Tolkien's Environmentalism

Of Paganism and Christianity

God said to humankind: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” [1] This command to dominate nature is part of the reason that many environmentalists have suggested the root of environmental degradation stems from Judeo-Christian ideas. By elevating humankind, God condemned every other creature to domination.

These same environmentalists tend to contrast what they see as the Judeo-Christian ontology of domination with pagan ideas. In many non-Abrahamic ontologies, nonhuman creatures are often portrayed as sentient subjects worthy of equal moral consideration by humans (and sometimes even worship). These environmentalists contend that we need to adopt a more pagan view, in order to give nature the protection it deserves.

Tolkien could almost be pegged as a pagan. He loved trees, and lamented the fact that “every tree has its enemy, few have an advocate.” [2] Moreover, Tolkien’s mythology for England contains a character of decidedly pagan flavor: none other than Treebeard himself. As Flieger points out, the character branches out from a tradition deeply rooted in the pagan imagination: the Green Man, archetype of wild nature made sentient. [3]

Two problems stem from the information above. First, depictions of the pagan Green Man appear on churches and cathedrals—why? [3] Second, Tolkien’s desire to protect trees and his Christianity (particularly pertaining to God’s command to “have dominion”) are in tension. I suggest that Tolkien sub-created Treebeard and the Ents to resolve both of these problems.

Tolkien is clear in the Quenta Silmarillion that he takes God’s command in Genesis at face value: “the Children when they come shall have dominion over all the things of [Yavanna’s] labor.” [4] But in Tolkien’s scripture, there is a caveat: Iluvatar promises Yavanna (through Manwe) that “spirits” will come to live among the trees and protect them as soon as the Children of Iluvatar awake. These spirits, of course, are the Ents.

With the stroke of a pen, Tolkien legitimates the pagan idea that trees contain spirits by tracing those spirits’ origin to God. Armed with Tolkien’s mythology, Green Man sculptures on cathedrals (not to mention Treebeard himself) are neither heretic nor even confusing. Tolkien has pulled this trick before, connecting the dots between seemingly antithetical worldviews: the Ainur are arguably a way for him to reconcile his interest in pagan pantheons with a fundamental devotion to monotheism.

But perhaps more importantly, this asterisk scripture allows Tolkien to banish the cognitive dissonance between his somewhat pagan inclination to love and protect trees and his Christianity, because they now both spring from a single theological stem. Nature is worthy of respect and protection (and is perhaps even sentient), but is also a subject of domination; such is the will of God.

Of Our Relationship to Nature

At this point, though, one might reasonably ask how humans can really have dominion over the natural world if Yavanna’s sub-creations are worthy of protection. Domination and protection of the natural world seem antithetical. But for Tolkien, they are meant to coexist, at least in theory.

Humanity’s dominion over nature is most visible in the orchard. We alter entire species through selective breeding to provide the best possible fruits for our consumption, and then line them up in neat rows to exploit their labor more easily.

Of course, that is a simplistic account. Some environmentalists have aptly pointed out that if anything, cultivated plants have successfully manipulated humans by developing useful traits encouraging farmers to spread them far and wide, ensuring their evolutionary success. The relationship between humans and nature, even in the orchard, though perhaps one of domination, is actually complex and somewhat reciprocal. At least, respect in domination is theoretically possible (though the factory farms of today may stray from that ideal).

This dominating yet complex relationship is perfectly encapsulated by Entwives, beings who are on the one hand natural, yet also value order and plenty. Beings who teach their crafts to men through what we can assume to have been a more or less equal partnership. [5]

In contrast to the Entwives, the Ents represent the wild that is in nature, the “large and alive” so captivating to the pagan imagination. But they are no simple allegory. On the one hand, by imbuing them with sentience, Tolkien implicitly argues that the Ents—the wild—are worthy objects of protection. But on the other hand, Ents also act as protecting subjects. For Tolkien, they are role-model tree guardians. [5]

Granted, Tolkien is careful not to make the Ents seem too wild. But he probably had a very specific reason to avoid painting ents as dangerous or hasty. A Romantic ideal of the wild, where nature is “sublime” largely because it is dangerous, can too easily become a fear of nature “red in tooth and claw,” as some environmentalists have pointed out. This fear often leads to the destruction of nature. If Tolkien makes the Ents careful and just in their vengeance, it is not to question their wildness. It is to signal that wild nature must be respected, but should not be feared and hated.

So the Entwives gesture at a dominating relationship with nature, while the Ents gesture at a relationship that emphasizes respect for the wild.

Crucially, these two attitudes form a dialectical unity: they are literally mates. So the proper relationship we must have with nature is neither a total, ordered domination, one vast orchard stretching to the four corners of the Earth, nor is it a total reverence of the wild, an “anarchist primitivist” perspective that elevates hunter-gathering as the only acceptable lifestyle (insofar as it is the only lifestyle that never dominates nature). Instead, Tolkien gestures towards some synthesis of the two. This makes Tolkien remarkably modern: environmentalism has only recently warmed up to the idea that humans can find ways to respectfully live within nature, without subjecting it to total domination (a thought which admittedly seems fairly obvious in hindsight).

But Tolkien seems pessimistic the ideal is possible. The Entiwves were probably destroyed in the War of the Last Alliance, and Iluvatar made explicit that no matter what, the Ents were only meant to persist “while the Secondborn [were] young.” [4][6] With the Ents and Entwives gone, their union is impossible; humans might never retrieve their proper relationship with nature. Tolkien wrote in an age of unwavering industrial enthusiasm, so who can criticize his pessimism?

Conclusion

Tolkien often challenges the boundaries between nature and humans, the growing and the “made.” From the marriage of Aule and Yavanna, to the living quality of gems and the gemlike quality of trees, to the long-lost union of the Ents and the Entwives, harmony is theoretically possible. But perhaps, in the same way that the primordial light has splintered beyond repair, so has the union between humans and nature. Is domination all that remains? Or will humans one day manage to replace the Ents as guardians of the wild forest? The choice is ours alone, in the free exercise of the gift we have received from Iluvatar.

- JS

References
[1] Genesis: 1:28
[2] Tolkien, Letter 241
[3] Flieger, "The Green Man, the Green Knight, and Treebeard"
[4] Tolkien, Quenta Silmarillion: "Of Aule and Yavanna"
[5] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings III, Chapter 2
[6] Tolkien, Letter 144