The Sheila Variations

"But why gloat!"

For those of you who have no interest whatsoever in Tolkien, I have a couple of things to say.

First off: WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU??

No, just kidding.

Really, what I wanted to say is - I am deeply involved (obviously) in reading his letters right now - and I will be posting them extensively because I cannot seem to help myself.

So if it doesn't interest you - forgive me. The mania will pass.

The letters he wrote to his son Christopher during WWII, while Christopher was stationed in South Africa are astonishing. He sent him chapters of LOTR for Christopher's comments - It seems to me that Tolkien survived those very dark days (not just dark for the world, but dark in the sense that he was separated from his son, and very worried about him - not to mention the fact that Christopher was in the RAF and Tolkien thought the airplane was a monstrous invention - monstrous, at least, in how it was being used during wartime - He was horrified that his son had anything to do with it) - but anyway, it appears that Tolkien made it through those worrisome days by pouring all of his heart into the Ring Trilogy - and sending off excerpts to his son. He says numerous times, "I write this with you in mind."

The letters are incredibly moving.

Here is an excerpt from a letter dated January 30, 1945. I post it because I relate to it - because there is something in me that abhors "gloating" at our enemies - There is something in me that finds that "hoo-yah" blood-lust terrible, indicative of our worst sides as human beings. If we should win, if we should conquer the enemy, then let us not gloat. Because, after all, what separates us from beasts, is our ability to have compassion for others. Even people on the "other side". What separates us from beasts is the ability to have feeling in our hearts for people we do not know.

Not to say that there should not be punishment, that justice should not be done, but to gloat happily in the face of the enemy's downfall is an ugly emotion, an ugly thing - It does not suit us. It does not suit the nobility of our cause. We must approach victory with solemnity, and sadness, I would say.

Sadness that it has come to this.

Peggy Noonan wrote a column in September of 2002 called "What's Missing in the Iraq Debate". It struck me at such a deep level - that I recall parts of it almost word for word.

The Democrats on Capitol Hill have so far failed to mount a principled, coherent opposition. I am not shocked by this, are you? One senses they are looking at the whole question merely as a matter of popular positioning: Will they like me if I say take out Saddam? Will they get mad at me if we try to take him out and it's a disaster? Will they like me if I say there's no reason to go to war? Have I focus-grouped this? Such unseriousness is potentially deeply destructive. It is certainly irresponsible. And here's the funny thing: If some Democrat stood up and spoke thoughtfully and without regard for political consequences about what is right for us to do, he'd likely garner enhanced respect and heightened standing. He'd seem taller than his colleagues. At any rate, more than usual, I am missing Pat Moynihan and Sam Nunn.

Members of the administration, on the other hand, seem lately almost inebriated with a sense of mission. And maybe that's inevitable when the stakes are high and you're sure you're right. But in off-the-cuff remarks and unprepared moments the president and some of his men often seem to have missing within them a sense of the tragic. Which is odd because we're talking about war, after all. Leaders can't lead by moping, but a certain, well, solemnity, I suppose, might be well received by many of us.

This letter from JRR Tolkien to his son speaks to our higher selves.

30 January 1945
Russians 60 miles from Berlin. It does look as if something decisive might happen soon. The appalling destruction and misery of this war mount hourly: destruction of what should be (indeed is) the common wealth of Europe, and the world, if mankind were not so besotted, wealth the loss of which will affect us all, victors or not. Yet people gloat to hear of the endless lines, 40 miles long, of miserable refugees, women and children pouring West, dying on the way. There seem no bowels of mercy or compassion, no imagination, left in this dark diabolic hour. By which I do not mean that it may not all, in the present situation, mainly (not solely) created by Germany, be necessary and inevitable. But why gloat! We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. Well, well - you and I can do nothing about it. And that shd. be a measure of the amount of guilt that can justly be assumed to attach to any member of a country who is not a member of its actual Government. Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter - leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereached or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines. As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What's their next move?

Posted by sheila