The control of currency as a moral problem

Jeffrey Tucker, in lecture called ‘Capitalism Is About Love,’ recently said that Bitcoin “is the most exciting innovation of our time. It holds out the possibility of replacing the national currencies which have been a menace to civilization for six thousand years.”[1]

Is he right? I would like to use this as a peg on which to hang a discussion of the history of money.

The control of currency is a source of perpetual temptation. In the hands of princes and politicians it has been used again and again to sacrifice the common good for their own short-term gain. Above all, the control of currency has provided the financial foundation for war. It is true that the mechanism was not exactly the same then and now: in the middle ages princes profited from seignorage, the tax on the actual minting of coins; whereas modern politicians typically profit by devaluing the government’s debt. In both cases the princes use their control of the currency to write themselves massive cheques, draining away the wealth of their own subjects and enabling them to do terrible things.

If we want politicians to stop going to war, we ought to first of all take the currency out of their hands. This might accomplish more than all the anti-war protests and election campaigns in the world.

Who then do we want to control the currency?

If we want a stable currency then we can note that the cities of Florence and Venice, dominated by men involved in trade, kept their gold coins perfectly stable for centuries. But as these coins were used for international trade and were primarily valued for their precious metal content, devaluation would defeat their purpose. These polities were specially preoccupied with the import trade and so present a special case.

But it is by no means certain that a stable currency is what we want. A stable currency is not good for everyone all the time. Neither is devaluation an evil for everyone; peasant tenants rejoiced in devaluation and protested loudly when the currency was restored to its former strength.

The party who controls the currency has to adapt it to the situation of the moment. But in doing so, if he is to act for the common good and not simply his own profit, he needs to know what is the right value at any given time; or at least the right direction to go. How is this value to be known? A change, or indeed stability, will benefit some and hurt others. Whose interests are more important? How is this to be decided? And what about the long-term consequences, which must be considered as well: what will happen after the current moment, and how is it to be known whether the short- or the long-term is more important?

When faced in this way the problem becomes the same as for all schemes of central planning, whether dollar bills or bananas or babies. Even assuming the angelic virtue of the person in charge (which is by no means to be counted on), the epistemological problem is acute—how is the right value to be known? How many bananas make the right amount (and at what price)? How many babies make the right amount?

The decentralized or market alternative begins to seem attractive. Instead of some party in charge who can alter the currency by fiat, let the currency reflect the aggregate of many individual decisions. Call it an emergent order. The point is not that a decentralized or emergent order will result in perfect outcomes. The point is that it removes the moral problem of having the currency in one party’s hands; and it banishes the epistemological absurdity of thinking that anyone can know the right value of the thing.

John Munro said prices and population are twins; and there is a twin here with population policy. Does anyone have the requisite moral character, or the empirical knowledge, to decide on and implement a population policy? Suppose a Malthusian alternative: do we seriously want someone granted authority to decide whether we shall have more people or higher incomes? The wiser course seems to be to leave it to families to make responsible decisions for themselves, and what comes out is what we get. Of course the outcome will not be agreeable to everyone; but the alternative is intolerable.

Similarly with money. The history of money tells us the perils of individual authority. It would be better left the outcome of all individual decisions, taken on ordinary terms of responsibility, self interest, etc.

The medievals had this advantage over us: their money was based on a commodity with a worth independent of the prince. So the prince could reduce the precious metal content or change the face value of a coin, but he could not control the demand for, nor the price of, gold or silver. If a man had a pouch of gold coins, he possessed a store of value independent of the prince. No matter what the prince did at the mints, he could not take the value from your pouch of gold. And likewise though the prince could devalue the currency, he could not simply create more gold to fund whatever war he might want to afflict on the world.

Their disadvantage was that the availability of money as a means of exchange depended on the stock of these precious metals; and so if the kingdom was poor of silver then effective demand dried up, and commerce ground to a halt.

Our paper money has solved that problem, but we are worse off in that our money is not worth anything in itself. We are at the whim of our politicians and central bankers. They own the printing press (figuratively speaking). If they choose to print more, to pay for war or to buy votes or for whatever reason, they can do it; dissipating our savings like smoke and defrauding all their creditors.

Is there any solution? Bitcoin, or something like it, answers to both of the problems of currency of which the history of money tells. It is not controlled by any individual or organization. Even the creator of Bitcoin does not control it—he wrote the software and then set it loose. There is no mainframe that can be owned or gotten to; transactions are processed and records kept by independent computers across the whole world, which can always be run by anyone. More Bitcoins cannot be made, nor can they be destroyed. The value cannot be changed at whim, but is the outcome of the aggregate of all individual decisions ever made. And there can never be a shortage that kills effective demand, because bitcoins can be infinitely divided: even if 99% were hoarded and dead, the remaining 1% could be used by any number of people, because any fraction no matter how small can be electronically processed and recorded.

The single requirement is the infrastructure of the internet, the processing of digital transactions, and the keeping of digital records. That’s it.

Bitcoin could be the perfect currency. By taking currency out of government hands, it could rid the world of a menace which has afflicted mankind for millennia. In light of the history of money, we seem justified in saying that Bitcoin is indeed the most exciting innovation of our time.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUDHZ5sYOZg

The Pope joins in the sport of insulting large Catholic families

Christoph Schmidt: Holy Father, first of all I would like to say: Thank you very much for all the impressive moments of this week. It is the first time I accompany you, and I would like to say thank you very much. My question: you have talked about the many children in the Philippines, about your joy because there are so many children, but according to some polls the majority of Filipinos think that the huge growth of Filipino population is one of the most important reasons for the enormous poverty in the country. A Filipino woman gives birth to an average of three children in her life, and the Catholic position concerning contraception seem to be one of the few question on which a big number of people in the Philippines do not agree with the Church. What do you think about that?

Pope Francis: I think the number of three children per family that you mentioned – it makes me suffer- I think it is the number experts say is important to keep the population going. Three per couple. When this decreases, the other extreme happens, like what is happening in Italy. I have heard, I do not know if it is true, that in 2024 there will be no money to pay pensioners because of the fall in population. Therefore, the key word, to give you an answer, and the one the Church uses all the time, and I do too, is responsible parenthood. How do we do this? With dialogue. Each person with his pastor seeks how to do carry out a responsible parenthood.

That example I mentioned shortly before about that woman who was expecting her eighth child and already had seven who were born with caesareans. That is a an irresponsibility. That woman might say ‘no, I trust in God.’ But, look, God gives you means to be responsible. Some think that — excuse the language — that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits. No. Responsible parenthood. This is clear and that is why in the Church there are marriage groups, there are experts in this matter, there are pastors, one can search; and I know so many ways that are licit and that have helped this. You did well to ask me this.

Another curious thing in relation to this is that for the most poor people, a child is a treasure. It is true that you have to be prudent here too, but for them a child is a treasure. Some would say ‘God knows how to help me’ and perhaps some of them are not prudent, this is true. Responsible paternity, but let us also look at the generosity of that father and mother who see a treasure in every child.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-popes-in-flight-interview-from-manila-to-rome-84716/

The rabbits comment was an evil thing to say. It lends ammunition to all the wrong people, the people who are eager (and sometimes already willing) to mock the very husbands and wives who are raising holy and beautiful Catholic families. We know a family, the ———s, who have eight kids under ten, and they are some of the most holy and joyful people we have ever met. They told us that people say to them sometimes, “Hasn’t anyone told you where babies come from?” (Their stock reply: “We know, and we’re experts at it.”)

That’s bad enough. But one day I a woman in our own Catholic parish asked me just that while they were in the room. I was so shocked that I did not reply in the forceful way that I ought to have done.

There are Catholics in our own Catholic parishes who are ready to insult large, beautiful Catholic families. And for the Pope himself to throw the word ‘rabbit’ out there is indefensible. On its own it is insulting and demoralizing, profoundly demoralizing. But worse, it opens up those families to be struck by more arrows and darts. Lord knows the Church is already a hostile environment, where every faithful and serious Catholic is likely to receive frequent wounds. The pope just picked up his slingshot and gave an example of how to shoot even more.

A good pope ought to defend Catholic families. Thanks to Jorge Bergoglio we are going to need stronger armour. Here is a shield and helmet that we can wear, given by Pope Pius XII:

Large families are the most splendid flower-beds in the garden of the Church; happiness flowers in them and sanctity ripens in favorable soil. Every family group, even the smallest, was meant by God to be an oasis of spiritual peace. But there is a tremendous difference: where the number of children is not much more than one, that serene intimacy that gives value to life has a touch of melancholy or of pallor about it; it does not last as long, it may be more uncertain, it is often clouded by secret fears and remorse.

With good reason, it has often been pointed out that large families have been in the forefront as the cradles of saints. We might cite, among others, the family of St. Louis, the King of France, made up of ten children, that of St. Catherine of Siena who came from a family of twenty-five, St. Robert Bellarmine from a family of twelve, and St. Pius X from a family of ten.

The Office's favourite sin: adultery

Despite the headline I want to make clear that I love The Office. The US version—the UK one is funny but too filthy and too full of horrible people. It is so coarse that it leaves you feeling dead inside. The US one continued the trend, already started towards the end of the UK series, of lightening up the tone and of making the characters more sympathetic. By the time Michael Scott left (season 7?) he was a thoroughly sympathetic character, meant to be liked and capable of being liked by the audience. Lightening up the show was a necessary move because it made it possible to endure nine seasons.

Anyway, the US Office is one of my very favourite television shows; second only, I think, to Freaks and Geeks. Nevertheless The Office is a highly Political Correct show. A few observations...

Undoubtedly the favourite sin of the creators of The Office is adultery. They harp on it from every possible angle with all different characters right through the series. Jim and Pam are the big one at the beginning, with Pam engaged to Roy but carrying on a highly inappropriate friendship and flirtation with Jim, leading to them falling in love and so on... They never sleep together while she is with Roy, which is good, but the whole romance is coloured by Pam’s engagement. Indeed the thrill of adultery is part of the intensity of their romance. Then Jim is with Karen and in love with Pam, etc.

And even after Jim and Pam get together, adultery gets suggested a few more times; for instance the gratuitous attempted-seduction of Jim by Cathy (during one of the worst episodes of season 8), and Pam’s strange relationship with the cameraman in season 9.

Erin and Pete: essentially a revival of the Jim and Pam plotline, Erin is dating Andy while falling in love with Pete. Like Jim and Pam they never commit formal adultery but again, the adulterous situation is part of the emotional grab. Here it starts to seem like adultery is just a cheap trick to make the romances more exciting.

But it is not just that. Consider the other characters and it becomes clear that the writers have a veritable obsession with adultery. They just cannot leave it alone.

Michael: while Michael and Jan are dating it is strongly implied that she cheats on him with her executive assistant, Hunter. Later Michael finds out that the women he is dating is married; he intends to go on dating and sleeping with her but eventually feels guilty and breaks it off. But not before meeting her husband and privately gloating about making him a cuckold.

Stanley: serially cheats on his wife, and his co-workers are fully aware of it after season 3 or 4. He shows no remorse for it and after the episode when it is revealed nobody troubles him about it. In season 8 and 9 it is revealed that he even cheats on his mistress, being essentially a compulsive adulterer—while in Florida (the same horrible episode as the Cathy situation) Stanley seduces multiple women and takes them back to his hotel room; he says to Jim at one point, when he thinks Jim is going to cheat on Pam with Cathy, “Careful Jim, it gets easier and easier.”

Phyllis: one episode has her worried that her husband Bob Vance will cheat on her with his secretary.

Angela: cheats on Andy with Dwight for a whole season, while lying to Dwight that she is not sleeping with Andy, finally breaking both their hearts. Then cheats on her Senator-husband again with Dwight. Then it turns out the Senator is cheating on her with Oscar. In the end it is revealed that her son (conceived during her engagement to the Senator) is Dwight’s child.

Oscar: has an affair with Angela’s husband the Senator. Then after the Senator reveals publicly that he is gay, he abandons both Oscar and Angela for another man he has apparently been having an affair with.

Darryl: has an adulterous flirtation with Val while she has a boyfriend. This is revealed when his text messages are read aloud, and the boyfriend accuses him of sleeping with Val. Darryl continually hits on her even while she goes on dating her boyfriend, even in front of him.

Ryan: dates Kelly through much of the series without any apparent intention of fidelity. When Erin arrives on the show he makes many passes, even straight out telling her that he wants to sleep with her even though he is with Kelly.

Kelly: in the later seasons when she has finally broken up with Ryan and is dating a physician named Ravi, she is constantly tempted to get back together with Ryan and actually makes out with him at one point. In the series finale she abandons Ravi and runs off with Ryan.

This covers all of the main characters! Watching the show, after awhile it becomes clear that the plot is very often driven by adultery, to the point that it seems like there is never a time when there is not an adulterous situation going on with one of the main characters. First it’s Pam and Roy, then Jim and Karen, then Andy and Angela (and also Stanley), then Ryan and Kelly, then Angela and the Senator, then Erin and Andy...

And it is very interesting how this played out morally. Actual physical infidelity, having sex with someone other than a spouse, is not exactly approved: when Michael finds out he is dating a married women they try to make him break it off, and in the end he does out of guilt. Stanley’s adultery is initially upsetting to his co-workers. But the rule is that adultery is not so serious as long as it is done by likable people. Hence the only affair that is really condemned is Angela’s cheating on Andy (and also, through dishonesty, cheating on Dwight). When that gets revealed it is treated as a serious matter and does visible harm to both men. But Stanley’s adultery is treated lightly and never criticized again after it first comes out; and the emotional adultery of Pam and Jim, Erin and Pete, though it has some consequences, is never really questioned. Even Oscar’s affair with the Senator, though it does show Oscar in a bad light, is relieved of guilt somewhat; and in a way Angela comes out of it looking worse, because of her hypocrisy—she is very angry at Oscar even though she already cheated on the Senator with Dwight—and because of how she reacts, hiring a hitman to whack Oscar.

What is the difference that makes Angela’s cheating on Andy the worst of all, and the others not so bad? Above all, why is Angela condemned but Stanley humoured? Stanley’s behaviour, by any reckoning, is much worse than Angela’s: he is married, and she is not (when she cheats on Andy); he has a daughter who must be harmed in many ways by his actions, while Angela does not; he is utterly self-righteous about it, while Angela at least shows some regret.

I think, sadly, the difference is just that Stanley is a likeable character and Angela is not. In fact the treatment of Angela as a character is one of the worst Politically Correct aspects of the show, worthy of another post.

The other difference, I think, is that the victim in Stanley’s case is offscreen, not one of the characters on the show, while the victim in Angela’s case is one of the main characters. And so we get the message: as long as we don’t know the person being injured, it’s not such a big deal... and that seems to be the way the characters treat it. With Andy they know him and see the consequences, so it’s important. But they aren’t friends with Stanley’s wife, so why worry? It’s his business...

Sadly, I have seen just this attitude among people I know. Adulterers are evil if they hurt your friends. But if a friend is dating a married man, well, it might not be ideal but I want her to be happy... 

The Standard of Aragorn and the Shield of Aeneas

Aragorn unfurling the standard of the Kings of Gondor as he reaches Minas Tirith, sailing up the river Anduin, has got to be one of the most moving passages of The Lord of the Rings. I did not realize until recently that the scene is quite close to the arrival of Aeneas at the Trojan camp in Virgil’s Aeneid, book X.

Aeneas receives word that the Trojan camp is under attack and sails down the river to their aid. He sails through an anxious night with the rowers striving to bring them to the camp. Then in early morning a water-nymphs comes and speaks to Aeneas. She tells him to fling his sheets to the wind:

Up with you! Call your men to arms with the dawn.

That first, then seize the indestructible shield

the God of Fire gave you, ringed with gold.

Daybreak, if you find my urgings on the mark,

will see vast heaps of Rutulians cut down in blood!

Aeneas, propelled by the nymph, reaches the Trojan camp as the day is breaking. He raises his shield and it shines in the sun; the Trojans take it as a sign and their hope is renewed as they throw their spears into the air. The Rutulians and Latins marvel seeing the new hope of the Trojans and the armada bearing down on them, with Aeneas’s crested helm flashing with sunlight and his shield burning like fire.

No more words. As the wheeling sun swung round

to the full light of day and put the dark to flight,

first he commands his troops to follow orders,

brace their hearts for battle, gear for war.

                                                Now Aeneas,

standing high astern, no sooner catches a glimpse

of his own Trojan camp than he quickly hoists

his burnished, brazen shield in his left hand.

The Trojans up on the ramparts shout to the skies—

fresh hope ignites their rage—and wing their spears

like cranes from the river Strymon calling out commands

as they swoop through the air below the black clouds,

flying before the Southwinds, cries raised in joy.

The Rutulian king and the Latin captains marvel

till, glancing back, they see an armada heading

toward the shore and the whole sea rolling down

on them now in a tide of ships. From the peak

of Aeneas’ helmet flames are leaping forth

and a deadly blaze comes pouring from its crest.

The golden boss of his shield spews streams of fire,

strong as the lethal, blood-red light of comets streaming

on in a clear night, or bright as the Dog Star, Sirius,

bearing a plague and thirst to afflicted mortals,

rises up to shroud the sky with gloom.

Many of Virgil’s images in this scene are also used by Tolkien in Aragorn’s arrival at Minas Tirith. The armada sailing through the night to relieve the king’s own city under siege. The citizens sending messengers to ask for help who are killed before they can escape. The wind turning to speed the ships on. The arrival as the dawn breaks. The raising of a sign of the king, bright and shining in the sun—a sign that was the gift of a woman to the king: Aeneas’ shield, given by Venus, or Aragorn’s standard, given by Arwen. The sign gives hope to the defenders and wonder to the besiegers. The defenders throwing their weapons in the air; Éomer throws his sword. The flashing of the king’s helm: Aeneas’ crested helm, Aragorn’s winged helm.

Tolkien also drew images from other scenes of the Aeneid: Aeneas on his way to Latium goes through the land of the dead, like Aragorn taking the paths of the dead. The bright light of Aeneas’ shield in the sun like the light of Theoden’s golden shield. Also Aeneas leads his troops through a hidden valley to reach Latium, like the Riders of Rohan taking the Stonewain road to reach Minas Tirith. The death of Mezentius. Even Denethor burning himself on a pyre is like Dido in Aeneid IV.

I take this as confirmation of what Bruce Charlton has said about the nature of Tolkien’s creativity: that he was inspired especially by images. He gets an image in his head from some source of inspiration—sometimes dreams, here the work of Virgil; however it happens he becomes fixated on a certain image and then work out how that image fits into the story. Sometimes he would radically change the meaning of an image in the process. Charlton has given the example of the black rider sniffing for the hobbits in the Shire: at one point in revision this was not a Nazgul but a good character (Gandalf? I forget). What was important was the image of the black rider sniffing the ground.

Likewise the scene of Mezentius’ death in the Aeneid. Mezentius is on horseback and Aeneas throws his spear, killing the horse, which rears up and collapses on Mezentius. Mezentius’ son steps forth to defend him and exchanges fighting words with Aeneas.

Here the Witch-King stands in the place of Aeneas and Theoden of Mezentius, Éowyn in the place of Mezentius' son. Perhaps Tolkien was inspired by the scene, but he changed it reverse the positions of hero and villain.

We have a glimpse of Tolkien’s creative process: a process of assembling meaningful, striking images into a connected narrative. The image of the king sailing down the river to relieve his city from seige, raising a brightly shining standard in the new dawn—it is powerfully moving, stirring, almost heartbreaking. It seems to be one of those mythic or archetypal images that just strikes a chord no matter what. Could it be that the entire story of Aragorn’s journey to Pelargir—his taking the Paths of the Dead, riding across the southern fiefs, capturing the fleet of Umbar and sailing it up the river Anduin—was all developed so that Aragorn would arrive at Minas Tirith by ship to unfurl the Standard of the Kings? Did Tolkien grasp that this scene was the proper climax of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and then write The Return of the King in such a way as to bring it about? 

Two things necessary for successful art

Paul Fussell, Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, 1979:

All this is to say that art works by artifice, by illusion, and by technique, and that no amount of talent, idea, or largeness of soul or heart in the artist produces anything except through artifice or technique, through, that is, a mastery of the conventions appropriate to the art.

Bruce Charlton, Reviewing the Current Doctor Who, 2014:

The script-editors/ writers themselves, however talented, are what CS Lewis called 'Men without Chests'. At bottom the makers of Doctor Who apparently only believe in positive virtues of kindness and happiness. ... At bottom modern secular morality is just a matter of opinion; which sets a limit to how good, how deep, a script can be.

In this light, it is interesting that the explicitly Roman Catholic author Frank Cottrell Boyce has been hired as a writer - this means that there is at least the potential (if the bosses allow it) for a coherently moral story, with a morality more deeply rooted than 'doing this is what makes me feel good'.

There are two things that go to make art: matter and form. Matter is the content, Form is the technique. If either fails then the work of art itself will be a failure. Success in the one, no matter how great, cannot supply what is lacking from the other.

This is why enduring, classic works of art tend to unite technical mastery with a great subject or theme. Milton’s Paradise Lost sets out to “justify the ways of God to man.” Dante’s Divine Comedy is about the journey of the person from estrangement and sin to union with God. If we want some non-Christian works, Virgil’s Aeneid is not only about the founding of Rome (a subject not of universal significance) but also the resolve and suffering imposed by a vocation: mens immota manet, “the mind remains unmoved as the vain tears fall.”

Even in lighter or smaller works of art, where a weighty subject may not be appropriate, one needs a base of seriousness, especially a moral seriousness, or else the result will be thin. Take a comedy like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and compare it to Helen Fielding’s imitation, Bridget Jones’s Diary. Austen’s work has a moral foundation which the author herself takes seriously; therefore the events in which the comedy takes place are important and consequential in themselves. Fielding only has the morality Charlton describes above: ‘doing what makes me feel good.’ Nothing that happens has any importance except in relation to Bridget Jones’s feelings; and by necessity the comedy is more trivial and less funny. But it is not easy to separate matter from form, and in fact not only her theme but also Jane Austen’s artistry is superior to most modern writing.

Modern art, in all fields but especially in writing, tends to fail on both accounts. Writers now are ‘men without chests’ and do not believe anything has objective significance or meaning. Their work is morally thin; there is nothing there to chew on, no crunch. But they also tend to be inferior in skill and mastery of form than in former years. Partly through overt and conscious rejection of tradition, which means rejection of the great tools and techniques which have been handed down by the masters—it is like trying to build a house but refusing to use a ladder, hammer, or nails. But this is only part of it. Artists and writers are much worse educated than they used to be. Our educational philosophy, and the bureaucratic management of its practice, have worked together to ensure that most people are much stupider than they need to be.

In relation to hymn writing and liturgy you have a perfect storm: badly educated people who reject the tools of art and who do not believe in any objective meaning. 

Decimalization and the modern project of destroying what is natural to man

Until about 1800 practically every civilization used non-decimal reckonings of time, weight, distance, and currency. In Europe at least it is clear that the divisions people found most natural were based on the number twelve. Vestiges of this still remain today, most of all in the measurement of time, where we still divide our days into two twelve-hour cycles—indeed twelfths have an unfair advantage in the calendar because, through God’s providence, the moon makes twelve cycles a year, no doubt simply to frustrate the modern rationalists.

In currency, the old European system was the one of pounds, shillings, and pennies. What the English called a penny was originally a Roman denarius (French denier, Italian denaro, Arabic dinar), hence the abbreviation d. for pence in England until 1971. Twelve pennies make one shilling (Latin solidus, French sou). Twenty shillings make one pound (Latin libra, French livres, Italian lira). That is, a pound is a score of dozens: £1 = 20s. = 240d. Peter Spufford, preeminant historian of medieval currency, remarks, “the habit of counting coins in dozens and scores of dozens was so ingrained that when a new coin did not coincide neatly with a multiple of the pre-existing coins, a new system of pounds, shillings, and pence was automatically constructed on the basis of the new coin”.

This sytem was abolished first, surprise! during the French Revolution. As the French Revolution became a campaign to stamp out the Christian Church, so it became a campaign to stamp out the European tradition itself. One can read with amusement about the failed attempts to establish a ten-hour day, ten-day week, and so on. But it is less amusing to learn that our metric system and decimal currency both have their origins in the French Revolution. They represent the successful conquest of the old European tradition and feelings and the re-education of man.

The Christian Church never tried to abolish the European past which she inherited—on the contrary she adopted and baptized much of what she found in the Europe in which she was born: Roman law (consider the medieval maxim ecclesia vivit lege romana ‘the Church lives by Roman law’); Greek philosophy (Aquinas, the greatest Christian philosopher, represents the harmonizing of Greek and Christian thought); pagan holidays (as is well known).

No, although one steeped in modern cynicism might look for the new Christian religion to try to wipe out all the impure past, actually the Christians received and lived by as much of it as they could. This seems to me the proof that Christians are not and have never been dualists or world-deniers: the Church really believes grace perfects nature; that is, the nature of man is what we have to work with. We don’t deny the nature of man and try to stamp it out, we baptize it; like the Resurrection led the natural body into a new and fuller life, so the Christian thing leads everything natural to man into that new life.

Hence the Christian centuries were a perpetuation, renewal, and over-flowing into new life of the pagan centuries (Roman and Greek) which went before.

The modern project is wholly different. The modern project is essentially, in its nature, anti-Christian. I have observed before that modernization can be defined as the destruction of the Church. Every stage of ‘development’ in Europe’s last five centuries in the direction we call modern has been an act of destruction of the Church.

The modern project is equally anti-Man. This is obvious after what was said above. If the Church took everything that is natural to man into itself, then to destroy the Church requires destroying what is natural to man. Hence we should look, at every stage of modernization, for the destruction of things natural and spontaneous and delightful to man’s nature.

The system of pounds and shillings, like the one of inches, feet, and miles, was natural and delightful to European man. It had to be destroyed. The favourite word used to destroy it: ‘arbitrary’. In lying, go big or go home. The truths on the side of decimalization are that it is more convenient to write and certain calculations are easier. But the big lie is that the decimal system is more rational and the old system is arbitrary. The old system is what generations of people found most useful and rational for day-to-day exchange! Twelves in fact are much easier to divide up into quarters and thirds than tens, which only go neatly into tenths, fifths, and halves. But the daily experience of centuries of Europeans apparently has no authority whatsoever. ‘Arbitrary.’

Even after the French Revolution led the way in stomping on human nature, the British, always tenacious in their contrariness to Continental ways, held onto their pounds and shillings until 1971. The economist E.J. Mishan wrote in 1980:

The case for it in terms of economic efficiency alone is doubtful. Indeed it is more than doubtful, since the changeover to a decimal currency (in which one new penny was equal to 2 2/5 old pennies) had the predictable effect of giving a perceptible fillip to the upward drift of prices. Yet economic efficiency is but one consideration. There are others, seemingly less tangible but no less potent, of sentiment, pride, and custom. Pounds, shillings, and pence are not merely convenient units of account and currency. They are also an essential part of John Bull’s accoutrements, an extension of Britain’s personality. Our national system of weights and measures, our pints and yards, our acres and fathoms, which are now to be thrown into limbo as so much jetsam, are also part of our Anglo-Saxon heritage. They ring familiar to our ears as church bells. They are resonant with centuries of British history. They are part of our language and our literature. ... But on yet another isue of deep national concern, the government made no pretence even of consulting the feelings of the British people.

The modern world is trying to re-educate us all from the bottom up. It must wipe out the Christian Church and it is using scorched earth tactics to do it. Give them nothing to live on, deny them all supplies and food, and do this by burning our own fields and slaying our own cattle. Hence the modern European state, born in the French Revolution, proceeds by destroying everything pleasing and sustaining for the natural life of man, lest it nourish the new life in Christ. The most deadly assault is on the family; but even such a seemingly trivial matter as the way we count coins does not escape attention. Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc. Everything old and traditional must be extirminated, everything must be reframed. Everyone is in need of re-education. 

Powers of sight in The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings

In The Hobbit, when the travellers are in Mirkwood and come to cross the magic river (which puts Bombur to sleep when he falls in), the dwarves ask Bilbo to tell them what he can see on the other side of the river. It seems there that Bilbo can see farther and more clearly than the dwarves.

But when the Fellowship is traversing Moria in The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf has Gimli go in front with him to lead the party—he is at home in the mines and not likely to get lost—but also, because he has the best eyes in the dark.

Therefore hobbits can see farther and more clearly than dwarves, but dwarves can see better at night. Since hobbits are essentially a race of men, it is likely that men have eyes about as good as hobbits.

It is the elves who have the best eyes. In The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn and Gandalf frequently ask Legolas to tell them what he sees. He sees a bird flying so high that the other cannot even see it as a speck, yet he can tell that it is an eagle. When Aragorn sees the riders of Rohan approaching in the distance, several miles off, Legolas can tell their number and the colour of their hair.

Legolas’s power of sight is a virtue of his physical nature. He has literally better eyes than any of the others, even Gandalf, who though he has many powers is still in his body a man.

Can all the elves see as well as Legolas? I expect not. Most of the elves of Mirkwood are Silvan Elves, descendants of the Nandor who never crossed the Misty Mountains. Legolas comes from Mirkwood, yet he is the son of King Thranduil, and it is known that the kings and leaders of the Silvan elves are often descended from Eldar who had crossed the Misty Mountains and lived in Beleriand in the First Age. I cannot say what precisely is Legolas’s heritage save that he is of a higher, more noble race than most of the elves in Eriador at the time of The Lord of the Rings.

However, there are also elves about who could probably see better than Legolas; though few, there are far nobler elves still in Middle Earth. There are the Calaquendi, the Elves of the Light, very ancient elves who lived in Aman with the gods in the age of the Two Trees of Light. Glorfindel and Galadriel are two of these. They are of nobler race, being less mixed with the Silvan Elves of Middle Earth. But the Elves of the Light also have greater virtue from their time living with the gods, being nourished by the Light of the Trees, so much stronger and more vital than the dim light of sun and moon. Some of this original Light still remains with them and gives their bodies strength unknown to the Elves of the Darkness. No doubt Glorfindel or Galadriel would have even greater power of sight in their eyes than Legolas.

Gandalf also, at times, can see things far off—he even says once that this power is given to him—but his power of sight is of a different nature than elf-sight. Though Gandalf as a wizard is in fact an angelic spirit of a higher order than the elves, he is incarnate in the body of a man. How limited he is to a man’s capabilities is not clear. He is much stronger and more enduring than he appears. As for his eyes, at times he asks Legolas to tell him what he sees, as when they arrive at Edoras in Rohan. But from the citadel of Minas Tirith, Gandalf is able to see Eowyn and Merry wounded on the battlefield far below. It is not easy to tell how much of Gandalf’s power of sight resides in his eyes and how much is a gift of his angelic nature.

But the Elves of the Light have also been raised up almost to the order of angelic spirits. This gives them powers not limited to their bodies; what the hobbits might call ‘magic’, not unlike Gandalf himself, though lesser. Two of the elves have this to an even greater degree: Galadriel and Elrond. Each of them has a power of seeing things far off which is different in kind than Legolas’s keen eyes.

Elrond has some power of seeing, or sensing, things from afar or even before they happen. thus he advises Gandalf not to send Pippin with the Fellowship because of the harm he will do; and he sees truly—it is probably Pippin who stirs up the Balrog and the orcs in Moria by dropping a stone down a well (causing Gandalf’s death); and Pippin also looks into the Palantír, almost disastrously. Gandalf, who has the deeper sense of Providence, is right to allow Pippin to come, because all these events work out to the good: but the point is that Elrond could discern somehow that they would be. He also can tell that there is an evil at work in the Shire long before it comes out in the open.

Elrond’s power of vision has many sources. Through his father Eärendil he is descended from the royal house of Fingolfin, kings of the Noldor—the last declared king was Gil-Galad, but after he was killed by Sauron on the slopes of Mount Doom, it could be supposed that if there is any King of the Noldor it is Elrond. Through his mother Elwing he is descended from Elwë, king of the Telerin elves in Beleriand. Thus he has in him the blood of two races of Elves of the Light, though he himself was never in Aman. But he also has the blood of Melian the Maya, wife of Elwë, through whom true ‘magic’ entered the races of Elves and Men, since she was of the angelic order herself. The blood of Melian has given all the descendants of Eärendel and Elwing seemingly supernatural virtues of spirit and body. Most of the nobility in Men comes from Melian’s blood, through Elrond’s brother Elros, who was King of Númenor: Denethor, Boromor, Faramir, and Imrahil of Dol Amroth all are distantly related to this line, but Aragorn is the greatest of these. Both Aragorn and Elrond have powers of healing, and perhaps some power of perceiving things far off in space and time. But Elrond’s power is enhanced perhaps by his Ring, one of the three great Elven rings.

Galadriel has the greatest power of seeing. She, like Elrond and Gandalf, can somehow sense things far off. But she also has her Mirror in which she shows Sam and Frodo a vision of things far away. She herself is of very great race, probably the oldest Elf in all of Middle Earth, daughter of Finarfin of the house of the Noldorin kings. And she has a Ring, possibly the greatest of the Elven rings. Galadriel is, after Gandalf, the most ‘magical’ of all the good characters in The Lord of the Rings, and it is probably from the combination of her native nobility as a very high Elf of the Light with her wielding of the Ring of Adamant. These together give her a power of seeing not unlike that of the Palantiri.

The Palantiri, the seeing-stones, seem to work like eyes and not like the more intuitive vision which Gandalf and Elrond sometimes reveal. Aragorn uses the Orthanc-stone to see the Black Fleet sailing to Pelargir, many hundreds of miles away, and it seems that Denethor was shown many sights but he did not discern their true meaning. The Palantír thus grant sight but not understanding. They are unique in that they work independent of the user’s nature, high or low, good or evil. One has to contend with other wills who are using the stones; but it seems that if Sauron had not seized upon him even Pippin might have been able to use the stone to see things far off. These stones, created by Féanor, operate more like our technology, and can be used for good or evil. Two of them fall into the wrong hands, Sauron and Saruman, and are used to accomplish great mischief.

***

We can thus rank the powers of purely visual sight (not counting the Palantiri) in Middle Earth:

1. Elves.

Elves of the Light (Glorfindel and Galadriel).
Grey-Elves of the race of Beleriand (Legolas and Thranduil).
Silvan Elves (the elves of Mirkwood).

2. Men and hobbits.

3. Dwarves (but they can see better in the dark than elves, men, or hobbits).

However, some characters have greater powers of sight not strictly connected to their eyes. These are Galadriel, Gandalf, and Elrond. The greaetst of these is Galadriel.