Knowledge Gets a Bad Rap

I have to admit, I've become a Lord of the Rings junkie. I mean, like every pre-teen child in the 80s, I read the series and played the random D & D game. But with the release of the new Peter Jackson movies, I have re-immersed myself in Tolkein's world. Books, movies, director's cut - you name it, I'm currently reading/viewing/playing it (okay, no video games yet, but that's because the wife has OUTLAWED them).

So, it was with excitement last week that I began watching the newly released Two Towers DVD. And I began noticing something when I was viewing a preview of the "deleted" scenes available on the extended edition. Saruman, the evil wizard featured in the first two movies and played by Christopher Lee, manipulates the events from his distant tower through magic and lackeys (human and non-human alike). Like a chess player, he positions his forces and lets them roam about the countryside, smiting heroes whenever possible. Why did this strike me as interesting? Why is it in this blog? Because nearly every time he takes action, he first consults one or another tome on magic and lore. And many characters, in implying that Saruman has changed significantly (i.e., became "evil"), points out that he doesn't "get out" of his tower like he used to. And while some might read that as the perils of being anti-social, I think it combines as an indictment of learned versus experienced knowledge.

I mean, there only appears to be three characters who interact with books in the film (so far): Saruman, Bilbo, and Gandalf. Saruman (representing the reader) uses the "book knowledge" to do evil while Bilbo (representing the writer) has become possessed by evil. Even Gandalf, a certain symbol of good, gets downright pushy and paranoid after visiting an ancient library in the first movie. In contrast, all the movie's heroes learn lessons out in the real world. Aragorn is the typical mountain man, living off the land and learning it's secrets. Elrond, the font of Elven wisdom, has been alive, well, forever, and thus has a phenominal personal memory of events. Even the lowly hobbits have to journey out into the world to understand the great quest they've become embroiled in. All of this seems to point to the fact that knowledge gained without experience (i.e., Saruman and his books) is fraught with danger and corruption.

Now being a big fan of knowledge in general, and books in particular, I find the implication a bit grating. I mean, there have been many doctorial papers written on how Tolkein's series is a condemnation on mechanization and the Industrial Revolution, but what if it's actually a critique of how we impart knowledge itself? Either that, or I was watching the movie at way-too-late an hour!