Patriotism and the Lord of the Rings

[Tuor in Gondolin]

But Boromir had already taught us, at that point, that patriotism can be meaningless, if not downright destructive, if you lose perspective. Faramir is able, to use a very over-used phrase - "think outside the box." There's something about the nature of the Ring that Faramir knows he can't afford to overlook, and that, perhaps, is true patriotism - thinking beyond the norm when you are called to do so.

Indeed, Faramir has echoes of Von Stauffenburg. I've never really understood how the German Officer's oath to Hitler had such a crippling effect on potential
resistance, since ethics and morality should always trump "My country right or wrong".

[William Cloud Hicklin]

since ethics and morality should always trump "My country right or wrong".

That's really a very modern notion, and fairly American, or at least a reflection of American thinking's influence on the world. The old paradigm, which certainly dominated the aristocratic Junker officer corps, was indeed mein Kaiser/Vaterland/Fuehrer, richtig oder falsch. The idea of disobeying an order just because you personally disagreed with it (for any reason) was utterly alien- as indeed it would have been to Napoleon's marechals or Marlborough's subordinates. It's fairly hard today to grasp the extent to which the Subject's Duty of Obedience was the assumed basis of political thinking in former times.

Even under the original Hague Convention of 1899, the first attempt to create or at least codify a Law of Armed Conflict, responsibility for a war crime fell entirely on the authority who ordered it: his subordinates could not be held culpable for obeying the order. In the Neumann Trial (1922) the Leipzig Supreme Court explicitly ruled that Befehl ist Befehl was a complete defense. (The Nuremburg Tribunals may have advanced 'human rights,' but as courts of law they were pretty much kangaroo courts).

[Aiwendil]

William Cloud Hicklin wrote:

That's really a very modern notion, and fairly American, or at least a reflection of American thinking's influence on the world.

I agree that as stated this is a fairly modern idea (modern in the broad post-1500 or so sense). But I don't agree that it's fundamentally American. On the contrary, the idea of a 'higher law' that takes precedence over loyalty to a particular government - or even a particular nation - is fundamental to a lot of Enlightenment-era thinking. It's fairly clearly expressed in Locke and Rousseau, for instance, and one can perhaps find its roots in Hobbes. Indeed, I think one could argue that its ultimate roots are found in Plato and Aristotle.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Actually, I meant 'modern' in a post-WWII sense. While one can trace the history of the notion to the enlightenment philosophers, and their practical students the American revolutionists, as a matter of recognized law I can't find a trace of it prior to the London Declaration (1944). The top Nazis deserved everything they got; but the technical basis for stringing them up was a blatant ex post facto exercise in retroactive law.

[Aiwendil]

All right, but surely there's a difference between a notion's existence or even prevalence and its codification in international law.

[Kent2010]

Originally Posted by Tuor in Gondolin

Indeed, Faramir has echoes of Von Stauffenburg. I've never really understood how the German Officer's oath to Hitler had such a crippling effect on potential
resistance, since ethics and morality should always trump "My country right or wrong".

Not wanting to hijack the thread, but just will mention a Holocaust scholar Christopher Browning in Ordinary Men really does blow up the entire obediance argument. It's interesting that during the trials the defense typically was "I had to shoot, or I would have been shot," but no evidence of this exists. What took place is supported more by the Milgram experiment and Zimbardo's prison experiment. Nazi's executed more out of conformity than obediance to orders from higher up. When the "final solution" in Poland first began, Major Trapp a veteran of World War I, told his battalion they did not have to take part in the shootings (and Trapp was not going against any direct orders from superiors, he didn't get 'punished' by anyone). There was an authority figure telling them "you don't have to do this" only 20% went with Trapp's solution. As the war dragged on that 20% got smaller and smaller, although that might have been due to the option to not take part had all but disappeared.

With the SS the obediance argument may be made, because to deny an order in the SS was suicide, but the SS was pretty small compared to the ordinary Police Battalions that Browning writes about and that Trapp was a part of.

Maybe this can be tied into patriotism because you see anti-semitism all over Europe throughout this time. In America too, in Nazi Germany the anti-semitism became radical and turned to genocide, but it existed everywhere. The idea of "we are superior," because we are Germans, French...etc stuck with everyone, not just those in charge.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Well, over 20,000 German soldiers were executed during the war for failing to carry out orders (of various sorts). It wasn't an idle threat.

But of course even by Nuremburg standards the argument from coercion would have been considered valid *if* the defendants could prove it (mostly they couldn't). The standard defense was "An order is an order," which according to normative law up until WWII *was* a complete defense.

I don't deny that a very great many, probably the majority, of those Germans who took part of atrocities would have even if they did have (or believed they had) a choice. Human beings generally let power go to their heads (which is why they should be entrusted with as little of it as possible).

[Kent2010]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Well, over 20,000 German soldiers were executed during the war for failing to carry out orders (of various sorts). It wasn't an idle threat.

But of course even by Nuremburg standards the argument from coercion would have been considered valid *if* the defendants could prove it (mostly they couldn't). The standard defense was "An order is an order," which according to normative law up until WWII *was* a complete defense.

I don't deny that a very great many, probably the majority, of those Germans who took part of atrocities would have even if they did have (or believed they had) a choice. Human beings generally let power go to their heads (which is why they should be entrusted with as little of it as possible).

Sorry if it sounded like I was saying those in charge had no culpability, they did, and there were orders from high up. Especially when the Nazis started losing the Eastern Front there virtually was no choice. Also, Browning's book I referenced above just deals with the Police Battalions, which were under Himmler, but were seperate from the SS and were under different rules. Most were middle-aged men who could not make it into the army or the SS. You definitely would be punished if you were in the SS and disobeyed any kind of order.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Reminder: The discussion concerns primarily LotR, not other wars...

Can haz on-topic?

[Lush]

Can haz on-topic?

No can has! On-topic mine!

Er... anyway...

The comparison of Faramir to Von Stauffenburg is interesting. I've always thought about Faramir in the context of Mikhail Bulgakov for some reason... scribbling "The White Guard" as a hope against hope.

[Faramir Jones]

This is a very interesting topic; but I'd first like to give my contribution to one thing that has also been discussed here:

Theoden's popularity: Tolkien wrote in the essay 'The Battles of the Fords of Isen' in Unfinished Tales that Theoden's health began to fail 'early in 3014'. Before this sickness, he had been 'much loved by all his kin and people'.

There had been unpopular kings in Rohan before. Theoden's grandfather and predecessor, Fengel, was 'not remembered with praise'. He was 'greedy of food and of gold, and at strife with his marshals, and with his children'. His son Thengel therefore went to Gondor and served the Steward. He married a Gondorian woman, and their eldest children, including Theoden, were born there.

It appears that while Fengal might have been a bad king, he was probably not a tyrant, doing things that were 'unconstitutional'. The legitimacy of his rule was not in doubt. Presumably, this was also the case regarding Theoden under Grima's influence. He, at the latter's instigation, probably gave orders that, while unpopular, were not illegal. (Grima, or rather his true master, was too clever to make such an obvious error.)

Gondorian patriotism: Looking at patriotism in general in The Lord of the Rings, I feel that Gondorians, their country being the nearest to a twentieth-century nation-state in the book, did have a sense of patriotism. They and previous generations had, after all, been fighting Sauron for millennia. Tolkien made it clear in his Letters that Sauron ‘desired to be a God-king…;if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world’.

Early on in the book, Boromir pointed out that by the Gondorians' valour ‘alone are peace and freedom maintained in the lands behind us, bulwark of the West.’ When Galdor spoke of the ‘waning might of Gondor’, he was rebuked by Boromir: ‘Gondor wanes, you say. But Gondor stands, and even the end of its strength is still very strong.’

This pride in Gondor is also seen in Faramir, who says that while war was necessary, he only loved what it defended, ‘the city of the Men of Númenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom.’ Tolkien said that Faramir was the character most like him.

This pride also existed among Gondorians in general, seen when Beregond, an ordinary soldier, told Pippin, ‘we have this honour: ever we bear the brunt of the chief hatred of the Dark Lord, for that hatred comes out of the depths of time and over the deeps of the Sea’.

Gondor was also sophisticated enough to distinguish between the kingdom and the king, still enduring as a state despite having a vacant throne, the kings’ hereditary chief ministers ruling as hereditary regents, experienced in person by Pippin in Book 5, Chapter I, when he arrives in Minas Tirith. When he agreed to swear allegiance, he first swore ‘fealty and service to Gondor’.

There also appears to be a song that resembles a national anthem, sung by Aragorn:

Gondor! Gondor, between the Mountains and the Sea!
West Wind blew there; the light upon the Silver Tree
Fell like bright rain in gardens of the Kings of old.
O proud walls! White towers! O wingéd crown and throne of gold!
O Gondor, Gondor! Shall men behold the Silver Tree,
Or West Wind blow again between the mountains and the Sea?

Among these references to Gondor’s geographical location and national symbols, there is also a reference to the Silver Tree. In 2852 T.A., the White Tree died; and because no seedling could be found, the ‘Dead Tree’ was ‘left standing’. Aragorn had earlier served in disguise King Thengel of Rohan and Ecthelion II of Gondor. The song may be a composition of Aragorn’s, or a partial and complete composition by another. If the second, the song may have been written after the death of that White Tree, looking back to happier times before the event, when Gondor was stronger, and wondering if they would return again.

While it is nowhere described as a national anthem, that song is of such a nature and Gondor is such an 'advanced' state that the possibility exists of the latter having a national anthem.