What would the ring tempt you with?

[Thinlómien]

If I don't sound too hypocritical or arrogant now, I will say - like Galadriel and Gandalf: the power to do good. Ask anybody who has heard me telling how, if I was the dictator of the world, I would save the world from the environmental threats and the big multinational companies and totalitarian governments abusing and oppressing people. I really sometimes wish I could do that - a worrying thing, I'd say.

[Hakon]

I think it would tempt me with knowledge of everything to just know all that there is to know and for complete power. Really it would trick me into thinking that I was God.

[miriena]

Knowledge; the ability to learn the secrets of the world and its essence without prying, knowing it in the same way that I know how to breathe, without thinking about it. Just knowing and understanding where the pieces fall and why it is the way it is. And people's silent recognition of my knowledge, and their reverence , never envy or malice. And no one would ask me to come and help their own cause, lead an army, lead a nation, nothing like that, I don't want leadership. I will share the knowledge as it is meant to be shared, and I will know what that means.

Well, when I write it out, I kind of look like a jerk, huh...

I could think of more trivial things like a nice salary, not having to pay back my student loans, finishing my Master's thesis and graduating already, all these things that gnaw at me daily, but I don't think I'd fall for these. Tangible things seem like I can have them if I work hard enough, it's the thing that work can't achieve that I want the most...

[Morsul the Dark]

Power,

I would be tempted to destroy my enemies in wrath.

I would rise up as the new Dark Lord.

All would be within m power...

Ok maybe I Do need therapy...

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

Ok maybe I Do need therapy...

After which your therapist would be the new Dark Lord.

As for me, it's wealth and the prospect of a peaceful life. As to how wealth and a peaceful life can coexist, that's the Ring's problem, not mine.

[mormegil]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

If I don't sound too hypocritical or arrogant now, I will say - like Galadriel and Gandalf: the power to do good. Ask anybody who has heard me telling how, if I was the dictator of the world, I would save the world from the environmental threats and the big multinational companies and totalitarian governments abusing and oppressing people. I really sometimes wish I could do that - a worrying thing, I'd say.

Of course, my power would be for similar purposes but would we also become corrupt?

[miriena]

Originally Posted by mormegil

Of course, my power would be for similar purposes but would we also become corrupt?

I don't think you'd become *corrupt* in the sense where you lose your purpose, and strive only to gain more and more and more of whatever it is you think you want. But what I do think is that if it were to happen--you grab the Ring out of a gumball machine by chance, whoo-hoo!--this will not be a happy situation for the world.

People's views of "good" are so different. Why did people fall into situations where they are controlled by governments? Why do people keep multiplying on the planet, slowly depleting it of resources, and childfree people are still met with disdain and even anger? Why do people work on improving technology to make more things faster, why have people developed murder into an exact science? Why do people fight? Kill? Rise up to oppressors to fill the position with new oppressors? And all these things that a single person may disapprove of... Surely, on a global scale it's not done because people believe it's evil? They aren't purposefully crafting evil. They might think that taking these things away is the utmost evil, and what "greater good" is there then for them?

In general, taking choice away from people is evil, if you were to have everyone follow your agenda, they would be deprived of this right. But having everyone do their own thing may create chaos, there needs to be a fine balance, maybe.

A better use for the Ring if you want to fill your agenda is to make it so everyone thinks like you and believes in the same things, naturally, with no force required

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by mormegil

Of course, my power would be for similar purposes but would we also become corrupt?

Mmh given that Gandalf says:

"Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire to do good. Do not tempt me!"

and Galadriel says:

"I would [put things right and make people pay for their dirty work]. That is how it would begin. But I would not stop with that, alas!"

So I think yes, the Ring corrupts even those who want to use it for good, it makes them desire power and imagine they're the only ones who know what's right and probably makes them only care about power and themselves before long. It is a bit like what so often happens in our world: a charismatic revolution leader who idealistically believes in his beautiful cause and in democracy throws out the dictator and sooner or later becomes a dictator himself.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

If I don't sound too hypocritical or arrogant now, I will say - like Galadriel and Gandalf: the power to do good. Ask anybody who has heard me telling how, if I was the dictator of the world, I would save the world from the environmental threats and the big multinational companies and totalitarian governments abusing and oppressing people. I really sometimes wish I could do that - a worrying thing, I'd say.

But then you'd end up becoming evil yourself. You'd force everyone to do what you think is right (whether it is or not- actually, we could have a whole discussion about the nature of good and bad, but this isn't the right time...), and no-one would be able to do what they wanted. So even if you're making everyone good, you're forcing it on them, oppressing them with it, and that would be evil. So even if what's happening is good, they it's happening is evil. Free will, the Gift of Men (If we're going to Tolkien-connect this) would be gone.

And anyway, originally, didn't Sauron just want power in order to make everything more efficient?

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

But then you'd end up becoming evil yourself. You'd force everyone to do what you think is right (whether it is or not- actually, we could have a whole discussion about the nature of good and bad, but this isn't the right time...), and no-one would be able to do what they wanted. So even if you're making everyone good, you're forcing it on them, oppressing them with it, and that would be evil. So even if what's happening is good, they it's happening is evil. Free will, the Gift of Men (If we're going to Tolkien-connect this) would be gone.

Exactly why I'm happy I never came across the Ring, and probably (at least partly) why Gandalf and Galadriel didn't want to take it.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I guess the main problem with the Ring is really that it will eventually turn everybody's best intentions (if they have them and don't simply want just the power and wealth in the first place) to bad ends. Or not even ends, but also means already. And thinking that you would be able to use it and NOT become a Dark Lord is the Ring's trick in itself. It is just impossible, like Eönwë has very well put it, and Lommy as well.

I am not really sure what my temptation would be like, and I guess it would be dangerous enough. Something between setting the world "right" - in the most "Gandalfish" way, in my case, I believe, as I am actually aware of the misuse of power more than of anything else, so I believe in my case the Ring would work really really subtly and that means really really dangerously! - and between having just a few peaceful comforts, the prospect of living in peace with just a few things I need. I think it could start to grow eventually, as the Ring would keep suggesting "and why won't you also want this? And this? And this?"

I am sure there will be more anyway, and I think I can actually imagine it pretty well, but I won't go on lengths here. But oh, now I actually figured what would be the Ring's main temptation for me - the first one anyway, or at least, the one it would have to drag me into anyway to make it possible for me in the first place to succumb to anything else. It would be leading me to the idea of self-sufficiency when it comes to deciding what is right or wrong. Like, convincing me that I am the one who can know it the best for myself! Isn't it just the Garden of Eden all over again? Interesting, I never gave much thought to it up to now. Wow, in that case, "my" Ring sounds quite archetypal. See, after the Ring would manage to do that, it would remove the main "failsafe" from me and I would be open to all other temptations it can offer. Which is just the point. "And the serpent said: Ye shall be like gods, knowing good and evil." I never thought the story was that clever. And neither did I suspect discovering as much about oneself from this thread.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

If the Ring were to tempt me, it would probably tempt me with the prospect of getting out of the dead end that is Anchorage, Alaska and to get somewhere else. Probably Britain, because being the good little Anglophile that I am, would rather be there. It would tempt me with wireless internet connection everywhere. This temptation to be on the internet all the time is probably the Bane of my existence! Oh, and tea too.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I guess the main problem with the Ring is really that it will eventually turn everybody's best intentions (if they have them and don't simply want just the power and wealth in the first place) to bad ends. Or not even ends, but also means already. And thinking that you would be able to use it and NOT become a Dark Lord is the Ring's trick in itself. It is just impossible, like Eönwë has very well put it, and Lommy as well.

To me this has always smelled like the lord Acton (1834–1902) speaking... "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". And looking at Tolkien's worldview and his time lord Acton would have been a person he knew about and agreed with. So the Ring is the emblem of power, the possibility of gaining power which then corrupts you - and with the Ring, "quite absolutely"...

Thence the heavy-hearted notes by Tolkien with Gandalf saying he'd love to do good but fears the power that might corrupt him whilst claiming the power to actually deliver the good?

Just a wild suggestion: maybe Tolkien saw what tickled the intellectuals in Germany during the twenties and thirties and how "right" they were in calling for conservative and nationalistic values (which Tolkien shared) in comparison to the technologically driven capitalism of the US & GB at one hand and collectivism of the Soviet Union (which both Tolkien as well disliked) on the other hand? But still, in the midst of that he was able to see that a kind of aristocratic system or revolution that could fight agaisnt those two great wheels of history would betray their children in the end anyway even if it was just trying to defend the "good things" against the "evil"? So, to become a Gandalf or Galadriel one should resist the temptation to try and mold the world towards the good with power?

Heh, I'm probably babbling right now... Let's see if I can make sense of what I'm trying to say tomorrow.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Just a wild suggestion: maybe Tolkien saw what tickled the intellectuals in Germany during the twenties and thirties and how "right" they were in calling for conservative and nationalistic values (which Tolkien shared) in comparison to the technologically driven capitalism of the US & GB at one hand and collectivism of the Soviet Union (which both Tolkien as well disliked) on the other hand? But still, in the midst of that he was able to see that a kind of aristocratic system or revolution that could fight agaisnt those two great wheels of history would betray their children in the end anyway even if it was just trying to defend the "good things" against the "evil"? So, to become a Gandalf or Galadriel one should resist the temptation to try and mold the world towards the good with power?

Heh, I'm probably babbling right now... Let's see if I can make sense of what I'm trying to say tomorrow.

Okay, it took me more than one reading and at first I probably understood your post completely wrong, but I believe I got it right in the end. Anyway, I am not sure if I think Tolkien's thought would be like this, or not so specifically aimed as this, as the thing you mention is just one particular aspect derived from what I believe is more complex point behind the story.

If I were to speak for myself, the story of the Ring had for me always much deeper and much more general points in this aspect. Simply saying that power itself never achieves the victory, if one uses it as a path to some goal, because the path matters as much as the goal does. And that's what is always forgotten and what keeps being forgotten all the time, and that's what the Ring-bearing Gandalf or Galadriel would forget. That's what Saruman did forget (even if he remained true to his goal, to get M-E rid of the threat of Sauron): "We can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means." Which was exactly why Gandalf refused. Many would not agree. But it is obvious that it works like that, even if we look at examples from our own history - no real victory, no real freedom in matters comes if it is not mutually approved and wished for by everybody and not forced upon them, even if that were "for the greater good" or "for their own good". And that is exactly why the real changes come so slowly, so slow that often one feels like "now I would just put the Ring on and change it in an instance". And that's why this "Gandalf-ish" and "Galadriel-ish" question of the Ring is actual even now and all the time on. And it's too easy to fool oneself and say "I would never succumb" and put the Ring on to use it.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

And it's too easy to fool oneself and say "I would never succumb" and put the Ring on to use it.

By putting it on, you've already succumbed to the Ring.

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Just a wild suggestion: maybe Tolkien saw what tickled the intellectuals in Germany during the twenties and thirties and how "right" they were in calling for conservative and nationalistic values (which Tolkien shared) in comparison to the technologically driven capitalism of the US & GB at one hand and collectivism of the Soviet Union (which both Tolkien as well disliked) on the other hand?

If you mean what I think you mean, isn't it ironic that those intellectuals (some of them, at least - Gottfried Benn or Heidegger, e.g.) ended up falling for a regime that, beneath its veneer of conservative and nationalistic values, was just as technologically driven and collectivistic as the alternatives, not to mention presuming to style itself 'socialist' while actually protecting the interests of big capital as long as its owners weren't jewish?

Back on topic - what would the Ring tempt me with? For starters, I'd like to be able to travel to all the places on the world that I'd like to see, visit all the great museums and read all the books that never quite made it to the top of my reading list. I guess I'd probably need more than a single lifetime to do all this, so the artificial longevity that the Ring brings would come in quite handy.
As for bigger issues - I'd like to see the world saved, of course, but I think the Ring would have to work hard to convince me I've got the master plan how to go about it. I admit, however, that from time to time I have those fantasies about making some folk pay for their dirty work, as Sam Gamgee said to Galadriel. In those moods, I wouldn't mind a chance to put some of our politicians and big businessmen before a revolutionary tribunal and make them look down the barrels of a firing quad - just to give 'em a proper scare, of course; once they'd fouled their underwear, I'd be quite content to pardon them to some sentence of a more pedagogic purpose: like having to do some honest, useful work for a change, or subsisting on the income of a single mother on dole. Now that would be something the Ring could work with; and like Galadriel, I'm afraid I wouldn't stop with that.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

I genuinely think I would be a Faramir and refuse the Ring. I have no interest in wealth, power or fame; perhaps I would be tempted with security, as my greatest fear is probably having those I love caught in violence.

But the only vision I can see which satisfies this (in a reasonable way) is a very small, closed community - and as a fairly social person this does not appeal! I like living in a small city, which cannot exist without some degree of threat from other people, so I'm happy to leave that Ring lying on the ground.