If Tolkien hadn't explicitly stated that he hated allegory in all its forms, perhaps one could have considered that Saruman in his work was an allegory for a specific personality type. Tolkien Lore and myself have some opinions on which one.
Character Study of Saruman: Tolkien’s Portrait of the Modern Politician
Tolkien Lore | 29 Jan. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG0cAOWzexU
Not just the modern politician.
What about the people who inform politicians so they look commpetent?
What about modern physicians or criminologists or teachers? ...
"And not just politicians, this also applies to bureaucrats" (19:28)
Thank you! At last!
A little overview:
a) eugenics
b) euthanasia (of people)
c) psychiatry getting more and more reasons to lock people up or to control people not actually locked up
d) abortion and contraception pushed on potential parents they don't view as sufficiently "responsable"
e) forensic psychiatry (whether transfers from prison or preferring "obligation of treatment" as the say in France or "Rättspsykiatrisk vård" / "treatment in forensic psychiatry" as a specific "consequence" (påföljd) over prison sentences that would normally be of finite and predefined durations
f) feminists trying to keep young out of marriage
g) alt right wanting to keep all young in work rather than education
h) leftists (the ones G) are reacting against) wanting to prolong education as long as possible and for as many as possible
i) people involved in alcohol or drug abuse treatment wanting to overstate the number of cases that actually need their services
j) including but not limited to people presenting each and all on the street as probable abusers who therefore shouldn't be given money
k) Malthusians (whether in general, as Ehrlich, or mostly for coloureds, as KKK or Margaret Sanger)
l) cult experts who are ready to target a man as the last cult victim or next cult leader, because he writes on Young Earth Creationism
m) the kind of wise men who after every school shooting say the solution is not abolition of practical quasi school compulsion, but to abolish arms
n) the kind of people who think unless you are a Mensan, you should have no say in politics even by vote, and no say in running your own life
o) did I mention med personnel who as wannabe shrinks (or perhaps even as shrinks, Dr. Med Psych. Spec.) judge people as delusional or cannabis addicts if they enjoy Tolkien?
p) people who think that morals can be judged by experts (not meaning successors of the Twelve, meaning people like sociologists and so on) and eager to assume someone else's idea of what's good (for him or in general or in justice between him and the other party) is worthless if he's not an expert.
(f and g are two sides of a coin, I saw Brett Cooper defending a 14 year old at work, in itself perfectly acceptable, while forgetting the parallel issue of young marriages, and while overstating her case in a way reminiscent of the Communist manifesto making work not just one optional way of getting a livelihood).
0:31 I think it was the Netherlands, in fact.
7:33 Saruman of many colours ...
Somehow, when it comes to multicoloured, I am less reminded of Joseph before he was sold, than of rainbow flags.
7:50 Just a beginning. Transhumanism. Whether Musk and Hariri are as yet as bad as Saruman or not, transhumanism in and of itself is very evil, and they may already be used by men more evil than they are.
8:30 In fact, I do not claim to be the ultimate expert in every field, if you have come across that claim. I do claim to be a decent amateur expert in many fields, excluding Slavic languages and soccer, as well as rugby (whichever of these someone prefers calling football, I know NY means rugby and Rioe de Janeiro means soccer, by that term).
I most definitely don't think Tolkien was overall condemning every kind of Renaissance man, like he was certainly not condemning a man who was expert on wine, cheeses, decent economy, undecent economy, French monarchs and revolutionaries, even if he complained of his non-expertise in Anglo-Saxon lore, before he copied the anachronisms in Farmer Giles.
I don't think a sane man would imagine Chesterton cast as Saruman.
9:08 I think the wisdom of Saruman may be compared to, if not identical with, the wisdom Annatar gave Ar-Pharazôn ...
10:08 I'm reminded of how Mark Shea criticised Marco Rubio for not being sure whether the earth was created thousands or millions / billions of years ago.
I was a pretty big fan of Mark Shea up to that point. More than that, I recently found his new blog, where he ... well, see m) above, and didn't validate my dissenting comment under the post.
10:41 I happen to know a certain Laura Ingalls Wilder, with her husband Alonzo, were among the founding fathers or mothers of the Libertarian party.
10:53 I tend to look such things up (a thing you can do online, but not while talking in real time), here is Aleppo:
"Aleppo ... is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous governorate of Syria.[8]"
I think you have a point, especially in a country where there are people who couldn't tell Sweden from Switzerland (though a certain Dynamic Duo may have improved since then) or where a fellow Catholic just quoted Jeremias 17:9 in a KJV version, as if that had any authority with us Catholics (the Douay Rheims does not say the heart is "deceitful and desperately wicked" but more like "erratic and [utterly] mysterious").
I mean, having a president who's qualified for Mensa isn't quite like having a population that is. Not that that is a prerequisite for freedom and dignity (I just added n) to the list above).
12:44 I'm subtly reminded of people who don't want my writing to be my writing, as I intend it, but rather my writing to be sth they could show off as their underground politician.
They both tend to leave my surroundings physically reminding me of what they think are a gaffe, and adjudge that question on items which I definitely don't agree with.
Case in point, they seem very upset (judging from readers' statistics) over my preferring Tolkien and CSL over Isaac Asimov, both as entertainment and as the edutainment I profited from back when I needed to get educated.
16:29 It obviously is meant to set the scene for the actual point.
Men are not as wise as elves, true enough on the premise, elves are no longer going to dominate men, true, so, that logically leaves two options, and it's very instructive how Saruman simply overlooks one of them:
- men can govern themselves with considerably less competence
- someone else can step in for the elves. Which is where Saruman sees a cue for himself.
16:48 It does tell you (and Gandalf agreed) what choices are about to be made, one way or another.
The huge problem is, Saruman is the kind of guy who faced with the other alternative would go "you can't really mean that
" (unless as Saruman they can be even more mean).
18:33 I am sorry, but I'm afraid you are overestimating politicians here.
Lots more than 1 -- 10 % are real heretics who really want to push bad agendas, because they have already in their hearts dismissed God's view and they have called good evil and evil good.
You know, the kind of people a certain Adolf came among when he wasn't painting, poor chap! And even they were not as bad as Lenin's party.
19:59 Yeah, pretty much. A degree passing for competense, or sometimes a successful carreere in certain movements.
I'm reminded of such a guy in the department, back then of "Ecclesiastic affairs", who sent Swedish teachers to Rostock (East Germany, Stasi territory) rather than anywhere in "reactionary" West Germany.
Obviously many of his underlings more directly involved with teaching share this outlook even today in Sweden.
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