Absolute Good in Lord of the Rings

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

OT, but not entirely so...because we do both blame religion for a lot and attribute a lot to it when other things are at work.

It's about power and control. I mean, there has been lots of argument over which creed to say and which one takes priority, but who kills over which creed to say, unless the creed opens up avenues of wealth and influence. Religion in Europe became tied with cultural hegemony; the faith of the ruler became the state imposed religion. The tragic fate of the Stuarts is that they remained Catholic in a nation being taken over by Presbyterians, so it worked the reverse for them. But still, little freedom of worship outside the majority group.

Our culture can bring to us as many of these good things such as honour, compassion and fairplay as belief can. Plenty of people exist and existed without any faith but still possess that good stuff that the best believers do. Put simply, it's down to how you are raised and what you are taught, the environment you grow up in.

I don't think it's 'bloodline', as generations of people have for example come to live in the UK but quickly become 'British' and acquire our cultural norms and practises - it's not their blood which does this, just their surroundings and what they learn.

Well, in the case of the Gondorians, it was definitely bloodline that was important, otherwise why would the Stewards have become "Reigning Stewards" and not "Kings" outright--and note that the Stewardship was hereditary? Certainly in their cultural lore, their ancestry back to the Numemorean faithful is important, as it is with Aragorn.

But what you say about the immigrants to the UK is interesting, as apparently there is some pressure or impulse or motivation to become British, rather than to make the UK a multi-cultural country, just as in the US there is overwhelming pressure to become "American." The culture of the immigrant is second rate to the ruling culture I guess. I'm sure there are countless problems within immigrant communities who struggle with their dual cultural experiences.

But to return to my question, I wasn't meaning to imply that goodness comes only from believers. Really, I was ruminating on how the authority of or for goodness takes hold. And what happens when it loses ground to the influence of evil? Really, in your terms, my question would be, how does a culture (as opposed to a faith) determine or decide what is good? What is the basis for saying that killing is wrong, that stealing is wrong, that lying is wrong? What is it that makes that "environment" that you speak of nurture goodness?

After all, we aren't sure what kind of environment nurtured Gollem. Did Smeagol know that killing was wrong or did his hobbit clan pursue a culture of self-centeredness and personal aggrandisement? Did his selfish motives merely overwhelm his better knowledge or were his base motives in fact nurtured by his environment? Eventually he was shunned by his community--rejected, forced out. Was that rejection of "otherness" part of what made him Gollem or was it just the influence of the Ring? Was his tragedy that his clan didn't know any elves as Frodo's clan did?