In his article "We Hobbits are a Merry Folk:  An Incautious and Heretical Reappraisal of J.R.R. Tolkien," David Brin discusses the age-old clash between Romantic and Enlightenment thought.  Star Wars vs. Star Trek.  A world with ancient wisdom and lords vs. a wisdom-creating democratic society.

Brin asks the question, would we be better off with the romantic view of submission to the wisdom of the ancients ("truth" from a time when a few men controlled the definition of truth and goodness), or does our progress lie with the humanist, optimistic view of the masses' ability to bring about truth and freedom on their own?  He comes down strongly on the side of the masses.

Brin describes how our stories tend to promote one view or the other, and Lord of the Rings is a perfect example of romantic propaganda against the masses.  He light-heartedly suggests that the real truth about Middle Earth lies with a humanist reinterpretation:

My point? Well, LOTR is obviously an account written after the Ring War ended, long ago. Right? An account created by the [elite, royal] victors [as opposed to the democratic masses].

Now ponder something that comes through even the party-line demonization of a crushed enemy. This clearcut and undeniable fact. Sauron's army was the one that included every species and race on Middle Earth, including all the despised colors of humanity, and all the lower classes.

Hm. Did they all leave their homes and march to war thinking "Oh, goody, let's go serve an evil dark lord"?

Or might they instead have thought they were the 'good guys', with a justifiable grievance worth fighting for, rebelling against an ancient, rigid, pyramid-shaped, feudal hierarchy topped by invader-alien elves and their Numenorean colonialist human lackeys?

Picture, for a moment, Sauron the Eternal Rebel, relentlessly maligned by the victors of the Ring War -- the royalists who control the bards and scribes (and movie-makers). Sauron, champion of the common Middle-Earther!  [See his full reinterpretation here.]

Christians need not fall on either side of the debate as Brin defines it in his question, "So which is the Golden Age? Our past or our future?"  Christianity promotes neither a romantic view of a past ruled by a few humans nor an unrealistically optimistic view of a future ruled by many humans, but instead, it recognizes our continuing place as sinful humans (whether few or many) who ought to be in good and rightful submission to the Creator who enlightens us with the truth about objective good and evil.

The idea of submitting to a god this way is repugnant to people like Brin who advocate suspicion of all authority.   Did God really define right and wrong for us?  Wouldn't we be better off if we became our own gods and defined good and evil for ourselves?  (Sound familiar?)

Would we?  Brin, in criticizing those in popular culture who do not present a positive view of the humanistic future, asserts, "One result [of pessimistic stories] has been a lessened sense of confidence [in the future], a sadly stylish fatalism in an era of unprecedented goodness and competence."  Breaking free from ancient wisdom has led to "unprecedented goodness"?  The Enlightenment right of societies to define truth and evil for themselves, far from advancing the cause of goodness, produced the bloodiest, most cruel century in human history.  But I will give Brin this: advanced collective human thought did lead to a greater competence in carrying out atrocities.

Come on folks, a little empathy [for the followers of Sauron].  Instead of railing against 'evil,' try to understand it. That's always been the best way to defeat it.

Just remember, in a world where we create right and wrong through the many voices of democracy--where there is no ultimate standard reflected in ancient wisdom, the word evil is always in quotes.  And ironically for Brin, the mass of victors--no matter how truly evil--have a right to define themselves as good...and we can see from his own illustration how truth-giving that turns out to be.

(HT:  Laurie Hall)