[mark12_30]

H-I-- I needed that. Thanks.


Regressing to the previous page: Here is a long overdue response to some of Aiwendil's questions.

This is an interesting answer - neither the story itself nor insight into Truth is either the cause or the effect; or perhaps each is both. I think I like this answer, if only because it comes very close to what I've been arguing. As a story becomes very good, it becomes more like an allegory; as an allegory becomes very good it becomes more like a story. So the story itself and insight into Truth are in fact the same thing. But this is not the impression I got from your earlier posts. Perhaps this was just a misunderstanding on my part. It seemed to me that you (and Davem as well) were suggesting that Tolkien's goal was to expose readers to this insight, and that a requirement for achieving this is a fully self-consistent, believable story. I got this impression most of all when you compared Tolkien's works to parables (in connection with self-consistency); for clearly in the case of a parable, the insight is the end and the story is a means. Did you mean to draw a distinction here?

I should clarify that I think the process is cyclical with extended or repeated exposure to the stories and to the insight. Receiving insight clarifies the story internally, bringing it into sharpoer focus; internalizing the story I thnk encourages further insight.

It sounds like what you mean by "Truth" is simply "the set of all true propositions". That's certainly a definition I can live with (it's the one I intend when I say "truth"). But if this is the case, I don't see why there's any need to be at all mystical about it. Why talk gravely about Truth being out beyond the mills (if I understand your millegory correctly), or about transcendent glimpses of Truth; why the capital T? For if Truth is just the set of true propositions, then a "glimpse of Truth" must just be the knowledge of the truth or falsehood of certain propositions. In such a case, there is no reason at all that each person should have to discover Truth for himself or herself. Nor is there any such thing as "discovering Truth", since that would mean omniscience.

So either of two things is true: 1. By "Truth" you do in fact mean "the set of all true propositions", and all the earlier mysticism was unnecessary or 2. you mean something else, in which case I still would like to know what it is.

And a further dichotomy: either 1. The definition of "Truth" does not critically depend on anything like God or religion or 2. it does.

Going with option 1 on both questions agrees with my view; choosing 2 in either case means there is still some disagreement, but one that I cannot identify.

Aiwendil, the beginning of the statement "those three concepts" referred to your provided list of three supernatural things: " God, heaven, and the Divine Plan" . Those things (each of which I consider heavily related, interrelated, and infinite) are included in Truth. So it follows that I hold to #2 in each of the multiple-choice questions above. However in the first question,

So either of two things is true: 1. By "Truth" you do in fact mean "the set of all true propositions", and all the earlier mysticism was unnecessary or 2. you mean something else, in which case I still would like to know what it is.

my answer is this: if I must write down a definition, I will point to the above that I already gave you: Truth includes your three concepts (God, heaven, and the Divine Plan) plus the set of all true propositions.

I've got to admit that I have no idea how the matter of what I am pursuing has anything whatsoever to do with the nature of Tolkien's work.

Perhaps it's a mystical phrase, although I associate it with the Declaration of Independance: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: we all pursue something in the attempt to be happy. For some, it's Entertainment. For some, it's Truth. For some it's Style. For some, it's something else.

If I'm not looking for something particular, then the odds of me finding that particular thing are the odds of either stumbling over it or of being led to it by someone else. So if I'm reading Tolkien looking for A Good Story, that's one pursuit. If I'm looking for Truth, that's another pursuit. And if I'm looking for justification for my own agenda, that's another pursuit. (The first two, I think Tolkien would not mind, and would indeed be pleased by. The third, he clearly had a problem with.)

The first time I read Tolkien (at age 12) I thought it was a rocking-good story. The second, third, fourth times I read it, it got even better. At what point did I try to be more elvish because I thought elves and elf-friends were beautiful... pure... shining... transcendant... angelic? I'm not sure when that started. But if I hadn't thought it was a good story, I wouldn't have enjoyed it or reread it, and I'd have missed the shining beauty that beckoned me then and beckons me still. The more I go back to it, the more it shines. Hence, circular; actually the mystics refer to a "spiral"-- ostensibly covering the same topics in the X. Y plane but going deeper (or higher) every time.

(I read the Narnia series over and over and over again as a teenager-- and it wasn't til years later I realized what it was "about". By the time the allegory "clicked" it was a whole cascade of "clicks"; the lights went on all over the house, so to speak.)

Well, the ramble is long enough at this point. Aiwendil, it's been a pleasure discussion these things; thanks; although (like davem) I fear that my definitions will be too vague to satisfy, at the same time, I find infinite things very difficult to contain in definitions. Let me know...

~*~*~

EDIT:

Hi, Bilbo. Glad you're enjoying it.

Hi, Child.

The Peacemaker wrote:

Can we not at least agree on a broad statement like this? That most readers see a core of 'enchantment' or 'faerie' which Tolkien depicts or draws upon in his writing. That this may go by different names -- truth, Truth, Joy, or Light-- and that we each differ somewhat in how we define or regard this concept, since we bring our own experiences and backgrounds into the process of definition. But can we not also agree that this core reflects the crucial values and themes that Tolkien delineates in his story: concepts of goodness, self sacrifice, love, and hope?

It's a good starting place, Cami.

(Like neice, like uncle-- wanna bet she's hiding an arkenstone in her pocket?)