Goblins

Reflection #61: A sort of photo essay about orcs in the modern world

I’ve been on a Tolkien kick lately and have been re-reading The Hobbit. And the following passage hit me with an insight as if someone had shone the light of truth onto the page:

"Goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted...They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones...instruments of torture, they make very well...it is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Before we feel superior to the goblins, also called ‘orcs’, let’s look at that quote more carefully, shall we?

Goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted...

They make no beautiful things…

but they make many clever ones...

instruments of torture, they make very well...

it is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once….

For wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them…

and also not working with their own hands more than they could help.

We are the Goblins

The insight that hit me with the proverbial ton of bricks is that Goblins represent unawakened men and women. Of course, that’s somewhat obvious, since all of Tolkien’s stories could be seen as metaphors of the human condition. And certainly, humans as a whole have produced beautiful and useful things. But, specifically, the orcs represent people who have been programmed by one tribe or the other; people who have stopped thinking for themselves; people who value profit to the exclusion of beauty; people who have sublimated their true nature to the dictates of identity; people who have lost the light of the Valar; people who can no longer hear the beautiful one song that we call the uni-verse; people who are completely captured by ideology which we have seen this year is no small number.

These people, which in modernity is a great many of us much of the time, when in such a state, can no longer find truth, and like the Orcs in Lord of the Rings, we allow ourselves to be programed into angry automatons by our respective Saurons and Sarumans to do the evil bidding of dark and unseen powers. Oddly, we can clearly see the programming in people of the other tribe. But we are blind to our own ideology until we wake up to no identity and no ideology. One must eliminate all the false programming to finally be able to see truth, appreciate beauty, and unlock true creativity. One must be open to truth to see the light.

“Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness…” — John 3:19

The Hobbits, the Elves and the few rare men in Tolkien’s stories who still hear the one song of the uni-verse, and who keep the light in their souls and hearts show us the way forward. We simply have to step away from the programming, and wake up to truth. And there, we will confront the terrifying darkness that we’ve been trying to avoid, yes, but we will also wake up to Truth, Love, Creativity and Light which are the only powers that can transform Orcs back into men.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”