A Hobbit's Tao

In this post I am commenting on Michael Brannigan’s essay “The Road Goes Ever On and On” in The Hobbit and Philosophy. 

Bilbo Baggins (the hobbit) yearns for the security of his own home, which is in accordance with the nature of the Baggins family, consisting of respectable well-to-do hobbits.  From his mother’s side which is the Took family Bilbo also has a yearning for adventure.  The Tooks were well-known for their predilection for adventure.  These two separate sides of Bilbo’s nature which apparently afflict many of us humans as well, do not need to be reconciled and are not contradictory according to the ancient Taoists of two thousand years ago.  Thus the reader is lead into a consideration of Chinese philosophy.  The Tao apparently is the fundamental principle of reality and the origin of the Universe.  I am not sure though what a “fundamental principle of reality” is. To me a principle is a statement of some kind and it is hard to see how a statement can be the origin of something like the universe.  If we interpret ‘principle’ as some sort of fundamental thing, it seems there is this thing called the Tao and from it came two other things which are called the yin and the yang.  Yin is the force of darkness, receptivity and femininity while yang is the force of light, activity and masculinity.  The forces of light and darkness are regularly interwoven in some cosmic balance.  Perhaps this is a poetic way of saying opposites are inextricably linked with each other or that everything has two sides which are in tension with each other.  There are these sayings that every cloud has a silver lining or there is a reason for everything that happens.  Perhaps the cloud is the yin and the silver lining is the yang though interpreted this way the association of femininity with darkness or clouds has an unfortunate whiff of misogyny about it, which perhaps the Chinese did not intend as they may not have necessarily seen darkness as negative.  On the other hand, they seem to associate femininity with passivity/receptivity which seems rather sexist but I don’t know much about how women figured in ancient Chinese society.   

Apparently the power of the Tao within us is living according to our original and true nature.  We big folk apparently represent a fall from grace not living according to our true natures.  It is not clear to me how to identify the parts of our nature which are supposed to be authentic and those that represent a fall from our natural path.  The secret apparently is in detachment but this seems to imply we must be free from desires (as in Buddhism) whereas a yearning for adventure or security which supposedly represents the true nature of some people still seems to involve desires. 

The essay addresses Tolkien’s critique of machinery.  Machinery attempts to actualise desire and apparently this cannot be done with real satisfaction.  Our technology has noxious side effects such as global warming which is yet to lead to further ‘horrible evil’ in the future.  Then there is the risk of a nuclear holocaust.  On the other hand, machines have made our lives easier and more comfortable also, when one compares the quality of life these days with that a hundred or more years ago. Perhaps our lives have been made too easy with the result that we are not getting enough exercise and hence we now have an obesity epidemic. 

But it seems we cannot turn the clock back and undo the making of machines.  The only way out, if there is a way out, would be to carry out scientific research on possible solutions to the problems environmental and otherwise which we are now afflicted with. 

Apparently with machinery we are overburdened with the weight of our desires and lose sight of our original nature which is our Tao.  It is not clear to me how a thing from which the Universe came from can be the same thing as the original nature of each person.  Also this seems again to imply we must be free of desires which I am not sure is realistic.  However, Taoism has apparently inspired some poetic works which may have literary merit (mixed in with negative elements such as sexism perhaps?). 

The next post comments on the third essay in The Hobbit and Philosophy which is about walking.  

The Adventurous Hobbit - The Hobbit and Philosophy

The Hobbit and Philosophy belongs to a series of ‘and philosophy’ edited books. The idea is to entice the reader into reading about philosophy using elements of popular culture such as Tolkien’s The Hobbit which is edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson .

Adventure

This post comments on the first contribution by Gregory Bassham exploring the link between adventure and personal growth. Despite hankerings to be James Bond stemming from childhood ambitions, my suspicion is that adventure is not fun at all in real life, so I would tend to agree with the early Bilbo (the hobbit) that adventures are ‘nasty disturbing uncomfortable things’ only to be experienced second-hand in books or on film. Perhaps I am too nervous to venture outside of my comfort zone at the expense of my personal growth. This reminds me of a poster I saw. It advised: Don't join the army. Don't become a better you. I'm inclined to take its literal advice. Too old to join the army, anyway.

One is meant to grow in wisdom and virtue as a result of adventure. Wisdom is deep insight about living or something like that. As Bassham says, “a wise person understands what's important in life, keeps lesser things in proper perspective, and understands what's needed in order to live well and to cope with the problems of life.” Adventure (or other forms of challenging experiences) “can deepen our self-understanding and they can broaden our experiences.” Thus we become wiser. Socrates apparently advised that we need to know ourselves. We tend to have inflated views of ourselves . This presumably makes us happy but is it the sort of happiness that is worth having? What happens when our inflated views are systematically dismantled and we are, so to speak, destroyed? Then what? Anyway, apparently if you think you have it all already, wisdom and goodness, then you won't pursue wisdom and goodness. So you need to examine yourself ruthlessly, Socrates says.

Pain and suffering apparently can deepen self-understanding. C. S. Lewis (Tolkien's friend who wrote the Narnia books) apparently said pain can “curb our pride, teach us patience, steel us against adversity” and so on. One wonders if C.S. Lewis was tempted to argue that this is the reason why God allows evil. This seemed at any rate to be the Roman philosopher Seneca's view. However, this would not explain why God allows extreme evil such as torture or volcanoes obliterating Pompeii or the Lisbon earthquake or 9/11 etc which would seem to go overboard in curbing our pride and teaching us patience. Even if torture made a man of someone, it hardly seems justified to allow it to happen in order to improve someone's character. C.S. Lewis also adds that pain teaches us we were “made for another world”. I suppose the logic of this is that since we are so fragile and vulnerable in this world, we must be designed to live in a different world. Except that I think we were designed by a mechanical process called natural selection (we were bred by nature) which is constrained by the laws of nature in how well it can design us to flourish in this world.

One way to broaden one's experience is to explore philosophy. That seems to me a safer way to gain wisdom and virtue, even if philosophy bites. Travel is another way to broaden one's experience though I'm even too nervous to do that. Go to Africa and you get tropical diseases like ebola and malaria. Go to the Middle East and you get terrorists taking you hostage. And so on, at least according to the media.

Bilbo Baggins grows in virtue as a result of his adventures. A shock or trauma can apparently have a huge moral impact on a person. Sometimes the experience can have religious overtones. Bassham declares that such moral transformations are rare and do not last long. A more sustainable path to moral growth is apparently through habit and training. This would explain why a quick moral transformation would not last long because there is not the time for good moral habits to become ingrained. Adventures presumably would allow one to develop some good moral habits such as behaving in a courageous way. Note this would make it impossible for a human to behave perfectly all one's life since a human would need to work at good moral habits. A human can't get everything right all at once. This seems to me to make it unfair that according to Christianity we deserve to be tortured eternally in hell for the most minor of transgressions (and thus can only be saved by the grace of Jesus Christ which has various strings attached).

The next post comments on the Hobbit and Chinese philosophy.  

Companion to the Poor

Just read Companion to the Poor: Christ in the Urban Slums by Viv Grigg published in 2004.  Grigg is a Christian missionary from New Zealand and he tells his story of how he created a Christian community in the slums of Tatalon in Metro-Manila of the Phillippines.  A Christian friend lent me the book and I thought it might be interesting to see what goes on in the mind of a missionary and if he had any good ideas for changing the world.

Grigg exhorts Christians to take up the cross of Christ and go and live amongst the poor such as in the slums of Asian cities creating new Christian communities and helping the poor at the same time.  The overall goal of such a mission is to save souls.  Carrying out social work in aid of the poor apparently is just one of the means to that end.

One of the reasons I would be skeptical of Christianity being the Truth, is the argument from evil.  God is supposed to be all-powerful and all-good and yet we still have to live with poverty, injustice etc such as multinational companies apparently keeping their Asian workers' wages below subsistence level.  Why doesn' t God exert his authority against these exploitative Western corporations or something like that?  Why does he basically do nothing?  Wait, he did send Pastor Grigg to the slums of Metro-Manila and since then as the world knows this has made a marked difference to poverty in this city.  And he's probably sent a few more here and there giving us all hope that poverty will be crushed (not).  Why does God wait to establish his promised kingdom in which there is all justice and fair play?  What is he waiting for?  Come on man, hurry up!  Viv Grigg says it is this kingdom that keeps them all going 'in the midst of suffering and sorrow.  Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.'

From my point of view, there is reason such as the above to doubt in life after death and in the necessity of saving souls.  This life is all we got.  Thus if some of us seek justice this becomes the primary goal as opposed to a means to serving some more ultimate goal based on imaginary realities.  Grigg discusses various models for social change.  One of his techniques which I would tend to discount immediately is prayer, despite claims that his prayers on occasions had been answered.

One method which Grigg more or less rejects is revolution.  Although God may of course rid the world of evil forces through a violent cataclysm such as revolution (sometimes).  Otherwise revolution is too violent an approach and can have negative side effects for years to come. This sounds right to me as far as I can make out.  Although in some cases revolution does seem to work such as in some Eastern bloc countries.  In other cases it can lead to civil war or further repressive regimes.  It seems that whether revolution will be effective or not is something to be decided case by case.
Another method is basically to change the heart and mind of the ruler(s).  The way this would be done according to Grigg would be to persuade the ruler to seek Christian repentance.  Thereafter, the ruler manages their domain in a just way.  This might work.  However, it does have its limitations.  For example, I can' t see David Cameron repenting of his attack on housing associations thus dwindling affordable housing stock,  and exacerbating homelessness, even though he is a Christian. If we were interested in adapting the change the ruler approach, how would one persuade the leaders of Saudi Arabia or ISIS to change their policies on barbaric punishments for dissidents/criminals?  Could we get them to repent on an Islamic basis? Is there anything in the Quran that says such barbarisms are forbidden?  I could be wrong but I doubt it.

The above of course deals with change right at the top of society, but there are techniques for change on a lower scale also, such as helping people to learn the skills of a trade, develop agricultural skills and using the Word combined with employment help to combat drinking problems.  This is all great stuff of course for helping the poor on a relatively small scale, assuming the people do not mind being converted to Christianity.  I would point out that a community which was seen as unlikely to convert would not in fact receive help of this kind.  This is because the main  thrust of the enterprise is to save souls and it would not be strategic to do social work amongst those that are unlikely to become Christians.  Still, if missionaries changed their philosophy to allow all people to be helped, they would probably lose their motivation to help anyone at all.  

Next book: The Hobbit and Philosophy.