Tolkien presents, is what characterizes a life lived well; and, given its obvious beauty, such a portrait needs no argument to defend it.

  _____________________

  1 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, in A Nietzsche Reader, translated by R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Penguin, 1977) [hereinafter NR], p. 231.

  2 Tom Bombadil proves to be a notable exception to this rule. As Frodo and his companions discover, the ancient Bombadil remains visible when wearing the Ring, and when Frodo puts it on in his presence, he continues to see the hobbit (FR, pp. 150–51).

  3 Tolkien recounts Middle-earth’s ancient pre-history, including its creation, in The Silmarillion.

  4 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, in NR, p. 230.

  5 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, in NR, p. 115.

  6 See Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, in NR, p. 104: “There are no moral phenomena at all, only a moral interpretation of phenomena . . .”

  7 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, in NR, pp. 208–09.

  8 See Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (New York: Routledge, 1983), p. 121: “That Nietzsche goes well beyond a cautious agnosticism, and shares Schopenhauer’s ‘unconditional and honest atheism,’ is something he makes quite plain time and again.” Still, despite the passion with which he espouses his view, Nietzsche does very little by way of actually arguing that there is no God. Thus, his atheistic commitment seems more akin to a fundamental axiom than a well-reasoned conclusion. He nonetheless saw more clearly than most other atheists the implications of that axiom for the rest of one’s life and thought.

  9 Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, in NR, p. 211.

  10 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, in NR, p. 131.

  11 See Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1974), p. 186: “What is now decisive against Christianity is our taste, no longer our reasons.”

  12 Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, in NR, p. 198.

  13 See Schacht, Nietzsche, p. 259: “What matters here is not the truth of the idea [of eternal recurrence]; it is rather the emergence of human beings capable not only of enduring it (were it to be true), but moreover of embracing it without qualm, and indeed of ‘craving nothing more fervently.’”

  14 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, in NR, p. 250. See Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, “Why I Am So Clever,” in NR, p. 260: “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati [love of fate]: that one wants nothing other than it is, not in the future, not in the past, not in all eternity.”

  15 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, in NR, p. 209.

  16 Ibid., p. 203 (emphasis added).

  17 Ibid., p. 131.

  18 But, then again, maybe he did have it in mind. The Ring, according to Tolkien, symbolizes “the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies” (L, p. 160; emphasis added). Given the pivotal role the Ring plays in The Lord of the Rings, then, Tolkien seems to intend it in some sense as a response to Nietzsche’s “will to power.”

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  Tolkien and the Nature of Evil

  SCOTT A. DAVISON

  The Lord of the Rings is a story about the struggle between good and evil. We understand it immediately because it is our story, too. In Tolkien’s world we recognize the same good and evil qualities that we notice in ourselves and in other people. In fact, the pivotal scene in The Lord of the Rings involves Frodo’s finally giving in to the temptation to claim the One Ring for himself (RK, p. 239). In a sense, evil prevails for a moment, and only good luck saves Frodo from h
imself.

  Aristotle said that whereas comedies involve people who are worse than we are, and epics involve people who are better than we are, tragedies are about people who are just like we are1. In this sense, The Lord of the Rings is a tragedy that turns out well in the end. We understand how Frodo feels when he finally gives in to the temptation to wield the One Ring, since we give in over and over again when faced with temptations in our own lives. But we can still hope that everything will turn out well for us too.

  In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien provides us with a vivid picture of the nature of evil. By considering this picture carefully, we can come to understand more fully the evil in ourselves and in our world, and perhaps even begin to fight against it.

  Is Evil an Independent Force?

  Philosophers use the label “Manicheanism” to describe the view that there are two equal and opposite forces in the world, Good and Evil. They use this label because the ancient Persian philosopher Mani (216–276 C.E.) held this view of the world. According to the Manichean view, Good and Evil are locked in a struggle for world domination, and since they are equally balanced in power, it is not clear which, if either, will win in the end. In popular culture, this Manichean view is perhaps reflected most clearly in the Star Wars movies, in which there are both good and bad sides to the Force, and neither side is clearly stronger than the other.

  The Manicheans thought they could explain many aspects of human experience in terms of the struggle between Good and Evil. They believed that it was possible for things to be perfectly good, perfectly evil, or somewhere in between. Since we find both good and evil things in our world, and the world seems to be better at some times than at others, they concluded that the things we observe are just the visible results of the conflict between Good and Evil that takes place on a cosmic scale.