Monday, October 04, 2010
Things I Tell My Students Who Want to Make the World a More Just Place
It's either ballots and blah or bullets and bombs, and you really can't disdain both altogether and still pretend to be interested in political change. At the very least don't pretend you're a radical if what you are doing doesn't put you at risk of going to jail occasionally. Remember that you never know enough to know everything that is going on, which means among other things that you never know enough to indulge in despair, but that you almost always know enough to be angry and to be useful.
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> Remember that you never know enough to know everything
> that is going on, which means among other things that
> you never know enough to indulge in despair
Very Tolkienian! ;->
Denethor became. . . grim and silent. . . and would sit
long alone in his tower deep in thought, foreseeing
that the assault of Mordor would come in his time. It was
afterwards believed that needing knowledge, but being
proud, and trusting in his own strength of will, he
dared to look in the palantir of the White Tower. None
of the Stewards had dared to do this, nor even the kings. . .
after the fall of Minas Ithil. . .
In this way Denethor gained his great knowledge of things
that passed in his realm, and far beyond his borders, at which
men marvelled; but he bought the knowledge dearly, being
aged before his time by his contest with the will of Sauron.
Thus pride increased in Denethor together with despair,
until he saw in all the deeds of that time only a single
combat between the Lord of the White Tower and the
Lord of Barad-dur, and mistrusted all others who resisted
Sauron, unless they served himself alone.
---------------------
'Come!' said Gandalf. 'We are needed. There is much
that you can yet do.'
Then suddenly Denethor laughed. He stood up tall and proud again, and
stepping swiftly back to the table he lifted from it the pillow on which his
head had lain. Then coming to the doorway he drew aside the covering, and
lo! he had between his hands a palantir. And as he held it up, it seemed to
those that looked on that the globe began to glow with an inner flame, so
that the lean face of the Lord was lit as with a red fire, and it seemed cut
out of hard stone, sharp with black shadows, noble, proud, and terrible. His
eyes glittered.
'Pride and despair!' he cried. 'Didst thou think that the eyes of the
White Tower were blind? Nay, I have seen more than thou knowest, Grey Fool.
For thy hope is but ignorance. Go then and labour in healing! Go forth and
fight! Vanity. For a little space you may triumph on the field, for a day.
But against the Power that now arises there is no victory. To this City only
the first finger of its hand has yet been stretched. All the East is moving.
And even now the wind of thy hope cheats thee and wafts up Anduin a fleet
with black sails. The West has failed. It is time for all to depart who
would not be slaves.'
'Such counsels will make the Enemy's victory certain indeed,' said
Gandalf.
'Hope on then!' laughed Denethor. . .
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