To be effective in shifting one’s mindset, propaganda needs its receivers to possess two skills: to fear and to desire. Out of all Middle-earth’s races, hobbits are the most capable of great fear and desire, which means that The Ring should corrupt them faster than all other beings in Middle-Earth. Yet, the opposite is the case. Whilst men like Isildur and Boromir are quickly corrupted by The Ring, hobbits such as Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are slowly or never drawn to possess it as their own. The resistance shared by the Shire-folk community, individuals who both desire and fear more than all else, is no accident. Due to fear of larger creatures, most hobbits spend their entire lives in the Shire: a close-knit community with an abundance of resources. Because of the abundance present, hobbits can usually fulfill their desires and maintain a steady lifestyle of continuous happiness.
It is this propensity for fear and desire that makes hobbits have such a stable and happy lifestyle. Addictive drugs are the most appealing to those who do not maintain continuous happiness; the ricochet of emotions that unfulfilled desires produce is sedated by an addictive substance. As hobbits maintain a limited form of emotional ricochet, they are the least likely to be vulnerable to the pull of The Ring, as it does not offer an antidote to a problem they experience. All of the other races in Middle-Earth do experience emotional ricochet in varying degrees, which is why – time and time again– The Ring avoids destruction. Hobbits are the most susceptible to the tenants of propaganda and the least susceptible to The Ring, which implies that The Ring is not propaganda. In addition, hobbits experience continuous happiness more than any other creature, which gives them resistance to addictive substances. Therefore, hobbits are resistant to The Ring because their predisposition to maintain an environment of happiness makes them resistant to addictive substances, such as The Ring.
The Ring is not propaganda because the tenants of propaganda: fear and desire, are experienced the most by the group (hobbits) that is the least susceptible to its corruption. In all fearing creatures, the neural mechanisms that produce fear are universal; they are activated when the potential of death is made aware to a being. This means that to have an effect on all fearing creatures, propaganda only needs to create something, such as a group or a concept, that has the potential to cause death to activate the neural mechanisms of fear. As Tolkien writes in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring, hobbits as a people experience fear from the beginning when “...the Sea became a word of fear among them, and a token of death, and they turned their faces away from the hills in the west.” Using a cause-and-effect sentence structure, Tolkien makes clear that the cause of the hobbit’s extreme isolation was fear. It is important to note that no other entire race isolated themselves to the extent that hobbits did; therefore, the severity of the hobbit community’s isolation reflects the extreme fear response they are capable of.
In addition to fear, propaganda needs desire to mobilize one’s fear response towards a specific goal. Fear and desire are not mutually exclusive; the activation of fear results in the desire to alleviate it. Propaganda takes the desire of fear relief and dictates a seemingly perfect plan of action to accomplish the goal. Hobbits experience the capacity to have desire in many cases. For example, throughout The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is referenced as the source of disappearance for many of Bilbo’s silver spoons during his unexpected journey. Lobelia’s desire for these spoons was so evident that Bilbo decided to give the rest of them to her as he prepares to depart to live with the elves. In addition, the continued incidence of spoon disappearance means that Lobelia’s desire mobilized her to commit thievery while Bilbo was away, likely because she feared that she would never get another golden opportunity to steal the spoons. In this way, Tolkien shows us that hobbits have desires, and the fear of leaving that desire unfulfilled mobilizes them into action to fulfill that desire. If The Ring was propaganda, hobbits should have been seduced by it because they experience both tenants necessary for propaganda to be effective.
So, if The Ring can’t be propaganda, then what is it?
Because hobbits experience continuous happiness and are not corrupted by The Ring (as fast as others or at all), this implies that The Ring is an addictive substance. The individuals who are most at risk for substance addiction are those who frequently experience mood swings. During a low, a user may take a substance to artificially bring them up to a higher state. However, this desired feeling only lasts as long as the substance is in effect, leading to the user to depend, and then become addicted, to the substance. The Ring gives the wearer a feeling of power and control when possessed; in fact, it literally makes the user invisible and, therefore, in control of the situation. During his first sighting of a Black Rider, Frodo expresses his desire to “slip [The Ring] on. And then he would [feel] safe.” Frodo, who feels apprehensive and out of control in this situation, has a desire to artificially regain control by using the invisibility powers of The Ring. During a later near encounter with a Black Rider, “the desire to slip on The Ring came over Frodo; but this time it was stronger than before.” In this instance, the user Frodo experiences a trigger to use – the feeling of lack of power when a Black Rider is present – and is compelled to use to restore his feeling of control. Because Frodo has already been exposed to The Ring for a longer amount of time during his second Black Rider encounter, a precedent for emotional relief is beginning to form a pattern of behavior that will eventually lead to addiction, hence the ‘stronger’ feeling of wanting to use.
Other works of Tolkien, such as Farmer Giles, have brought up a theme of farmers and heroism. Given that the real-life counterpart of hobbits is most likely Tolkein’s conception of farmers, the heroism that Tolkein associates is likely due to the resistance of influence that a happy farm-life creates. As this theme remains so persistent, it implies that Tolkien greatly idolizes those who follow a simpler path, as he sees them as the resistors of evil.
-SCJ
4 comments:
The Ring is propaganda, you have not persuaded me otherwise! However, I do take your point about hobbits being given to certain temptations that might seem to fit the Ring, too, namely gluttony and greed. Not all sins are physical, however; envy and pride are famously classed as intellectual sins, much more deadly than gluttony or sloth. I think you might enjoy Jane Chance's argument in "Tolkien's Art," particularly her breakdown of the difference between the Two Towers: Saruman's Isengard and Shelob's Mines Ithil. Shelob wants nothing that the Ring can give her; Saruman does. Hobbits may be more resistant to the ambition to dominate (which is the Ring's expressly defined power—to "rule them all"), but they may fall prey (literally) to being eaten. We need a more complex understanding of temptation and sin to appreciate why the Ring works the way it does. RLFB
*Minas Ithil
I think the concept of fear being equal among the neural pathways of each of the races is interesting, and I will concede it, so then I will ask, “fear of what?” I think the difference in what each of the races fear make them less or more susceptible to certain types of propaganda rather than drug addiction, so I am still fairly convinced of the propaganda use.
I think the idea of the Shire being out in the country, les “urbanized” in middle-earth and less steeped in everyday life make their fears more remote and their desires inward instead of towards ideas of power or eternal life. I point particularly to Sam, the gardener, who has a deeper connection to the earth than the regular Hobbit who already has a deeper connection to nature than say the Dwarves. I think my nature metaphor falls apart because then the elves wouldn’t be as susceptible as they are.
I think I am still left dissatisfied with the propaganda metaphor even if I find it the most believable at the moment. It feels like there is something more universal missing? Perhaps I can offer a synthesis of the addictive drug and propaganda metaphor and offer the idea that the ring is an addiction of knowledge, or the desire to know everything. This is based in a very Foucaultian take that knowledge creates power, as well as links back to the idea of invisibility being the ability to perceive without being perceived. There is also the palantir which is this great overwhelming force of knowledge gathering that is nearly unbearable to most people. I’d have to meditate on this a bit more, but of course I am linking this back to the idea of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and trying to figure out why God didn’t want us to eat of it in the first place. I would have to come back and recomment on this in a year to have anything really worthy to say.
-Gabby Bayness
I think while the Ring may certainly be addictive, this is different from it being a manifestation of addiction itself. I believe if it were a drug, we might see more comparisons and similarities between it and, say, pipe weed. While there might not have been as much of a stigma against tobacco at the time Tolkien wrote LOTR, substances like opium had been acknowledged to be addictive long beforehand. Additionally, a singular object like the One Ring feels too individual to come across as a drug. A drug is more widespread, far-reaching, and more plentiful than a single object. And yes, of course there are the other rings as well, but the point is that these rings aren't distributed to the masses to control them as drugs are typically used, but rather to those in power. The rings are certainly tempting, but an object that is alluring most specifically to the ambitious and those who want power feels like it should represent something other than a drug, despite its addictive properties.
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