Lord of the Rings, And The Intentional Destruction Of Beauty
You Are Wrong About Why They Desecrate Art (Part 2)
This is part 2 of a two-part series of articles on the modern desecration of art, using Amazon's Lord of the Rings "re-imagining" as an example. If you'd like to read the first part - The Rings Of Power, And Why Companies Go Woke - you can find it here.
PSYCHOLOGICALLY CONQUERING A PEOPLE
What is your people, your culture, your heritage? How much of it would have to be destroyed before you felt like there was not enough left to fight for?
Amazon's Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power would be one of the most perfect examples of a conqueror's propaganda, if it was intended to be used that way. It is sold as entertainment... while working to condition your view in such a way that it attacks everything that binds the people of the West.
Tolkien made no secret of the fact that the Lord of the Rings was written to mythologize the beginnings of the people of the West, and that Middle Earth was largely based around the cultures of Northern and Western Europe. And what is the identity of the peoples of Northern and Western Europe? Amazon's The Rings of Power would have you view it as a planet-spanning multiculture, with every town being a vastly diverse multiracial world, and only a racist would think any differently - despite Tolkien's clear descriptions of the peoples involved.
And not simply that, but the black elf is the only good person in the room, with everyone else being either fearful or angry out of their ignorant in-group preference. The black dwarf is the only reasonable person in the room, with the white boys just throwing tantrums or playing manipulating games until brought in line. The contrast here is not good vs. evil, but the valuable people who look like foreigners vs. the terribleness of the people for whom Tolkien originally wrote the story.
Of course, this show is only one of countless examples where the modern entertainment industry shows the tales of one particular people, which now look like they were stories about an entirely different people at the time.
I recommend that you keep your eye out for the next blonde-haired, blue-eyed king of Wakanda, until you understand that this pattern of people-swapping is intentionally only ever one way.
You might have thought that Tolkien's work was a classic of Western literature, but how could you so mistakenly align your own heritage with it and take any pride in it, racist?
Of course, there are more identities than simply ethnicity which can be usefully broken when trying to break a people.
In a functional society, men and women are a compliment to each other, and they strive to build the world (in no small part) out of appreciation for each other, desire for each other, and duty to the families we build with each other. We are partners, each with strengths that promote and benefit the other.
But, The Rings of Power gives us the only tropes of men and women that major media corporations ever give us these days. There are no men with any healthy masculine qualities. Every man is a bumbling fool, or a manipulative schemer, or so arrogant as to doubt the invariable correctness and power of their betters (the women around them).
That does not mean the women are better written characters. Perhaps the women have it worse, since there really are no women at all. Rather than having female characters that can embody the strengths of femininity, they are all the ideal men - rulers and warriors and brute strength and beneficial risk taking and all other positive qualities of traditional masculinity that megacorporations would have you think men can no longer possess. Hollywood needs you to believe that women are just 1980's Arnold Schwarzenegger action roles, except they're 115 lbs (or occasionally 300 lbs), and they’re sick of men's crap. In the world of the screens around us, men and women do not exist as partners. There are only mediocre men in varying degrees of conflict with amazing men (with vaginas).
And, of course, the identity of your culture is not simply the identity of the people that hold it together, but the representations of the culture itself. The Beauty that is unique in type to a nation, or a civilization. It is the reason that we marvel at an ancient cathedral, but barely notice a standard-issue office building. The reason that Tolkien's Lord of the Rings became a classic of Western literature, but almost nothing of modern entertainment does anything greater than pass the time (if you can shut your mind off long enough to tolerate it).
For a people to conquer you without massive military force of their own, they must have you simply give up. They must convince you that there is nothing worth fighting for. And to do so, they destroy your beauty. The beauty of your heritage, of your history, of your relationships, of your family, of your culture. If they can, they must turn the things in which you took pride into reasons for shame and humiliation. If your people's beauty is degenerated to ugliness, your order to chaos, what would you be defending?
BUILD BEAUTY WORTH DEFENDING
Of course, the answer to all of this is relatively simple. You are the heir to a great heritage, and if you appreciate what you've been given, then it is your duty to continue building beauty worth defending. Those who wage war on your people will not give you a billion dollars to produce beauty, especially when they can spend that on the anti-beauty propaganda in your home. If the beauty you build garners too much attention, and it is truly beautiful in the way that only your civilization produces, then you will not be promoted on their platforms and their media organizations. Such things are tools of war against you, and they will not be used to your benefit.
But you should do it anyway.
Know that waging such a propaganda war against you would be pointless if there was no hope of you winning. The beauty you are most likely to see is destroyed, because they are hoping to crush the beauty that is still in your heart. So write, or paint, or build something. Grow something. Learn your roots and stem from them into art that shows exactly who you are, even if only the people around you see it. Even if the little piece of the world you build must be done in your spare time. Heck, even just write a blog when you have a free moment. If enough of us are doing that, no amount of dollars can conquer us.
And, appreciate the beauty of others. Look for both the traditional art that defined your civilization for centuries, and also the little bits that get put out by those around you today. Study the classics, buy some local masterpiece, or just spend your time and money anywhere but on these handful of companies run by a handful of people who are actively trying to degenerate you. If enough of us are doing that, the re-moralization will give us the will to defend ourselves.
At the very least, read Tolkien's books instead of watching Amazon's trash.
For more of the little bit of thought and beauty I can bring to the world, subscribe and these articles will get sent right to your email inbox. I don't advertise or send any spam, so it'll just be the ramblings of ol' Oryx if you're interested in that kind of thing.
For an analysis of some of the other ways you are being weakened, and ideas on how to overcome such challenges, check out another article - Why You Probably WILL Own Nothing And Be “Happy”.