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Chapter 2a History through the eyes of a saga.J.R.R. Tolkien created his saga, The Lord of the Rings, in possibly the worst historic timeframe that spans the rise of Adolf Hitler's fascist empire and continued right through to the end of the first decade of the Cold War. Tolkien has also seen World War I. He served in that war. A large part of his life unfolded in possibly the worst period of military atrocities in the entire history of mankind, a period that became infamous for escapades of terror and horrendous mass killing that went far beyond the realm of military atrocities. He lived in the shadow of a world blackened by the butchering of helpless victims by the millions, carried out by fascist beast-men in concentration camps, or 'achieved' in 'operations' designed for the deliberate eradication of entire living cities in fire bombing and atomic bombing. He also lived in the shadow of a growing arsenal of monster weapons, hydrogen bombs, so huge and so abundant that the entirety of humanity can be eradicated many times over in the time-span of a coffee break. Evidently he asked himself the question how it became possible that we would sink so low as human beings. He appears to have been searching for answers as to how we can get out of this trap that we seem to get dragged into evermore deeply as time goes on. Still, in asking these kinds of questions, and searching for answers - for which his grand saga, The Lord of the Rings, appears to have been created - he didn't write a saga of war, horror, and death, but a saga about life and living. From all that one can see, his goal was to inspire us to celebrate life, to cherish our humanity, to protect our civilization, and to nurture our world with the product of profound ideas. Evidently he has seen too much of death and dying to write about death. Still, he has seen the ugly face of death for which the epoch in which he lived became infamous. Thus he urges us to look at ourselves in terms of where our hearts are located, because the 'celebration' of death that he has seen far too much of, still continues. ...and death shall have no dominion A poem comes to mind here, perhaps one that has not yet been written. Each verse of the poem presents a specific denial of death, and ends with the phrase, "and death shall have no dominion." Only in the last verse does the pattern change, where the ending confirms, "Yes, death has no dominion." It appears that we are far from that final 'verse' where death has no dominion in our life. Much to the contrary. By all accounts, we do not fear death, we worship it. Death is embraced by society as the great benefactor. People murder one another for reasons that seem good, even essential. In fact, committing 'murder for good' has become the official policy of the world's proudest nations, even those that hail themselves as having the highest standard of morality and lecture the whole world on human rights. Today, the USA is leading this championship in hailing death as a savior, just as other nations have in the past. That ugly championship is evidently as old as the hills. Every empire in history has hailed the power to inflict death as a protector of its existence, some more, some less. Even Christianity has hailed death. It has hailed it as its liberator from the infidels, when in historic times vast hordes of 'terminators' ravished the world in religious crusades, exterminating the unwanted. Only when death strikes a loved one is the power of death challenged. Suddenly, death is no longer hailed by society. Sadly, that single occasion is the only occasion. In all other cases the power of death is embraced. In the shadow of this horrendous hypocrisy it becomes exceedingly difficult for an individual to deal with death in a rational and scientific manner, and to say that death has no dominion, and to built a civilization that rests on that platform. || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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