Seems Like Someone's Rooting for the Wrong Side

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Note meaning to imply that loyers are baddies, of course.

Of course not. Some of them ... ahem ... us have chosen the light side.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

And that's why I say it is extremely rude to place the highly emotive and loaded term 'immoral' on someone for who they like and do not like in a piece of fiction.

I am not talking about making judgments on the basis of which characters people like and dislike, so please do not imply that I am being rude by reference to something that I have not done. Heavens, it is well documented that I am a great fan of Smaug as a character. That does not mean that I think he was right to attack a bunch of innocent people and destroy their homes. My point was referring to those who delight in, sympathise with and support the atrocities committed by the evil characters in LotR. I consider myself perfectly justified to view that as an immoral standpoint, although I would not necessarily judge them as a person by it (or not by that alone, at least). I am merely stating my own personal view in a debate on the issue. Other than that, I agree with pretty much everything that you say.

Originally Posted by davem

Aren't you in effect simply saying 'its not a nice way to think but it makes no practical difference to you or anyone else'?

In a nutshell, yes. To be honest, I see little relevance to my life or anyone else's in this debate, but I am a sucker for pointless debates ...

With one caveat. If a person habitually delighted in, sympathised with and supported the evil acts of fictional characters, I would expect that to be relevant in any psychological assessment of that individual and, were there evidence of such behaviour, it would be relevant in any criminal prosecution of them for any serious crime which they might commit. As I said, such a pattern of behaviour is not illegal, and 9.99 times out of 10 it will not lead to dangerous behaviour. But, were it to do so, it would be considered relevant in assessing their state of mind.

However, I know of no one who approaches fiction in this way, and I believe that there are very few people who do. Indeed, I strongly suspect that the views referred to in the opening post, which kicked of this debate, were not genuinely held but were merely "showing off". So, yes, it is largely irrelevant.

Indeed, the "off topic" elements of this debate, concerning moral relativism and the application of systems of morality and ethics are of far more interest to me, particularly as it is an area in which I work.

Originally Posted by TGWBS

However, you seem to be saying that this does not make that society's morality any less valid as a system and, furthermore, that a society's system of morality should be used to judge the individuals within it.

Not all situations require society's moral judgment. Most of those which do are enacted in law. In many situations that are not, no moral judgment is required at all by society in general (although individuals may take it upon themselves to make such a judgment, and are generally free to do so).

Sometimes, however, moral judgments are required, even where there is no issue of law involved. To take an example with which I am professionally familiar, should a company do business in a country with a poor human rights record? There are arguments both ways. On one side, it might be argued that the company brings employment to people and treats them well as employees (assuming that it does), and also that bringing investment into the country might benefit its people and even, ultimately, lead to a change in the regime or a more enlightened approach. On the other, it might be argued that, in doing so, the company is supporting an appalling regime. Similarly, where mundane bribes are accepted (and legal) in a country, should a company doing business in that country pay those bribes simply in order to be able to compete? In these sorts of situations, people have to make moral judgments, and they will generally apply the moral standards of their home society.

Originally Posted by TGWBS

How can you support temporal, societal-based morality to judge people today, but be against using it historically?

In the same way that I generally support the application of the law as it is now, rather than as it was 20, 100 or 200 years ago. But, as I said, where the moral issue is not enacted in law, and where differing moral standpoints cause no harm to society, I personally see no particular reason to judge, in the sense of condemning, although I may well form a view and feel myself perfectly at liberty to state it.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

And to follow on from what tgwbs says about how people have struggled to change the morality 'accepted' by society, what about those who go against the grain of a wider society which is, according to them, immoral? What about resistance fighters?

What about them? They may well have a good cause. As I said, it is perfectly possible to regard a law, or indeed the moral values of a society, as immoral. Of course, they can only reach that stage by making a moral judgment. Having made that judgment, are they justified in using violence to enforce it? Instinctively, I would say no. Yet some who have been hailed as great heroes were once terrorists, carrying out terrorists acts.

To be honest, while this is a fascinating area, and one in which I have a particular interest, it is veering quite seriously off-topic. It is also an area in which there are often no easy answers. So I think that I'd best leave it be for now, much as I would like to continue this discussion.

[Salacia Deloresista]

I find that debating the morality of characters in Lord of the Rings is hard to do, since, as a children's story the moral lesson was put in by the author himself. There's a reason why Frodo is endearing and Sauron is a fiery eyeball, and that's because beautiful is good and ugly is bad, end of story. Debate relative morality with a bad guy like Raskolnikov, not Sauron. Lord of the Rings is too Paradise Lost for me to see much ground for realtive morality.

[Bêthberry]

It is fascinating to read all this sound and fury in defense of the position that literature, as a sub-created world, cannot be applied to the primary world, but is simply, merely and only a spot of puff, just entertainment, without any other relation to ourselves as human beings and our culture than a smacking good time-eater.

For this is not, for example, how post-colonial writers in Africa regard stories. Take Ngugi wa Thiong'o, for example. He writes movingly of the power of language to define our selves, particularly of his experience as a child in the oral culture of the African language Kikuyu and then in the written culture of his colonial school, where English was imposed and the oralture (oral literature) of Kenya denigrated.

What, according to Thiong'o, was the effect of the nightly stories told in Kikuyu?

Originally Posted by Decolonizing the Mind

We therefore learned to value words for their meanings and nuances. Language was not a mere string of words. It had a suggestive power well beyond the immediate and lexical meaning. Our appreciation of the suggestive magical power of language was reinforced by the games we played with words through riddles, proverbs, transpositions of syllables, or through nonsensical but musically arranged words. So we learned the music of our language on top of the content. The language, through images and symbols, gave us a view of the world, but it had a beauty of its own.

Language is not a non-reactive agent. Again:

Originally Posted by Decolonizing the Mind

Lanuage has a relationship to human experience, human culture, and human perception of reality.

For Thiong'o, the language of Imperialism, English, colonised the minds of the children of Africa, so that it not only devalued their own language and culture, but made language a cerebral activity, rather than "an emotionally felt experience", one divorced from the life which Kenyan children knew.

So, how does this relate to our reading of Tolkien? What do we do when we read him? Is reading him merely a cerebral activity, divorced from our experience in our daily language/s? Or does his language reverberate in our being, so that it mediates our relationships, it provides "image forming agents" in our mind which are part of the community and culture which English informs?

It doesn't follow from this that readers who enjoy orcs and trolls and dragons are immoral. But what does follow is that language does relate powerfully to the Primary world, even language in stories. Heck, even popular culture. How much of our reading of Tolkien influences the world we perceive? How much of Tolkien causes us to see the world in a particular way? Maybe that's what Tolkien does--provides us with a variety of mediations, so that some of us can become elves, some hobbits, some Men, some dragons, trolls, orcs even, or, at the very least, perceive the world as a place of struggle between good and bad agencies.

And it's funny, in a way, that Western culture (aka, some of its proponents here) seems intent to deny this purpose and value of language while writers in other cultures staunchly proclaim the kind of magical power for language which Tolkien himself espoused. Maybe that's what Tolkien does: allows us to perceive the world as elves, as hobbits, as Men, as orcs, trolls, dragons, or, at the very least, to perceive the world as a vast canvas of struggle between good and evil.

[davem]

Fascinating thoughts....however, Lal & I are off to Port Patrick in Bonnie Scotland for five days, so we'll have to leave you to sort it out for yourselves..

See yus at the weekend..