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Could it be that Tolkien is reminding us in the metaphor of the ring, to be aware that in the face of power and corruption, when the 'ring' is in control, all human development grinds to a halt?
It has been said many times by many people that power corrupts, but Tolkien seemed to have realized that the worst effect of this ring of evil is that it halts human development, that it literally shuts down humanity, just as we are experiencing right now, today, in our present world. Still, Tolkien tells us more about this ring.
Locked in time without end - the Ringwraith
In Tolkien's saga the rulers of men were weak. Those, who had received the nine rings to rule, were corrupted by them so deeply that they suffered the dual fate that the ring imposes. For them, time stood still. They never died. In addition, they became invisible as well.
The power of the rings is such that whoever submits to corruption becomes utterly invisible for the duration. Indeed, that is true. Whoever sells out his humanity becomes invisible in humanist terms, and when this happens, there's simply nothing left to see that's worth looking at. In that sense, a person does become invisible in a very real way. The consequences usually cause a person to pull back from this hell hole, however, Tolkien suggests that if the submission to corruption happens often enough one does become permanently 'invisible.' If one adds to that, that all humanist development stops in the shadow of the ring, the end result becomes a series of endless dark ages as humanity has seen for more than a dozen centuries.
This process is well represented in the saga. Undying and invisible, the nine rulers of men, who were corrupted by the nine rings of power which were all ruled by Sauron's master ring, were denied the closure in life that comes when the normal development of a person unfolds until it finally has run its course. They were denied this development process, and were condemned to exist forever in the small-minded existence of faint shadows in the night in which they are rarely seen, and that they cannot escape from. Tolkien calls them the Ringwraiths, a ghostly lot serving the designs of power, the black riders of countless crusades.
In my book they represent colonialism. Although colonialism is officially abolished, the faceless black ghosts of colonialism still run amuck unhindered, as ghosts in the night. Just look at India, its imperial subjection of a long past still haunts this nation. One can abolish a political process with the stroke of a pen, but the mental effect of the process on the population that makes a human being feel cheap and small, and society fractured by divisions cultivated over a long period, can not so easily be overcome. This damage needs to be addressed for civilization to develop and society to survive. Right now there isn't a political leader on the horizon, except LaRouche, who has any appreciation of the magnitude of the problem and is working to address it. The rest of the world leaders are utilizing the old ghost for profit and a new name, called free trade that has turned vast multitudes of people into slaves which now perorm the functions that once were performed by efficient industrial processes which have been scrapped. For the sake of its civilization society has little choice, but to support LaRouche, who represents the policies needed to reverse that ancient evil under whose shadow human development has already been ground to a halt.
Unfortunately, in order to prevent this human development, to keep the slavery profits flowing regardless of the human costs, LaRouche's name has been vilified.
One weighty question comes out of all this: Is there no closure possible in today's era of power that grows darker with each passing year, filled with more shadows that seemingly won't die? Tolkien appears to have asked that question and explored the needed answer within the saga of the ring.
The tale begins - Bilbo Baggins of the Shire
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