'Spun Candy' anyone?

[davem]

I don't think anyone would argue that the Church has not done wrong throughout the last two thousand years. It has also done good. Pullman's position seems to be that the bad the Church has done is a reflection of its true nature, that it is inherently 'evil', & that the good has been almost accidental, & that people would have done that good regardless.

This comes from his understanding of human nature. Pullman clearly believes that human beings are by nature good & are corrupted by superstition. I see no evidence for this being the case, & I don't see that Pullman offers any supporting evidence in his books or statements. Tolkien clearly believes the opposite - that Man is fallen & needs to be redeemed, 'saved' by God (or His emissaries). Suffice to say I see no evidence offered by Tolkien to support this position either. Pullman creates a Secondary World in which his view of human nature is shown to be obvious (it is never questioned by the author or any of his characters). Tolkien likewise.

The issue, then, is the quality of the works themselves, their quality as Art. For me, Tolkien succeeds where Pullman fails, because Tolkien's Art is 'pure' - it is not in the service of the author's 'message'. Tolkien does not seek to convince his readers of anything other than the 'reality' of the Secondary World he has created. Pullman, however, has an agenda. His Secondary world exists in order to sway the reader to his worldview. He wants to make the reader see the Primary world in the way he himself sees it. HDM is a politico-philosophical manifesto, not simply a work of Art. I think because of this we should expect Pullman to back up what he says, & actually are obliged to challenge his position.

The situation as regards Tolkien is different. Tolkien has no desire to persuade his readers of anything. He is simply telling a story to entertain & move us. He does not want us change our beliefs about the world. Whatever we find in LotR is purely down to 'applicability' What we 'find' in LotR is down to us, what we take from it back into the Primary is down to us. Pullman, on the other hand, wants us to find, & take back with us, something very specific. The Church is an evil organisation - not just in Lyra's world, but also in Will's (our) world. Mary Malone, the 'enlightened' Nun has 'seen through' Christianity. The 'God' that dies of senility in HDM is God, not an Eru figure. Pullman is attacking Primary world religion & saying the Primary world would be better off without God & the Church. And his intention is that his readers 'see the light'.

[Lush]

This comes from his understanding of human nature. Pullman clearly believes that human beings are by nature good & are corrupted by superstition.

Quoi?

Could you expand on that please?

Because at this point, I'm not sure that I agree. Lyra's father was not particularly superstitious, as I recall, and he was a very ruthless man.

[Lush]

Pullman, however, has an agenda. His Secondary world exists in order to sway the reader to his worldview.

Yes, but I've discovered that if you like said agenda, you have less of a problem with it aesthetically. Christopher Hitchens, for example, is a huge fan of Pullman's work.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Lush

Quoi?

Could you expand on that please?

Because at this point, I'm not sure that I agree. Lyra's father was not particularly superstitious, as I recall, and he was a very ruthless man.

I should have put superstition in quotes. I was referring to the way that Pullman presents religion & its manifestation, the Church, as corrupting, & it is corrupting not because humans are fallen & so everything they create will have an element of 'fallenness' in it, but because 'God' & the Angelic hierarchies are corrupt.

As to whether Lyra & the other children are 'innocent' - I'd say they absolutely are. They are neither Good nor Evil. They have not yet eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, hence all their actions are morally neutral (& thus morally worthless). Lyra can't be condemned for the bad she does or praised for the good she does, because she herself is not doing either 'good' or 'bad' things. She mostly just 'does' things for the sake fo doing them. Hence her declaration at the end of the story that she now has to start actually doing things for a reason - helping others, studying, building a better world.

Point is, in Pullman's world people are born morally 'neutral' (ie 'unfalllen') & have to discover for themselves what is Good & what is Bad. But first they have to liberate themselves from the 'superstition' of religious belief, because in Pullman's view all religion is corrupting.

Now, as I said. That may be absolutely correct. And if Pullman was writing a novel about a self-contained secondary world (which M-e is, for all Tolkien's statements about it being set in a hiistorical period of our world) that would be fine & we could leave it there. However, Pullman sets his novel partly in our world, & so is making statements about the religions (principally Christianity) & the God of our world. So, he is throwing his hat into the ring. If he makes statements about the way our world works, about a religio-philosophical system which has shaped the Western World (for good or ill) he should be able to back them up.

In the interview which Squatter linked to earlier Pullman states:

Jesus, like many of the founders of great religions, was a moral genius, and he set out a number of things very clearly in the Gospels which if we all lived by them we’d all do much better. What a pity the Church doesn’t listen to him!

Now, first of all, to say that the Church doesn't listen to Jesus is idiotic as well as untrue. The main point though is that Pullman never states anywhere (as far as I know) what, in his opinion, Jesus was actually 'setting out'. As Lewis pointed out you can't take that easy option of saying Jesus was a nice guy who taught his followers to be nice guys. Yes, Jesus told his followers to love their enemies & perform acts of charity, but he also told his followers he was the Son of God, & that he would die to save them from Hell.

Point being, Pullman's view of Christianity is as simplistic as his view of fantasy. Its all very well to claim in that same interview 'I say a lot of things just to be provocative.' but you have to be able to back up 'provocative' statements, or be prepared to come clean & state 'I was lying', or 'I made it up so you'd pay attention to me'.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

This comes from his understanding of human nature. Pullman clearly believes that human beings are by nature good & are corrupted by superstition.

Originally Posted by davem

As to whether Lyra & the other children are 'innocent' - I'd say they absolutely are. They are neither Good nor Evil. They have not yet eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, hence all their actions are morally neutral (& thus morally worthless).

Forgive my misunderstanding. To me, there is a vast difference between saying "human beings are by nature good" and they are "innocent", which is again different from saying "morally neutral."

In Christianity, good and evil derive from the perfection of God and the absence of Him, respectively. Evil is, like sin, a privation or separation from God, a deficiency. In the ethical system which absents God, the question is to determine how to go about determining good and evil, which gets us a very long way from Tolkien and spun candy.

Originally Posted by Roa_Aoife

*laughs* Anyone who works with children knows that…..

The applicable point here is not the personal experience of early childhood educators or parents or teachers, but the depiction in the texts. Sorry if this point wasn't clear.

Originally Posted by Tolkien by way of Estelyn

It is better anyway to preach by example than by criticism of others.

Clearly a great deal of Tolkien's habits and manners grew out of his moral vision. An argument which is counter to charity would, I think, in his eyes, be similar to the sin of scandal (inciting or inducing others to sin) in that it exists merely to prove wrong rather than to demonstrate right. In other words, if you speak up only to pull down, if ya can't add sumthin' good, don't add it at all.

That said, I probably should reiterate my agreement with Lal that I find Pullman's creation fascinating even if unsatisfactory at times. I think he is trying to articulate a vision of fantasy which does not look back, but which looks around at the present or towards the future. Even Tolkien gave up writing post-Third Age.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

Forgive my misunderstanding. To me, there is a vast difference between saying "human beings are by nature good" and they are "innocent", which is again different from saying "morally neutral."

Yeah - I wasn't clear there. The first statement was my understanding of how Pullman sees things ('Pullman clearly believes ..'), the second was my personal interpretation of the character's behaviour ('I'd say..').

My reason for saying that Pullman believes human beings are essentially good is that he believes that once 'liberated' from the Church they will be able to create a perfect world (the Republic of Heaven). They are ignorant but in essence have the capacity to create Heaven on earth.

Point is, in Pullman's world people are born morally 'neutral' (ie 'unfalllen') & have to discover for themselves what is Good & what is Bad. But first they have to liberate themselves from the 'superstition' of religious belief, because in Pullman's view all religion is corrupting.

Is again my interpretation of the work. My feeling is that Pullman believes that there is a core of good in each being which must be 'awakened', whereas in my reading of the work they are morally neutral - which is one reason why I am not convinced by his conclusion. I see nothing in the story to make be believe that any of the characters have the capacity to create a perfect world. Pullman clearly does.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

This comes from his understanding of human nature. Pullman clearly believes that human beings are by nature good & are corrupted by superstition.

Hmmm. Lyra is repeatedly described as a liar; her stories and tales are similar to the "stretchers' which Mark Twain has his boys tell. Pullman even pronounces the name "Lie-ra" rather than, as I had assumed, 'Leera.' The children's games are presented not as simple play but as "war". For instance, the capture of the gyptians' boat could have had extremely serious consequences. The game Lyra plays of switching the coins which represent the dead daemons is also cruel--or at least thoughtless. For all of Lyra's eagerness to save her 'uncle' from the poison--that, too, I think, is presented more as a desire to partake of adventure--I think Pullman provides a serious attempt to suggest that children are not sentimental innocents, are not thoughtful or always considerate, are eager little creatures who are at the mercy of their desires and stimulations and who must through trial come to understand a moral stance. Look at how easily Lyra falls for Mrs Coulter at that first dinner and ignores boring old Dame Hannah. And look at how much her attitude towards Dame Hannah has changed by the final chapter. There's a moral development as significant as that of Austen's Emma. What redeems Lyra, saves her, are her experiences. She learns and she learns fast.

And I don't have any sense that Lyra has particularly been indoctrinated at Jordan, although she clearly understands the rituals of the college and its life. If anything, she has had the glorious advantage of having more freedom, more play, than most girls.

[Lush]

Lyra is repeatedly described as a liar;

Lyra the liar! Ahaha! Brilliant. Almost as good as "the right to bear arms" reversed into "the right to arm bears" (or so Hitchens suggests).

Pullman is brilliant in his wordplay. He's the Nabokov of the genre. Wry and unsentimental, not a gentle creature at all. Maybe this is why Tolkien irritates him so much.

[Roa_Aoife]

My picture is depressing? I encourage you to travel to Moscow and observe how these people pummel each other in the streets, especially if the weather is nice, or the grand way they embezzle money. My picture is realistic. Back in the Soviet Union, religion actually meant something to its clandestine followers. These days, most of it's been reduced to a platform for political posturing, something that I detest. Oh, there are people doing good together, even the slim inter-faith crowd that, for example, quietly runs shelters for thousands of trafficked women, but the overall situation is grim. This isn't a Rennaissance, it's more of a Dark Age with mobile phones.

I've been to Moscow and Ischefsk, a city at the base of the Ural Mountains which is far worse off than Moscow. I have friends who live in Ischefsk that I keep in contact with. I know exactly what it's like there. People don't pummel each other in the streets- they can't because soldiers with M16's are standing at each corner. And not everyone embezzles money because very few people happen to be in a position where they can do that. And political posturing in religion is something that takes place in any country where religion has sway over the people. Russia certainly isn't going to be immune to that. Yes, it's sad that it's used that way, but that doesn't mean everyone who claims to belong to each faith is a fraud. It's not a happy place, but it's getting better.

All of this is beside the point, however. I was using an anecdote as an analogy to present the idea that maybe Pullman does see more in Tolkien's works than he'd like us to think.

His attitude toward Tolkien doesn't sit well with me, but I agree with him more on Lewis, the man who denied a female character Salvation for cultivating an interest in "grown-up" things like stockings and the like. It seems odd to me that Pullman should reserve his harshest criticism for Tolkien, so far.

Actually, Susan wasn't exactly denied salvation. She didn't die in the train accident like the Friends of Narnia and their parents. She was traveling abroad in the states. Also, any denial had nothing to do with her liking grown-up things. It was because she lost her faith and stopped believing in Narnia, and more importantly, Aslan. The "grown-up things" were merely an analogy for this.

I think Pullman provides a serious attempt to suggest that children are not sentimental innocents, are not thoughtful or always considerate, are eager little creatures who are at the mercy of their desires and stimulations and who must through trial come to understand a moral stance.

*laughs* Anyone who works with children knows that…..

[Lush]

Yeah, I give up.

P.S. Pullman's a genius. Albeit a cranky one.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lush

Yeah, I give up.

Pity, dear, as I always enjoy your posts, even if I disagree with them.

I, too, am disappointed by the implications of Susan's depiction. There's a very strong, horrible tradition in western culture denigrating any form of female sexuality and it's a shame that Lewis, with his love for Joy Davidman and his great learning from her, went this ambiguous route that is so open to such an interpretation. But we are all allowed our interpretations.

Originally Posted by davem

Is again my interpretation of the work. My feeling is that Pullman believes that there is a core of good in each being which must be 'awakened', whereas in my reading of the work they are morally neutral - which is one reason why I am not convinced by his conclusion. I see nothing in the story to make be believe that any of the characters have the capacity to create a perfect world. Pullman clearly does.

I must begin by saying that I have read HDM only once and not given it the depth of consideration which you have, so my thoughts are clearly less measured. That said, I'm not sure about this core of good which must be 'awakened'.

True that if we take Pullman at his word that every person must, in himself and herself, experience a "fall" from innocence, then it follows that this initial stage, if it is in keeping with the religious traditions of fall which Pullman and Milton worked in, must be some form of guileless, candid, uncorrupted state unaware of the knowledge of good and evil. (Wait, it's been so long since I read Milton that I'm not sure this applies. I mainly remember that he thought Eve was a great cook and he really loved epic similes.) Pullman would then reject the concept of original sin and believe that good can be drawn out of people.

However, if Pullman as an agnostic or possible atheist believes in evolution, then the question is, I think more murky. This particularly relates to the idea that humans have daemons, animal forms of alternate identities. If people have evolved, where or when does the ethical question of good and evil come into existence? Is it there in bacteria? Or does it evolve as cell division becomes more complex and sophisticated? Is the ethical form of human existence only something that is learned? Must human beings learn not to harm others in the pursuit of their own desires, for instance? This seems to me to be one way to interprete Lyra and the trilogy's conclusion and it is an evolutionary rather than an absolute question.

The daemons are, I think, central to understanding Pullman's conception of human identity. I relate this back to Lyra's behaviour as a child. Even if we grant, as davem does, that such behaviour is morally neutral, I think that, in giving Lyra a name which highlights her guile and her lack of candor and straightforwardness, Pullman may in fact be suggesting that human nature is not essentially good, but that goodness must be earned at a cost.

In short, I'm not convinced that this "republic of heaven" necessarily implies a perfect world here on whichever planet of whichever dimension we exist in, but rather the world which grants to humans the greatest possibility of ethical behaviour.

Again, I think back to Tolkien. He worked within a concept of a fallen world, of human beings who always and inevitably fail. And he eventually decided not to write about the fourth age, or a fifth age, or a sixth age, or a seventh.

What does someone whose imagination is given over to these later ages do? Is there no hope?

[Lush]

Now, first of all, to say that the Church doesn't listen to Jesus is idiotic as well as untrue.

Actually, I completely agree with Pullman on this one. Although perhaps you've (and or Tolkien ) had better experiences in that department.