Well, I'm lying from the get-go as far as any bears in this diary, but believe me, there are hobbits and Christians aplenty in the newest entry in the fantasy genre by semi-noted New America Foundation fellow, Fox News contributor, Newsday columnist and former White House (Reagan & Bush Sr.) aide James P. Pinkerton. Published in the September 10, 2007 issue of The American Conservative, Pinky's "The Once & Future Christendom" is a wonderfully bizarre think-piece on using J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy series as a pro-active strategy for "protecting" Europe (or "Europa" when Pinky is soaring on wings of neo-con prose, or "The Shire" when he's hitting the pipe...) against the senses-shattering evil of Sauron, er, scratch that, the Muslimization of what Pinky fondly recalls as the "Imperium Christianum".
Really.
I have no personal animus towards Pinky, am willing to meet him halfway in the spirit of give-and-take, but still have to come to the conclusion the man is stark, raving bonkers.
I will give him his starting premise that The Lord of the Rings is "one of the great epics of Western literature". Whatever, sure. I have read it/them. I've seen the movies, too. Good stuff. Are these perilous times? Sure, I'll give him that one too. Yep, perilous times.
And so the question: can we, the people of the West, be brought to failure despite our enormous cultural and spiritual legacy? Three thousand years of history look down upon us: does this generation wish to be remembered for not having had the strength to look danger squarely in the eye? For having failed to harness our latent strength in our own defense?
Oh, that one again. West vs. Islam. Black vs. white. Pretty high stakes, huh? "In other words, if present trends continue, the green flag of Islam—bearing the shahada, the declaration of faith, "There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God"—could be fluttering above Athens and Rotterdam in the lifespan of a youngster today." Yoiks! "Would Islamic invaders demolish the Vatican, as the Taliban dynamited Afghanistan’s Buddhas of Bamyan in 2001? Or would they settle merely for stripping the great cathedrals of Europe of all their Christian adornment, rendering them into mosques?" Wowsers! (I know, the impatient reader is going, like, "Where the heck are the hobbits?" They are coming, like the legions of Charlemagne, the hobbits are coming to defend the West.) Any tips on what might be done, you know, short term like? Within the lifespan of a youngster today, say?
Meanwhile, as European birthrates plummet, the continent faces the prospect of demographic desiccation. Yet surely a civilization-saving alternative to imported Muslimization must be found. One option, bringing in Eastern Europeans to Western Europe, is probably less than desirable because those Eastern Europeans are needed where they are, to defend Russia and Ukraine against the New Tatars further east. A better solution would be to bring the poorer children of Europe—from countries such as Argentina—home to Europe, allowing the New World to help rescue the Old World.
OK, then...
Almost as a humorous aside, he pre-emptively scolds
...some neoconservatives, bitter at Old European "surrender monkeys," might be quietly pleased at the prospect... the fact is that a Salafist Surge into the heart of Europe—destroying the civilization that bequeathed to us Aesop and Aristotle, Voltaire and the Victorians—would be a psychic wound that would never heal, not across the great sward of America, not even in the carpeted think-warrens of the American Enterprise Institute. A dolorous bell would toll for all of us, scattered as we might be in the European Diaspora.
Have we begun dipping into the laudanum? The tone is definitely moving into Poe-ish, Coleridge-ish territory...
The very next sentence is "So for better ideas, we might turn to J.R.R. Tolkien."
I need to get me one of them fellowships. Seriously.
So with Tolkien in mind, we might speak of the "Shire Strategy." It’s simple: the Shire is ours, we want to keep it, and so we must defend it. Yet by the same principle, since others have their homelands and their rights, we should leave them alone, as long as they leave us alone. Live and let live.
Not a big fellowship. Just one that would enable me to catch up on some reading and, um, studying and stuff. Maybe formulate some, um, "strategies". Go down to the "boat" (that's what we call our floating casino around here) now and then... Sorry, where was I?
Great stuff, Pinky! See, I'm still agreeing; live and let live. Yep, I can go along with this bold strategy. Please go on! He does, at length, about Tolkien's books and the wonderful different creatures who don't think they are the equal of a completely different creature. No phonus balonus equality for wargs and elves! So why do we continue to think we're the same as Them (or is it Why do we continue to think they're the same as Us?)? Live and let live; humans in Europe and other species in Middle Earth (or in the Middle East). But, perilous times, you know, "(a)nd of course, over the horizon, just past Araby, abide the Muslim multitudes of Central Asia and Africa, where tens of millions more would love to make the secular hajj to, say, Rome or Berlin." Pinky, I'm getting a little woozy here, could you kind of sum it up for me? "In his world, the Shire is Christendom, and Christendom is the Shire."
I'm a hobbit? "Dilford, we're ALL hobbits now..." I'm a CHRISTIAN hobbit?? But, from the point of view that embraces sheer wakka-wakka-woo-woo-wooness, it gets better. I should strive to be a French, Christian hobbit. "So we must look to older models for hope and survival—models more faithful, more fighting, more fertile. A case in point is France."
Yes, Pinky knows that we're snickering but he boldly goes on record as being impressed by the fighting French (totally awesome battle in 732, dudes! "(W)ith great blows of their swords, they hewed down the Arabs.") then "(a)nd now, despite their recent failures and cupidities, the French are showing renewed determination, as in the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, a man who based his campaign on restoring border security, as well as law and order, to his beleaguered nation."
OK, I'm a French, Christian hobbit doing what again? "How about a revival of Christendom as a concept—as a political concept?" A political concept? Uh, why? "...we need bigger and broader ideas as well, to replace the doddering vision of international law as the antidote to terrorism." What the...?
After all, it worked in the past. In the words of the 19th-century French historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, the victory of Christianity marked "the end of ancient society"—and all the petty divisions that went with it...In the 9th century, Alcuin of York declared that the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Holy Roman Emperor would bring forth a new Imperium Christianum. Ten centuries later, Hilaire Belloc asserted, "The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith."
And Isadore Ducasse described a young boy as being as "beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella!" Now, if I had a fellowship I would be able to expand that into a concept- a political concept...
On and on Pinky goes, invoking the Council of Elrond with one hand and Constantine with the other. The Rescue of Israel? The Holy Knights of Christendom will see to it.
And what of other hard cases? What of Africa? The Christian countries of Africa are part of the Shire Strategy and need to be embraced with tough love. The immediate mission is to delineate a Christian Zone and a Muslim Zone, dividing countries if need be. All Christians, and all Muslims, have a stake in minimizing conflict; the obvious way is by separating the combatants. So a wall should go up between the warring faiths, and then a bigger wall, until the flashpoint risk of civilization clash goes away.
I mean, there's fantasy and then there's FANTASY, but with Pinky it all just gets FANTASIER! He goes on. And on. Yes, he's hitting the same targets as lesser conservatives, but he's hitting them with the glowing staff of his vision of Gandalf as Christian Crusader with magic! It's better!
And is it Serious? Oh, it's very, very Serious indeed.
Please pass the pipeweed.