Last night I was watching LOTR: The Two Towers on TV, and I was once again struck at the relevance of the story to our own world and time. From the poisoned words that paralyze a kingdom and a spell that clouds the mind and weakens the will of the ruler, making him oblivious to the rise of evil; the parallels are striking.Wretchard's words eerily resonate with Tolkien's depiction of the spiritual rot eating away at Theoden's soul :
Some kind of brain fog has descended upon Western Civilization, a species of madness or abstraction that makes victory against the enemy impossible, not simply because victory is inconceivable, but the very concept of an enemy or warfare has become unthinkable to the postmodern bureaucratic mind. It is the very thought of fighting a foe -- fighting under any circumstances, however justified -- that has become the ultimate taboo. War has been banished, not from reality, but from the list of allowable thoughtWelcome to our Perfect World. While it lasts. It has become a Thoughtcrime and it is expunged from the Newspeak of our times. Welcome to our Perfect World. While it lasts.
Welcome, rather, to our own besieged Middle Earth, where a relentless darkness is spreading over the land. Just as Saruman used Grima to weaken the King, so do our present enemies use poisoned words, distorted images, and our own virtue to isolate and weaken us.
What words do we speak to the darkness in bitter watches of the night....America is indeed alone against this evil, and her spirit has been hemmed in by agents of the postmodern Saruman.
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this?
No comments:
Post a Comment