The Cultural Rubicon

Exploring the Impact of Woke’s Assault on Tolkien

“And nine. Nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else, desire power.”

Whether you are versed in the lore of one of the great literary minds in the western tradition or not, the above quote could as easily be adopted by any number of modern entertainment conglomerates spreading cultural ruin and subversion in a wake of Marxist, deconstructionist zealotry as it could be a foreboding lyric from a poem in a classic that will stand the test of time in a way any attempts at said desecration will not.

As it turns out, the line is from the introduction to Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, specifically The Fellowship of the Ring.

Now, you may be wondering why I introduced a piece ostensibly waxing poetic about the impact of Tolkien’s work on western culture and the woke empire’s assault on said work with a line from an adaptation rather than the source material.

My reason is twofold: for starters, Jackson’s screenplay distills the black speech inscribed into the Ring of Doom with a turn of phrase more fit for my purposes today, and secondly, the fact that I, as a massive Tolkien fan would feel comfortable substituting in said screenplay for the original text says quite a bit about the lengths Jackson and company went to in the early aughts to ensure that both newcomers AND legacy fans would appreciate their attempt to bring one of the great fantasy epics of all time to the big screen.

Of course, not all Tolkien purists appreciate Jackson’s film trilogy. Some even hate it. But most will agree that, whatever the adaptation lacks in Tolkien’s nuance, language and depth it makes up for in terms of its attention to detail, scope and, most importantly, heart.

Heart.

It seems like an appeal to baseless empathy, does it not? An empty platitude given as a consolation for a work that didn’t quite succeed, but is recognized for the effort.

I would submit to you that Jackson’s award-winning (not that that really matters,) and more importantly, cultural dynamo of a film trilogy earns the adjective by representing a sincere and earnest attempt at bringing the soul of Tolkien’s world and writing to a modern audience.

So, then. If we can find some agreement that both Tolkien’s original work and Jackson’s adaptation of said work are western cultural touchstones, why bring them up? Why does this matter in the context of the usual subjects around these parts—those being the Shadow War, the Mind War or the Information War sovereigns the world over are currently waging against an entrenched, generational enemy that has sought to enslave us for decades, if not centuries?

No doubt you’ve heard the saying, “politics is downstream of culture.”

The claim is sometimes dismissed as false, and at other times is accepted, only to be minimized in terms of its import to the running of the western world. Instead of simply remarking upon the fusion of popular entertainment with political agendas, what this sociopolitical truism seeks to impart is that, at the end of the day, there is no difference between politics and culture. One informs the other and is informed by the other, forming an eternal yin-yang that ever seeks to orient itself toward balance.

Music. Movies. TV Series. Comic Books. Art. Literature.

Long have those on the right-labelled vectors of American society dismissed these pursuits as some mix of frivolous, meaningless or unworthy of recognition, while I would submit to you that the cultural left, from moderates all the way to the insidious and subversive Marxists that are sometimes referred to as Social Justice Warriors in the modern tongue understand this concept fully.

In fact, they embrace it.

While western cultural subversion is far from a new concept—everyone from communist infiltrators to our loved intel agencies have used popular cultural movements to drive covert and overt political agendas for decades—the sheer speed, magnitude and utter boldness of this subversive rot has undoubtedly accelerated in the last decade.

With the advent of streaming services, improvements in entertainment technologies on both the production and end-user side of things and the increasing disassociation of Americans to their own political processes, the entertainment world has never occupied a larger slice of the Collective Western Mind, and thus, at no point in our history has it occupied a more important front in the Fifth-Generation War most of us believe is being waged all around us, and has been for some time.

From Star Wars embracing the new in open and almost gleeful mockery of the old with Disney’s new trilogy beginning in 2015, to Marvel’s continued neutering of legacy male characters in pursuit of the all-new, all-female and all-progressive Avengers—the world’s most influential entertainment property to young minds—the cultural arm of the Deep State has been very, very busy of late, having driven stark and impassable divides between once-passionate and now-disillusioned fan bases, while whipping up the fervor of an increasingly siloed and increasingly erratic base of socialist, identity politics support.

You see, whether or not you personally engage with modern entertainment brands, series, movies, books or video games, billions do, and they tend to skew younger rather than older. There is a reason such subversive outfits have taken hold of these stories with increasing desperation, speed and intent in recent years; the powers that would be are utterly aware of the importance of storytelling to malleable minds, and beyond them, they know the importance of shared narratives—shared myths, legends and even cultural values—on a society that seeks to maintain any semblance of connection or common bond in an era of ever-increasing politicization and social controversy.

In last week’s feature, we spoke about the deep-rooted meaning of The Boy Who Cried Wolf fable, as well as the position the titular ‘wolf’ occupies to this day in the Collective Mind of humanity. The Wolf is not simply a cognitive cypher for fear through which would-be tyrants seek to encode societal behaviors onto. The Wolf is a story.

And, as I have argued and will continue to argue at Burning Bright, stories run the world.

So then, if we can accept that the cultural front in the western zeitgeist is one [they] have veritably dominated in recent years, what brings us to this treatise on Tolkien, Jackson and everything Middle-Earth on this waning summer Sunday, aside from the fact that, as I have stated before, I will ever and always take every excuse possible to wax poetic about the late, great Professor?

Many of you have likely heard about the high-budget adaptation of Tolkien’s lore that touched down on a popular streaming service Friday night. Some of you may even have subjected yourselves to it. For this, I am afraid there is no cure. What is done cannot be undone.

In the past, they had the manners to at least pretend to value the underlying story and fandom they were invading. Now, they are leading with their true face rather than the Trojan Horse; their stated intention is not to adapt Tolkien, or to bring his stories to the world in a visual medium. It is to subvert him, change him and, where they deem it necessary, to erase him.

That said, I am here to tell you that, despite whatever desecration we have and will continue to witness regarding Tolkien’s work, not all hope is lost.

In fact, my point here today is not simply to argue that Tolkien and his work are key touchstones in shared western identity, culture and morals—in fact, the very conception of Middle-Earth and its expansive, pseudo-historical lore is rooted in Tolkien’s desire to replace an English mythology he felt had been stolen over the centuries due to continued invasions and subversions of the very culture that spawned his ancestors. My point is to argue that, in saving Tolkien’s works for last on their never-ending quest to destroy all that which binds us together, they have crossed the Cultural Rubicon.

You see, no matter how silly or meaningless some might think it, Tolkien’s works not only cross international boundaries, languages and traditions, but also literal generations. It is a shared magnum opus that preaches in almost-religious tones on the nature of good, evil and the duty—the will—of the former to stand up in the presence of the latter, no matter the cost and no matter the odds.

And just as Tolkien’s works stand as hope against the coming night, so too do his generations of loyal and passionate fans, whose lives these worlds, characters and myths have touched throughout the decades, and spanning wars and strife of every persuasion, and whose bright, pure thematic core has yet been uncorrupted by subversive elements.

Amazon, the producer of the latest assault on shared western storytelling, has bitten off far more than even the industry-disrupting and destroying behemoth can chew, as, in subverting everything about Tolkien’s work and even Jackson’s earnest adaptation with the currently-airing Rings of Power, they have unwittingly united a vast and diverse audience of passionate readers, many of whom use such stories as escapes from the mundanity and banal modernity the Deep State and all its apparatus has trapped them in.

The Lord of the Rings represents a monolith of the shared western tradition when it comes to tales of heroism, bravery and hope. Thus, such wanton and brazen assaults on its heart and soul—and on the literal anniversary of its original creator’s death, no less—represent the bridge too far, and the Rubicon crossed.

This cultural push, far from being over-dramatized in this writing and any number of others you’ll begin to see cropping up around you in your daily lives, from conversations with friends and family to headlines on every platform you can think of has already resulted in the most immediate, resolute and unifying blowback of any of the cultural deployments and attempts at subversion we have seen to date.

If Tolkien’s works are for everyone, then Amazon’s mockery of it is for no one, with the only folks seeming to enjoy the exercise doing so specifically because of its stated subversive and cynical intent rather than in spite of it. These represent the dregs of modern western society. Creators and consumers caught in an ever-devolving feedback loop of deconstruction—another in a long line of Ouroboros serpents we have discussed of late.

As many a Tolkien purist has pointed out about both the Rings of Power creative team and the sneering critics singing its praises before a single frame had finished rendering in offshore visual effects labs an ocean away from artistic spirit or directed passion, evil cannot create anything new, it can only corrupt that which good has created.

This is how the monstrous, demonic horde of inhuman orcs were first created in Tolkien’s legendarium, and this is how cultural Marxists have sought to infect the western tradition from as many angles as possible, turning woman against man, child against parent, black against white and left against right.

But in seeking to turn one of the few remaining shared western stories into the latest propaganda platform propped up on bloodied marionette strings, the powers that would be in the Culture War have erred. In seeking to divide, they have unified. In seeking to destroy, they have glorified. In seeking to make us forget, they have made us remember.

So, whether or not you count yourself a Tolkien fan or a person who actively engages with the modern entertainment world, know that an assault on shared stories is an assault on shared culture and identity. In pushing back against this subversion, in cherishing that which has already been created and rejecting attempts to reform it, we both protect tradition and encourage the birth of new, earnest and perhaps cultural touchstones to come.

Watch the continued fallout, both financially and more importantly, culturally of this bold, ruinous assault on one of the last bastions of untouched fandom, and understand that the tide is beginning to turn on this front in the Mind War as well.

People are realizing there is no escape from subversion, not even in areas once safe from overt politics and infectious cynicism.

This is the last line in the Culture War. This is where people stop, and push back. This is where the tide turns.

Stories run the world. It’s time we took them back.

“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” - Haldir of Lorien in The Fellowship of the Ring

Until next time, stay Positive, stay Based and most importantly … stay Bright.

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