Joan Bushwell, in an old piece called “The Tolkienian War on Science”.
(h/t Daniel Stride), explains Fëanor in a way that makes him (to me) almost sympathetic. I do have one big disagreement with the author, though. I’m on board when she calls Fëanor “the master smith/scientist/engineer”. But then she builds an analogy between Morgoth’s theft of the Silmarils and the current anxiety engineers have about intellectual property. No way. Fëanor is not upset about the theft of “intellectual property”. It’s clear that Fëanor gave away intellectual property freely – look at the alphabets for the best example. Silmarils are different. When Morgoth stole the Silmarils, Fëanor didn’t have them any more. In fact, he couldn’t even make new ones. They were like moon rocks or glacial core samples: literally irreplaceable, since we don’t fly to the Moon and the glaciers are melting.
“Intellectual property” is a bizarre legal fiction because it’s exactly the opposite of Silmarils. When (not “if”) intellectual property is stolen, the possessions of the developer are unchanged. The only thing the developer loses is the secrecy. The potential for profit.
Gandalf was fond of lecturing on topics like this, so pontification must not be too reprehensible. There are several reasons why people would want to own things and keep thieves away.
- They need things to live their lives, e.g. a wheelchair or a craftsman‘s tools
- A wish to preserve the things from harm
- The pleasure of accumulating things
- They want the status that possessions provide
- To exploit them for advantage in battle or its modern equivalent, trade
JRRT approves of number 1: “Would you part an old man from his support?” (III,vi) JRRT approves of number 2: “It shall be set in imperishable crystal to be an heirloom of my house…”. (II, viii) [1]
Numbers 3 & 4 are deadly sins. I’m pretty sure Morgoth was working from one of these or the other.
Number 5 isn’t morally nailed down outside of LotR, but Faramir was unambiguous: “If it were a thing that gave advantage in battle, I can well believe that Boromir, the proud and fearless, often rash, ever anxious for the victory of Minas Tirith (and his own glory therein), might desire such a thing and be allured by it.” (IV, v) Either way, it is the only one of the five that we know wasn’t motivating Fëanor.
Maybe the whole debate over Fëanor can be boiled down to an argument over which motivation he thought he was acting on.
[1] Yes, I could have chosen more weighty quotations, but Idiosophy is a hobbitish discipline. By the way, is anything else in Middle-earth “imperishable”?
Kate Neville
Ooh, a fascinating topic. I think we’re overlooking another factor: the impulse that identifies the work of one’s hands with one’s very self, so that its theft is a very personal deprivation. It’s the opposite of true creativity: a work of art does not truly exist until it is shared. It’s more aligned with Ulmo’s warning to not love ‘too much’ the work of one’s hands. Possession may be 9/10 of the law, but it’s also 10/10s of temptation to Pride.
Joe
Is that a real thing? I ask because I grew up around musicians, for whom that doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never seen a person with an attitude like that.