Christianity and the One Ring

[Donnadogsoth]

"If the present situation can be attributed to difficulties of various kinds, it is not out of place to speak of "structures of sin," which. . . are rooted in personal sin and thus always linked to the concrete acts of individuals who introduce these structures, consolidate them, and make them difficult to remove. And thus they grow stronger, spread, and become the source of other sins, and so influence people's behavior. "Sin" and "structures of sin" are categories which are seldom applied to the situation of the contemporary world. However, one cannot easily gain a profound understanding of the reality that confronts us unless we give a name to the root of the evils which afflict us."

--Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 36.

 

The late, great JRR Tolkien once asserted that his The Lord of the Rings sextilogy contained nothing by the way of allegory. It was not about Hitler, or the Great Wars, or anything else. It was purely a work imagination, and, if we accept the master's word on it, that's that.

 

Except I don't accept it. I believe that Tolkien did not intentionally put symbolism into his masterpiece, but that such symbolism couldn't help but work its way in like an hexagonal pattern working its way into a compressed layer of children's marbles. A work as popular as Rings could not have been that popular unless it spoke profoundly to the archetypal soul of mankind, and to the European folk-soul in particular.

 

That said, I present something that has been said before, but never here: that the One Ring in these books is a metaphor for something, something Christian, something philosophical, and something profound and shattering in its implications for the individual, for his social sphere, for the Western world, and for Terra in its entirety. It's something that shouldn't come as a complete surprise...

 

It is this: the One Ring is the love of money, which is the root of all evil, including love of force and the force-like nature of money, the tendency of its worshippers to create “structures of sin”.  The perfect, gold-coin-like physical form of the Ring itself testifies symbolically to 1 Timothy 6:10 which says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (NIV)

 

If we look closer at money and its god, Mammon, we find that it is at the centre of worship for a “ring” of power called the oligarchy or world power elite. This ring is deeply involved in the accumulation and use of money to buy whatever they wish, including land, resources, power over others, and especially to accrue more money. Their goal is to have the last dollar, and thereby control the world utterly.

 

This is not capitalism as such. This is stacking the deck using war, fraud, bribery, and other forms of physical violence and intimidation in favour of the conspirators of wealth for the sake of their own benefit and at the expense of everything and everyone else, who are, to them, mere livestock, to be bred and, ultimately, culled as needed.

 

The love of money is original to even the Angels. Even Lucifer had a money-loving mind, for would he not have simply bought the Throne of the Most High if he had the chance? The fact that money proper was a later creation of mankind doesn't matter, the potential was there, the dirty-mindedness.

 

Love of money is the root of all evil? But, is it? Rather, isn't greed the root of all evil, greed for status, for the unbuyable--another man's wife, a famous painting, prized land, æternal life, love? Yet what are all these things but that which the money-loving man would buy with his money if only he were able? Money is the ultimate labour-saving device, and the money-loving man wishes both that he had unlimited money and that that money could buy all he desires. And all the better if his money were irresistible, that it had force-like power over other men, and so love of money leads spiritually to physical force.

 

Tolkien named the One Ring, “The Doom of Man”. Apposite terminology, for the true “doom” or fate of man is to be controlled by philosophy, by ideas, by the force-like magic of words, including the word “money”. “Mount Doom” from whence the One Ring came, is therefore the Mountain of Philosophy. And, to destroy the One Ring, love of money, force, including the force-like nature of money, the structures of sin, by throwing it back into its igneous origins, one must first scale the mountain of philosophy.

 

And at the precipice, with love of money—with that secret desire one has for possession-power rather than righteousness, with the preciousness of physical force, and the spiritual presumption that Mammon is the true god of this world, with greed and fraud and theft and taxation and the State and preemptive war and vengeance and even physical self-defence in one's hand, who can let it go freely? If the proposition were just “stop taxing me,” that would be relatively easy for all. If it were merely, “don't exact vengeance against he who assaults my family,” that would be harder, but doable for most. But, if it is “don't use force against anyone, ever,” that's almost impossible. I have met in the flesh only one person in my life who appeared to live by that credo.

 

Thus, the love of money, a kind of mental dirtiness, is irresistible to the spiritually impoverished “gollums” of the world, of which there are many. And the use of any force, for any reason, is par for the psychological course for such creatures.

 

Jesus prayed and sweated blood over this. His only recorded “forceful” action was in bloodlessly “driving” the money-changers from the Temple, a symbolic act against Mammon. But, he never used force to defend himself or others, and told his followers not to resist evil, holding onto this precept unto death. Jesus was offered the kingdoms of the world by Satan and forsook it all for a put-upon life and a criminal's death.

 

As Plato says in his Republic, “Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two.”

 

and

 

“Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: They will tell you that the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound --will have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled: Then he will understand that he ought to seem

only, and not to be, just;”

As in Tolkien, The Ring has a double nature.  The Ring for him is both itself as a magic vessel and also the soul of the Dark Lord Sauron, who has bound his soul into it in order to magnify his power.  In real life, the double nature is both the lovableness of money, its possibilities, and symbolism and also the lovableness of force and money's force-like nature, its compulsive, magical nature, its grandeur and capacity to facilitate the constructions of the Structures of Sin.

 

Worshipping Mammon drains the soul of its love, addicts it to gain, and those precious people and things of one's past pale, just as the lives of those caught in unjust social systems pale.

 

And, force begets force, force teaches that force is good, is acceptable, is useful, is thinkable. We cannot destroy the love of money without destroying the love of force.

 

How can these tendencies, these loves, be fought? They get the blood up, they are primal, lurking like evil seeds in our stomachs, sending up shoots to entangle our honour, and our intellect. It's painful and angering to consider that we shouldn't love the violence that preserves our own lives, and in that sense the Church responds with Just War theory, that violence must be met with the minimum of counterforce, and always as a last resort. The aim is to starve the seeds, do not feed them violent thoughts, do not cater to fantasies of vengeance, do not go looking for trouble and then “defend yourself” when it arrives.

 

And the virtue of charity should always supplant the love of money, by seeking to realise the humanity of our neighbours.

 

Who can climb the Mountain of Doom and destroy it? In Tolkien, no one could. It was only a kind of luck that cast the Ring back into the Cracks of Doom along with the gollum and brought about the Fourth Age, the Age of Reason, the Return of the King. We cannot do it as a society alone, we cannot expect individual human virtue to bring about what Tolkien coined as the “eucatastrophe” or sudden, dramatic turn for the better, we cannot replace the role of Providence, but we can through action, thought, speech, and prayer make ourselves and our society more prone to being so “lucky” through our fellowship and wilful, dedicated ascent up the slopes of the Mountain of Philosophy.

 

[EDIT:  corrected and updated]

[Des]

Thanks, I am genuinely inspired to re-evaluate my virtue, by those words.

 

I "love" my angle-grinder on those rare occasions when it is useful to me. It has both power and danger. Money is useful to me everyday.

 

Interestingly, I am a non-accumulator of wealth.

This does not protect me from corruption. Gollum sans ring a still corrupt.

There could be avarice in a pope, in whom wealth and power are not personal.

 

Thanks again, still reflecting on your words.

[Goldenages]

Money is value.

More exactly: Real money (not Dollars or Euro) is value. This money earned in a free market represents the value you achieved. And this value is, as you described, usually robbed.

 

I guess nobody ever gave a better answer than Franciso d´Anconia (Atlas Shrugged):

 

 

“So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

 

“When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor–your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

 

“But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made–before it can be looted or mooched–made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.’

 

 

regards

Andi

[Des]

Did Ayn Rand really leave out the "love of " words from a rebuttal of a biblical text?

 

Strawman. Bad objectivist.

 

Also, my dad repeatedly reminded me the word "mammon" was used, and applied to all wealth.

 

It may be a helpful interpretation of the text, to observe that if I developed an unhealthy obsession with my angle-grinder (hey, it's a really cool tool when I need it), that could create life-problems for me.

 

Some level of obsession with wealth and it's "power" to corrupt - must be past the point of reasonable emotional response to a handy tool.

 

Are some of us / all of us tempted into sin by obsessive responses to wealth?

 

Neither the Bible verse nor the Tolkien work offers us evidence or reasoning to support that theory.

 

The "all" in the phrase "root of all evil" seems incorrect. Obsession with other paths to increased levels of happy-chemicals in the brain must provide a root for some of the observed evil.

 

My overall criticism of the verse is that it does not rise to the level of philosophy, and as poetry, it is too misdirecting.

[Goldenages]

Now tell me, what is wrong to earn money and become wealthy in a free market?

I am shure we agree on the point that money or wealth or power must not be accumulated by coersion, i.e. taxes, robbery, and so on.

 

But he who earns money in a free market can only do so when offering values to others. Those others, too, are trading voluntarily, also offering values, for mutual benefit.

This is a great and peaceful principle, in fact it is the one and only peaceful principle that rises prosperity for all involved.

By the way, why did Jesus never mention it?

 

As mentioned in the previous post, money is just a place holder for value. Values can not be found, they have to be produced. In fact no money is needed to get wealthy, if I need shoes and you need bread, and you have shoes and I have bread, we exchange, and both of us get wealthier. Its just very impractical, while one can exchange half a bread, only one shoe is certainly less than half the value of a pair of shoes.

 

If its said that owing money is a sin, what is actually said is - producing values is a sin. 

For producing values one need reason - so reason is a sin.

To act reasonable you need to think - so thinking is a sin.

 

Since only man is able to act as described, what it actually means is - man is a sin.

And here we find the cause, why, without exception, all collectivistic ideas, including religion, hate money.

 

regards

Andi

[Des]

If its said that owing money is a sin, what is actually said is - producing values is a sin.

For producing values one need reason - so reason is a sin.

To act reasonable you need to think - so thinking is a sin.

 

Since only man is able to act as described, what it actually means is - man is a sin.

And here we find the cause, why, without exception, all collectivistic ideas, including religion, hate money.

 

regards

Andi

Andi - did you just blow right past my observation that Ayn Rand debunked a strawman?

 

Please either concede on that, or present a counterpoint.

 

I will assume your word "owing" is a typo for owning (correct me if...).

 

The verse did not theorise that owning mammon (wealth) is a sin. It theorized that the love of wealth is at the root of all sin.

 

It is poetry, and addiction to heroin could give root to sin as easily as could addiction to status provided by wealth.

 

I rate it mediocre as poetry, and it's not philosophy at all, but focusing love on people and not focusing love on our internal endorphin production, is a suggestion we can glean from this poetry.

 

My dad drilled me on this verse because it is commonly strawmanned, not because it's full of internal merit - I surmise (he's dead).

[Goldenages]

Yes, should be owning.  English ist no my mother tongue.

 

I would say, if its true that mammon or wealth or money - in one word, value - is the result of a reasonable minds action, there is nothing wrong to love it. To create value is life.

I love to live. So I cannot see a strawman here.

 

And again, as mentioned before - its all about value, and value can be stored in money, but not necessarily. To have a familiy, friends, a safe environment and much more -  that all are values, that usually are not found, but produced, and maintained - by man.

 

regards

Andi

[Des]

You are doing well in English, Andi.

 

By making reference to a proposition fundamentally different from the proposition in the often quoted bible verse, Ayn Rand did set up a strawman.

 

It is as if I said that addiction to alcohol is the root of many evils - and you just skip over the primary noun in my proposition and also the relevant part where I say "root of" and launch into an argument as to why alcohol is not evil.

 

I would then of course respond by saying: no, no - I didn't say alcohol is evil, I said addiction to it is like a root from which evil gets nourishment.

 

If we view the use of the word love in the context of a bible in which the children of God are commanded to love God and their neighbors, in which Jesus emphasized these two love commandments above the others, in which there is another poetic line "and the greatest of these is love" - then you get that this verse about love of mammon is referring to a sacred act of loving being performed for base motive such as the increase of personal status - misdirected to objects.

 

Not being a Christian myself, I don't do sacrements, but it makes sense in Christian context that performing a sacrament to material objects is idolatry.

 

I think Ayn Rand was off track commenting on poetry of particular significance to Christian believers.

 

Yes, the remarks she wrote about money are valid, but if a few billion humans were aware of a poem I wrote about addiction to alcohol, and then you mischaractise the poem as "alcohol is evil" and explain how alcohol is great for removing permanent marker from the face of your child (sigh- the stuff that's handy to know when there are children around). That's not philosophy.

[Goldenages]

I think (or at least hope ) that I understood you, but still can not follow the argument.

 

 

If we view the use of the word love in the context of a bible in which the children of God are commanded to love God and their neighbors, in which Jesus emphasized these two love commandments above the others, in which there is another poetic line "and the greatest of these is love" - then you get that this verse about love of mammon is referring to a sacred act of loving being performed for base motive such as the increase of personal status - misdirected to objects.

 

 

To love someone means to care. To care beyond nice words you need goods. Goods are a value, and here we are - money.

 

The problem can be reduced to a problem of definition, you named it: If someone is addicted to something, he will be destroyed. Not if someone loves something.

If someone is addicted to something he is not in charge, he is a passenger of his emotions, in his bright moments he will discover that such behaviour detracts from his happyness and joy of life.

If you love something, the brighter the moments the more they will add to happiness and joy of life.

 

Shure, we can see the word "love" in the context of the Bible. And then we see that that this "real" love the Bible means is reserved exclusively for god. All other kinds of love, so the Bible tells us, have this dangerous element, which is better, because more exact, definded as addiction.

And I guess its also clear why the Bible does this: To keep people frightenend. To keep people dependent. Cling to god. Love god. Everthing else is a waste of time.

 

regards

Andi