 Look who’s Tolkien The world of Middle-Earth, the setting of The Lord of the Rings (and The Hobbit, and The Rings of Power, should anyone be unwise enough to watch that), is a world of magic. In the movies and the TV show magic is kinetic, explosive: Gandalf and Saruman battle by hurling each other around with their minds; Saruman throws a fireball from Orthanc. But in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, such “obvious” magic is relatively rare, writes the historian and Tolkien fanatic Bret C. Devereaux on the blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry. Magic for Tolkien was subtle and spiritual: A thing of connection to an unseen world, of revelation. Gandalf says “Saruman, your staff is broken,” and the staff shatters. He says to the Balrog “You cannot pass” (not, as the films have it, “You shall not pass”), and the bridge shatters. Gandalf does not will these things or even foresee them: He simply observes the unseen, spiritual world and describes it, and the seen world conforms. His battle with these and other, greater enemies is about “the truth of their vision of the world,” not flashy spells, and Gandalf is victorious because his moral, spiritual vision is keener, says Devereaux. The memes of production Do you know that meme about equality vs. equity? In the “equality” scene, a tall guy, a child, and an infant are trying to watch a baseball game over a fence: Each is standing on a box, and the infant is too small to see over. In the “equity” scene, the man is standing on the ground, the child on a single box, and the infant on two boxes, and now they can all see the game. To annoy a philosopher, says the philosopher Joseph Heath, all you need to do is mention that meme. “Every single one of our students has seen it,” he says. “And not only have they seen it, they think that it’s a complete conversation-stopper.” It surprises them that philosophers still bother to debate equality as a moral ideal. But the model of “equity” presented was abandoned by serious philosophers in the 1970s, with John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, Heath argues. Even the most egalitarian thinkers focus on equalizing resources, or compensating for bad luck, not creating strictly identical outcomes — and real-world goods are far more complicated than just who gets a box. The diversity, equity, and inclusion movement has not engaged with political philosophy, and philosophers have not engaged much with the movement. Perhaps this is why, says Heath: If the kids-on-boxes meme is how DEI proponents interpret equity, “it basically precludes any competent political philosopher from endorsing DEI.” There’s a golden sky In the 1970s and 1980s, Liverpool Football Club was the dominant force in English soccer, winning 11 out of a possible 20 league titles. But in 1989 the club was struck by tragedy: A crowd crush during a cup match led to the deaths of 97 fans. The player-coach, the great Kenny Dalglish, led them to one more victory but then quit, overcome by grief. Liverpool went 30 years before they won the league again — and with cruel timing, they did so during the pandemic, so the stadium was empty and the fans were unable to celebrate. Yesterday, on a sunny spring afternoon, they beat a hapless Tottenham Hotspur to clinch their 20th league title, creating an explosion of catharsis in the red half of the city. The undoubted star man of the season has been Mohamed Salah, the superstar Egyptian forward. He has scored more goals than any other player, and set up more for other people. At 32 he is perhaps in the autumn of his remarkable, record-breaking career, but seems to be getting better. He grew up in rural Egypt and traveled four hours a day each way to train; he is a devout Muslim who thanks God after scoring (so, quite often), and is credited with reducing anti-Islam sentiment in the UK. “Sports don’t always give us heroes,” says the sportswriter and Liverpool fan Thor Hogan. “But every now and then, someone comes along who combines brilliance with goodness.” |
