J.R.R. Tolkien had it in mind to write a sequel to The Lord of the Rings, and wrote a few pages of a first chapter but soon gave it up.
Letter 256 (1964): In a letter to Christopher Bretherton, Tolkien explained that the story focused on the "most regrettable feature" of human nature: a "quick satiety with good".
And I am struck by this realization. The story in the Silmarillion took place in Tolkien’s First and Second ages of elves, men, and dwarves, and featured the battle against a mythological evil that was eventually overcome. The Lord of the Rings takes place in the Third Age, when there is still a mythic figure of evil to defeat. When the elves are leaving Middle Earth, ushering in the Fourth Age, the Age of Men. With good King Aragorn. A time of Peace.
But here Tolkien realized that he had no way of continuing the story of the Age of Men without incessant quarrels, wars, deceptions, cruelty and greed, and that there was no end in sight. He could not envision lasting peace.
In other words, humans seem to have a “quick satiety with good.”
Looking at one section of a timeline of events in human history I find this:
• 800: Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor, uniting much of Western Europe.
• 1453: Fall of Constantinople (conquest by the Ottomans).
• 1500s: European exploration and colonization of the "New World".
• 1776: The American Declaration of Independence. [1, 2, 3]
What a peaceful list it seems. An Emperor is crowned and unites Western Europe. Constantinople falls (whoops?). Europeans explore new lands and plant colonies. One such declares independence.
World History is full of “milestones” like these. And yet not one of these events is unaccompanied by quarrels, wars, deceptions, cruelty and greed. None of them would have happened otherwise. Would Western Europe have survived as a patchwork of peaceful tribes? Could Constantinople have continued as a thriving city without inspiring envy. Could Spain have accepted the Aztec and the Inca as fellow rulers of their lands? Would Great Britain have been able to just wish us well and get on with it? Would any of our so-called milestones have ever happened without some sort of satiety with the good?
Things were far from perfect in this country in the years following WWII, but there was peace. There was stability. Both of which enabled many people to own homes, cars, appliances. We got good paying jobs and spent ourselves silly. And in spite of all the wailing about the consumer society, I think we deserved it. We had survived the Great Depression and won the War. Everybody gets a new car. What else is there to do with peace and prosperity.
Well, one can look around and see that the “we” to whom I refer are mostly white people. The Civil Rights Movement had moments of unforgettable violence, and was opposed by cruelty and greed, but if it was a war, it was largely a peaceful one. The country as a whole embraced it enough that the southern states that still opposed it were stifled and in the years following the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act black people began to thrive and began to show themselves as becoming equals in the urge to accumulate goods and services. In peace and prosperity.
Following this relatively peaceful victory came the victory of women to choose when and if to become mothers. The victory of gay people to exist. Their victory to marry.
And like a ball rolling downhill, the urge to extend the right to exist as they choose to all, the urge to extend freedom, and the fruits of peace and prosperity gained momentum until it seemed that there was no end to the possibilities of peace itself. That we weren’t satiated with peace. Because there was so much we could do with it.
We could save the world.
But now?
Why is the world spinning backward? Did the half of us who were seeing all the possibilities that peace was making possible not see the half who were tired of it? Did we think that because we had won the Civil War, WWs I & II, and then moved into the time of peace and stability which would make so many things possible that we had proved something? To ourselves and to others? Why are civil rights being openly denied? Why do women no longer have a choice? Are gay people afraid that their marriages will not be legally recognized? Can trans folks not find the health care they need? Why is the Supreme Court siding with those saying “no” to what we thought were long-established norms? Why did we think that 50 or even 100 years was long enough to establish a “norm”?
Why did a plurality of us elect a man who promised to oppose the good we had worked so hard to achieve? We were bored? Did we long once more for the cycle of quarrels, wars, deceptions, cruelty and greed? Because if so, it will never end and there will never be a way out