Coming Soon: The History of Jihad

At last comes the book I’ve been hoping someone would write: a complete chronicle of Islam’s holy wars. That’s 1400 years of jihad, told without apology in razor-sharp prose. It represents the crown and summit of Robert Spencer’s work, and he should be proud of what he’s done here.

I had the honor of proof-reading The History of Jihad and can testify to its excellence. The book’s value lies not only in its scope — it covers every single jihad theater, from Arabia to Persia, North Africa to Europe, Spain to India, Tel Aviv to New York City — but also its explanatory power. Spencer relies heavily on primary sources and the words of contemporary witnesses, so the reader gets a good impression of how it was to experience the jihad. Repeating without fail are cycles of brutality and piety, and the clear religious motives of the Muslims. Jihadists have always been candid about their reason for waging war — to subjugate infidels under the rule of Islam — but people in the 21st century have a hard time accepting this, and have grasped at every possible explanation except the obvious one. Studies have proven that there is no correlation between Islamic terrorism and poverty; there are as many middle-class and well-to-do jihadists as poor ones. Unlike most of human warfare, holy war is waged primarily for spiritual reward, and it operates irrespective of rational purpose. It takes the guardrails off civilization, and you can’t reason with it. Spencer’s book is a horror drama as much as an historical one, and I couldn’t put it down.

It’s rare to see myths about Islam debunked so thoroughly, though we got another one recently from Dario Fernandez-Morera in The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise (2016). The reality of Islamic Spain is that there was no fruitful cooperation between faiths. The Muslims were less friendly to Jews and Christians than American Southern whites were to blacks before civil rights. In Spencer’s book, the same conclusion is drawn in all times and places:

“There is no period since the beginning of Islam that was characterized by large-scale peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims. There was no time when mainstream and dominant Islamic authorities taught the equality of non-Muslims with Muslims, or the obsolescence of jihad warfare. There was no Era of Good Feeling, no Golden Age of Tolerance, no Paradise of Proto-Multiculturalism. There has always been, with virtually no interruption, jihad.”

This isn’t a controversial point to competent historians, but it’s not what most people believe or are willing to say. Pointing out that Islam is toxic wins you no friends in an age that is less concerned with truth and more with peoples’ wishes and feelings. There is also the problem of funding. Universities with departments of Islamic Studies often receive their support from places like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Muslim nations, and when you factor in the politically correct climate on campuses, scholars are almost guaranteed to promote the usual myths. Spencer’s book, like Fernandez-Morera’s, is free of those pressures. It’s the best available book now on the Islamic jihad. The only other top-notch treatment I know of is Alfred Morabia’s Le Gihad dans L’Islam Medieval (1993), but an English translation is hard to come by.

For all the attempts to isolate jihad as an inner spiritual struggle, it has always carried the unconditional requirement for sacred warfare against unbelievers. Warriors of jihad are promised the property and women of the vanquished enemy if they live, and virgins in paradise if they die. This is true in all schools of Islamic jurisprudence, as cited by Spencer in the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali sources, which in turn rely on the Qur’an and Hadith. There was never a time when the “greater” (spiritual) jihad was divorced from the “lesser” (military) one. They’re inseparable.

The History of Jihad is a ride you won’t forget, and as I said, it’s the book we’ve needed for some time. Look for it on August 7. On that day I’ll post a more detailed review.

The Spell of Cobra Kai

In the days before I discovered real cinema, I watched the Karate Kid movies as part of my high-school obsession with martial arts. Mostly I watched the Sho Kosugi ninja flicks, which were non-stop adrenaline stunts filled with high body-counts and piss-poor acting. The Karate Kid films didn’t have the former but plenty of the latter. They were family films that made you feel warm and fuzzy when underdogs triumphed against bullies in the safe arenas of tournaments. They were campy and cheesy in the extreme, had laughable dialogue, a painful top-40 soundtrack, and embarrassingly contrived scenarios. The third and fourth films in the franchise were so bad that even the core audience heaped scorn on them. But when Cobra Kai was announced last week as a worthy successor to the first two Karate Kid movies — it has a 100% approval on Rotten Tomatoes — I had to see for myself what the fuss was.

I will say this for Cobra Kai. If it’s still the same Karate-Kid animal, it shakes things up enough to make it a watchable and in some ways even impressive miniseries. The Karate Kid I & II have aged terribly, even aside from the cheesy elements I mentioned. As ’80s underdog films they were facilely one dimensional. The bad guys were ciphers with no backstories — Johnny Lawrence and his Cobra Kai gang completely unsympathetic jerks. The good guy was an endearing character, but he didn’t work very well as a karate protagonist. For one thing, Daniel LaRusso was a supreme light-weight, clocking in at about 120 pounds. His indentured servitude to Mr. Miyagi — waxing cars, sanding floors, and painting fences — was impossible to take seriously a way of learning karate techniques. (There is an amusing swipe at this in Cobra Kai, where Johnny uses Miguel as his own slave, having him wash the windows, mop the floors, and clean the toilets of the Cobra Kai dojo. When Miguel asks if there’s any particular way he should be doing these tasks, Johnny says it doesn’t matter.) As for Daniel’s crane kick, it was the sort of last-minute melodrama that won the day in other sports films of this era (like the quarterback sacking of Sean Astin’s character in Rudy, or the final hoop shot in Hoosiers). The Karate Kid was essentially a poster child for the Reagan years, optimistic about the underdog’s potential to “be all you can be”, really to the point of absurdity. Cobra Kai inverts this premise, so that the underdogs become the assholes — and the previous underdog becomes an even bigger asshole. That’s at least a story.

By making Johnny Lawrence the inverted underdog, and a surprisingly likeable one, the writers of Cobra Kai have brought the franchise into a post Game of Thrones era. And by making Daniel LaRusso the bigger asshole — a Miyagi wannabe undermined by hypocrisy and self-righteousness — they’ve taken the original hero in an unexpected direction. Part of it is the social class reversal. Daniel grew up dirt poor but has done well for himself as a wealthy car dealer who can treat his family to country club outings. Johnny, for his part, has fallen out with his rich stepfather and lives hand to mouth in the shitty neighborhood of Reseda where Daniel used to live. This reversal alone pays dividends.

But aside from even that, Daniel is astonishingly judgmental. He condescends to Johnny, kicks him when he’s down, tries to ban Cobra Kai from participating in the local tournament, and launches a pathetic crusade to shut down the dojo. He does this by manipulating a business associate into doubling the rent in the strip mall where the new Cobra Kai has just opened, which shafts not only Johnny but all the other mall renters. This is a supremely asshole move, and Daniel’s wife calls him on it. But I was frankly put off by the entire LaRusso clan. Daniel’s wife sounds like she’s always talking down to people, his cousin is a useless twit, and his daughter a priss. The LaRusso home gives off a superficial Miyagi vibe, and at work Daniel has turned some of the best things Mr. Miyagi taught him into cheap gimmicks — karate chops in car commercials, and the bonsai trees he gives away free to car buyers. Daniel does revere his deceased mentor, but has little to show that he actually understands the “balance” that he lectures others (his daughter, Robby) to strive for.

It’s the Cobra Kai losers who sell the series. As actors they have the better performances, and as characters the better balance. Yes, they learn the merciless version of karate that teaches beating the shit out of people — even fighting dirty when necessary — but that is tempered by their empathy as victims who have taken their own heaps of nasty abuse. Aisha is particularly well scripted, driven to take karate after being cruelly bullied by classmates over her weight. Johnny at first refuses her, on the politically incorrect wisdom that “no girls are allowed at Cobra Kai”, until Aisha proves her potential by slamming his best student on his ass and almost breaking his ribs (mostly on the strength of her fat-ass weight for which she has been relentlessly teased). She soon becomes one of the best Cobra Kai students, and certainly one of the series’ best characters.

The very best however is Miguel. He’s what Daniel LaRusso should have first looked like, but of course that would have never happened in an ’80s film. Instead of finding a sage-like Mr. Miyagi to rescue him from his bullies, Miguel comes under the punishing tutelage of Johnny, and they play off each other wonderfully. As far as I’m concerned, Johnny is the true hero of Cobra Kai, in thrall to a harsh version of karate but unwilling to sink to the depths Kreese did. He has a vulnerable side, so he’s not just an asshole. His upbringing was less than kind, and his son Robby wants nothing to do with him. He’s politically incorrect (and, amusingly, a stone-age Luddite who doesn’t know what “a Facebook” is), showing hints of racism, sexism, and homophobia, while proving that in practice he’s really none of these things — as long as his students keep up. (He reminds me of Full Metal Jacket‘s Sergeant Hartmann: “I am hard, you will not like me. But I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops, or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless.”) Miguel takes his sensei’s flaws in stride, and Johnny comes to think of him as a son.

As for Johnny’s actual son, Robby, he’s the new Daniel, but again an inverted one, a troublemaker instead of a bullied victim. He’s a delinquent who steals for a living, and despises his father so much that he applies for a job at Daniel’s car dealership just to piss Johnny off. He gets the job, and rather predictably, he soon becomes Daniel’s reformed karate student. This happens by a very contrived chain of events, and is the weaker narrative arc of Cobra Kai. Daniel basically takes Robby on as a way to atone for his sanctimony throughout the first six episodes, and in short order he’s having Robby “wax on, wax off” every car in the lot (that shit is no more convincing as a way to teach karate today than it was in the ’80s), and then taking him on field trips out in the wilderness to practice dramatic kicks while balancing on perilously thin tree limbs.

Everything builds to the tournament finale and solid payoff. It’s better than the Karate Kid competition for a number of reasons, mostly because of the inversions which make viewers unsure of their allegiances. The Cobra Kais fight dirty, but they are still sympathetic, and frankly they were the ones I was rooting for, even over Robby. When Daniel and Johnny faced off in the ’80s, it was cookie-cutter good vs. evil. With Miguel and Robby in the final round, there’s no such duality this time. Each is an asshole; each is likeable. And I have to give the writers credit for having Miguel take the trophy, which I didn’t expect at all. Surely Daniel’s protege would win, as Daniel always did in the films? But no: Miguel kicks the shit out of him, and in a very Cobra Kai fashion — by taking full advantage of Robby’s shoulder injury, hitting him in his wounds repeatedly with “no mercy”. A sleazy move, and yet somehow Miguel (unlike the ’80s Johnny) doesn’t come across as despicable for it.

The epilogue scores for continuing to portray Daniel in a less than flattering light. On the drive home from the tournament, Robby remarks that with Miguel’s victory Cobra Kai is now back on the map and will soon take over the region. Daniel retorts, “Over my dead body,” and then takes a detour to what looks like an abandoned home. He leads Robby inside, throws on the lights… and Mr. Miyagi’s old home is unveiled, for the purpose, as Daniel explains it, of training more students in order to combat the rise of Cobra Kai. As soon as Daniel said “over my dead body”, I saw the Prince of Sanctimony again; and with the foreshadowing of what will surely be a Miyagi dojo in season 2, it’s obvious that Daniel is gearing up with more self-righteous measures against Johnny. And as if Johnny doesn’t have enough to worry about from that corner, the biggest surprise of all comes in the final frame: the return of John Kreese, who has all along been presumed dead. He strolls into Johnny’s dojo, congratulates him on his victory, and tells him they have “much to do” now that Cobra Kai is back. That sounds like a hostile takeover, and Johnny looks appalled; he’s been fighting Kreese’s ghost for years. Trapped between Daniel and the Devil, he has ugly challenges ahead of him, and season 2 has a lot to deliver on.

I don’t want to oversell Cobra Kai. It’s really the same thing as before: a campy family drama with a godawful soundtrack and situations that make you roll your eyes and smirk. But if you were invested in Karate Kid I & II in your coming of age years, and now find them embarrassingly unwatchable, you may just find yourself falling under Cobra Kai‘s hideous spell.

 

See also:

The Spell of Cobra Kai: Season 2
The Spell of Cobra Kai: Season 3

New Faces on the Money

There were plans for changing some of the dollar bills, but with Trumpenfuhrer at the helm who knows how it will all end. Here’s how I would overhaul the entire American currency.

$1. George Washington. As one of the few “hero” presidents who actually deserves the honor, he can stay on the one-dollar bill. Washington stayed out of foreign wars and overseas alliances that would tangle the new nation in conflicts. He broke alliance with France when it declared war on Britain. He was a respecter of all faiths. (He wrote to a rabbi: “May the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”) He wasn’t perfect; he suppressed the Whiskey Rebellion, but he did so without killing anyone, and he at least pardoned the rioters. Most importantly, he was committed to respecting the checks and balances of the government, and deferred to Congress on most legislation. He used his veto power only when he believed a bill was unconstitutional. He recommended the Bill of Rights, one of the most important contributions to American thought. Finally, he refused to become a king (when he easily could have), by stepping down and setting the precedent for two-term presidential service. Washington ensured the survival of a new system of liberty, and he got it through a very rocky stage. For this and more he retains the top position of privilege.

$5. Abraham Lincoln. Harriet Tubman. There are good and bad reasons to hate on Lincoln, but the fact is that he does not live up to his mythological reputation. Harriet Tubman is a wholly positive image for blacks and also women, having helped slaves escape the South, and then later worked for women’s suffrage. Lincoln engineered the most terrible and unnecessary war in American history, devastating the country and killing 600,000 Americans, 38,000 of whom were blacks. It hardly improved the lot of African Americans (who wouldn’t experience real freedom until the Civil Rights movement a century later), and produced the backlash of Jim Crow laws and the KKK. Peaceful alternatives would have achieved a better outcome more quickly, and without as much retribution against blacks. Other nations had already ended slavery by offering slave owners compensation for a gradual freedom, and Lincoln should have had the wisdom to follow suit. He was the worst presidential offender of civil rights (after Woodrow Wilson), arresting and jailing anyone (journalist or protestor) who dared criticize the war. Like the future George W. Bush, he disappeared citizens without arrest warrants, forbidding them the right to challenge their detention. Lincoln also treated the Indians horribly, running the Navajos and Mescalero Apaches out of their New Mexico territory, cheating the Sioux out their lands, and also signing off on the largest mass execution of Indians (or anyone) in U.S. history. Everyone wants Harriet Tubman to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20, but it’s more appropriate that she replace Lincoln. (My idea for Jackson’s replacement, below, is much better.)

$10. Alexander Hamilton. John Tyler. The $10 bill should have the 10th president who was also the best in history. It’s especially fitting since he vetoed the attempt to create a Third National Bank, which was something Alexander Hamilton should never have created in the first place. Tyler courageously fought his own party the Whigs to do the right things, which ruined his chances for a second term. He had only joined the Whigs as a protest against “King” Andrew Jackson while remaining a classic Democrat at heart, and was committed to his constitutional duty regardless of any party philosophy. He showed himself to be a sincere free speech advocate by urging the pardon of mobsters who were rioting against him on the White House lawn. He used restraint in the Dorr Rebellion, which made possible the expansion of voting rights and increased political power for non-land owners in the state of Rhode Island. He agreed to compromise on a British land claim in Maine, thus averting a likely war with Britain, and then also agreed to work with Britain to jointly enforce a ban on the high-seas slave trade. (For an Anglophobe and Southern sympathizer like Tyler to do both of these things was doubly impressive.) He ended the Second Seminole War, the longest and bloodiest Indian war in American history, and reversed Jackson’s ethnic-cleaning policy by allowing the Seminoles to stay on their Florida lands. He cut the number of troops in the American army by a whopping 33%. He recognized Hawaiian independence and promised protection for the nation when it asked for it. He peacefully opened China to free trade, allowing the U.S. to begin leading in the Asian theater. Tyler is an unsung hero.

$20. Andrew Jackson. Osceola. What native American is better suited to replace the foul Andrew Jackson? Osceola resisted Jackson’s eviction of the Seminole tribe. The other four tribes effected by the Indian Removal Act (the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee) ended up marching hundreds of miles west with little more than the clothes on their backs, and on some of those marches as much as 25% of the Indians (men, women, and children) died en route. Those that survived were forced to settle on shitty land in Oklahoma. The Seminole tribe held their ground in Florida, and Jackson declared war on them in 1835, resulting in the longest and bloodiest Indian war in U.S. history (It was President John Tyler who finally ended it in 1842, and allowed the Seminoles to remain on Florida land). Osceola was one of the warriors leading the Seminoles, and according to legend he put a knife in the treaty that was supposed to evict them. The accounts don’t agree on which treaty he stabbed — was it Payne’s Landing (1832) or Fort Gibson (1833)? — and Osceola probably never really did this, but he was certainly on fire for revolution, and he was just as much in the right as the Americans who fought the British in the Revolutionary War. At one point he lashed out crying, “The white man shall not make me black. I will make the white man red with blood; and then blacken him in the sun and rain.” Violence isn’t enlightened, but sometimes it can’t be avoided; against an Andrew Jackson it becomes necessary. The Indians were being thrown off their own land. If the American Revolution was justified against England (it was), so too was Indian warfare against certain U.S. administrations. I cannot think of a better substitute for Jackson on the $20 bill than freedom fighter Osceola.

$50. Ulysses Grant. Warren Harding. Grant needs to go. As a hard-core Reconstructionist, he made things worse for African Americans by his “nation-building” strategies in the South. His predecessor Andrew Johnson was correct in warning that the harshness of northern military rule would cause a backlash against southern blacks — and sure enough that’s how Jim Crow laws and the KKK were born. Johnson had proposed that federal civilians be used in the South instead of a military rule, and that would have been the better solution. Johnson however was a virulent racist and so he can’t be the new $50 face. I say Warren Harding. Everyone hates Harding, but our obsession with his sex life (which is irrelevant) and the minor greed of his underlings (which has been overblown) has completely overshadowed his tremendous impact on a war-ravaged economy, astute foreign policy, and sound liberty record. He returned the nation to peace after World War I. He put the federal government on a budget for the first time and set the conditions for the economic expansion of the Roaring Twenties. He established the Office of the Budget. He was an early advocate for civil rights, and addressed severe racial tensions fueled by World War I thanks to his racist predecessor Wilson. He supported anti-lynching laws. “Democracy is a lie,” he said, “without political equality for black citizens.” He freed hundreds of political prisoners, repairing the severe wounds wrought by the Espionage and Sedition acts of 1917 and 1918 under Woodrow Wilson which had been among the worst assaults on free speech. He was one of the best presidents in history, not one of the worst as we are often told.

$100. Benjamin Franklin. He was one of the founding fathers and a scientist too, so he has to stay.

The Penny. Abraham Lincoln. Martin Luther King. Like Harriet Tubman on the $5 bill, Dr. King replaces Lincoln. There have been plans to put MLK on the $5 bill, but I say Harriet Tubman should take that ownership. There’s no denying that King did more for African Americans in a dozen years (1955-68) than any other forces alone or combined did in the previous two centuries. His wake up call was “the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free”, one hundred years after the Civil War. Inspired by his Christian faith and the teachings of Gandhi, he crusaded non-violently to achieve legal equality for African-Americans. He acted in positively empowering ways, and taught that blacks should take responsibility for their communities, rather than constantly playing the victim card or rioting in the streets. King would be appalled by today’s Leftists who silence honest discussion, demand to be spared offense out of cultural sensitivity, and decry as “racist” honest and accurate assessments of religions which lend themselves to violence more than others. To groups like Antifa, he is an alien, despite whatever they think on the subject.

The Nickel. Thomas Jefferson. Geronimo. Jefferson is a classic example of the Peter Principle. He did great things in his early career (especially authoring the Declaration of Independence), but his ascendance to the presidency spelled disaster. His worst act was the Trade Embargo of 1807, which devastated the American economy while having virtually no effect on the British and French; American exports dropped 80% and imports dropped 60%, resulting in massive unemployment and Americans starving. Rarely in American history has the population starved due to a government policy, and this alone makes Jefferson one of the worst presidents of all time. The Embargo Act also placed the country under military rule, which led to searches, seizures, and arrests without warrants and with the slightest suspicion of someone exporting goods. The irony is that while Jefferson ended the persecution of free speech under the Alien and Sedition Acts during John Adams’ administration, he committed just as many violations of civil liberties on his own watch. Finally, Jefferson set the precedent for ethnic cleansing, arguing that if the Native American Indians would not assimilate into white society, they had to be removed from their ancestral homelands and relocated to less desirable land further west. This would not be implemented on a large scale until Andrew Jackson, but it is Jefferson we have to thank for it. So it’s only fitting that Geronimo replace him on the nickel.

The Dime. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Jimmy Carter. The lawless egomaniac FDR should be replaced by the humble Jimmy Carter. He was the last good president of America, and in some ways channeled John Tyler, doing what needed to be done regardless of what his own party thought about it. He promoted individuals taking responsibility for themselves, pushed for reducing the federal deficit, and believed that welfare was bad for the family and work ethic. His fiscal policies led to the prosperity of the Reagan years (not Reagan’s policies, as commonly believed), and they would set the precedent for later tight-money policies that led to prosperity in the Clinton years. He insisted that America shouldn’t police the globe, showing rare wisdom for a president of the post-World War II era. He created the Departments of Energy and Education. He supported the Equal Rights Amendment, which ensured that women were treated equally (though the amendment failed), pardoned those who avoided the draft during Vietnam, spoke out against apartheid in South Africa, and avoided the post-World War II tendency of presidents to support anti-Communist dictatorships that committed human rights violations. On the downside, he failed to successfully negotiate for the release of American hostages in Iran (though U.S. policy in Iran was doomed to failure anyway before Carter took office), and even worse he overreacted to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and promoted Islamism to fight Communist forces. For these he gets an unduly bad rap. On whole his record is outstanding.

The Quarter. George Washington. Grover Cleveland. If Washington stays on the $1 bill, we don’t need him twice. Cleveland used to be on the now obsolete $1000 bills and was a very good choice for that, given his shrewd fiscal policies. He was the last of the 19th century presidents and marked the close of an era, before McKinley turned the U.S. into a trans-world empire. Cleveland used admirable restraint in all things: he reduced government spending, stayed out of foreign affairs, and vetoed unconstitutional bills more often than any other president up to that point. He was known for saying, “I did not come to legislate.” He crusaded for the gold standard and restored it during his second term, to guarantee a stable currency. His tight money policies pulled the country out of an ugly recession caused by his predecessor Benjamin Harrison. He tried to protect native American land in Indian Territory (today Oklahoma), with some success, and he gave Indians citizenship and reservation land to farm, with mixed results. He did a few bad things too (like smashing the Pullman Strike with an unconstitutional use of military force, continuing Benjamin Harrison’s naval build up, and risked war with Britain over a minor Venezuelan dispute), but on whole Cleveland was a good president who respected the limited role of executive power. After him came the many Caesar presidents.

The Half-dollar. John F. Kennedy. Calvin Coolidge. There is no president I would like to love more than JFK, but he’s too tragic a figure, and his blunders outweighed his good marks. “Silent Cal” should replace him. He was called “Silent” for being a man of few words, and proof that being a good president doesn’t depend on charisma or oratory skills. He used restraint in foreign policy and stayed out of unneeded wars. He hugely improved the economy. His predecessor Harding had reduced the top income tax rate from 71% to 46%, but Coolidge’s three revenue acts in 1924, 1926 and 1928 brought it down to 25%. He continued Harding’s tight fiscal policy which kept the Roaring Twenties booming along, and quality of life improved remarkably in the 20s as a result. As production costs declined for businesses and incomes rose for consumers, more people than ever were able to purchase goods that are common in households today — cars, indoor flush toilets, electricity. In this period, the rich, while paying at a lower rate, also paid a greater share of the income tax than they had under the higher rates. The middle class also prospered. He vocally opposed racism and supported anti-lynching legislation which led to the decline of the second KKK. He favored laws which limited the number of hours children could work. Like Harding he was the kind of president we need in the 21st century.

The Dollar. Susan B Anthony. The lead crusader for women’s suffrage has to stay. Thanks to her, women eventually got the right to vote.

“Fall” vs. “Rebellion” (Philip Esler)

A while back I reviewed Philip Esler’s book on the Watchers in I Enoch, and I consider its thesis unassailable. However, at one point Esler notes in passing that

“It is inaccurate to speak of the Watchers’ ‘fall’ from heaven, because it could suggest some kind of accidental or unplanned action. This was not a fall, but a planned descent by the Watchers to earth to marry human women (with whom they defiled themselves), preceded by a joint oath sworn by the Watchers not to turn back from this course (I Enoch 6:4-5).” (p 79)

This caught my eye, as I have always referred to the “fall of the Watchers” without thinking. But I Enoch 6-11 is admittedly different from Genesis 3, where Eve was deceived without any real intent to rebel against God. The serpent tricked her into thinking that God had made her capable of judging right from wrong, and Adam went along with it. Christian theologians would later expand on the Genesis story, where for example in Milton’s Paradise Lost the devil tells Eve that God actually wants her and Adam to eat from the tree, and that his order is simply a test of their courage. In C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra, the Green Lady has no desire to disobey God, but she becomes convinced after long arguments with the devil that God secretly wants her to break his commandment — that God longs for one act of disobedience, so that his creatures may grow up and stand on their own. Thus he has given one special commandment “for the mere sake of forbidding”, precisely so that it may be broken.

The Genesis account, in other words, portrays a second-guessing of God made possible by the lies and deceptions of an evil agent. The Enoch story depicts a straightforward rebellion against God, unprompted by the cunning of an outsider. The Watchers just look down on earth, see beautiful women, and desire them (I Enoch 6:2). Far from trying to persuade the others with trickery, the leader Shemihaza is willing to rebel against God on his own (6:3), but the other Watchers assure him they are on board with his plan, declaring, “Let us all swear an oath, and bind one another with a curse, that none of us turn back from this counsel until we fulfill the deed” (6:4). The Watchers do that, and rebel against God and His court, leaving their home in heaven to mate with womankind on earth (7:1). The giants are born as a result (7:2), and their violence and hideous appetites tear apart the earth (7:3-5), triggering a chain reaction among all God’s creatures (8:1-9:11) — to which God retaliates by destroying the world with the Flood (10:1-3). Where the transgression of Adam and Eve resulted in severe punishment (men will have to labor hard for a living, women will labor painfully in childbirth), the revolt of the Watchers results in the obliteration of all living things.

In this light I can understand Esler’s distinction. The Watchers “broke the rules” more severely than Adam and Eve did. There’s a substantive difference between being led astray and second-guessing God out of confusion, and being purposefully defiant so as to bring about chaos and destruction. But if that’s the distinction we should make, then what about the elves and men in Tolkien’s stories?

“Fall” in The Silmarillion

For those unfamiliar with The Silmarillion (shame on you if you never read it), it’s the history of our world’s First Age, thousands of years before the events in The Lord of the Rings. It narrates the “fall” of the elves and its disastrous consequences — the elves’ rebellion against the gods (the Valar), their exile from paradise (Valinor), their evil oath to pursue the Silmaril jewels and kill whoever stands in their way, and their journey to Middle-earth to make hopeless war on the Enemy (Melkor). Because of the elves’ lust for the Silmarils, Middle-Earth is convulsed by wars over a 600-year period, and eventually all the kingdoms of the elves and men are destroyed. In the final battle, the gods intervene and the devastation is so great that a whole piece of Middle-Earth (Beleriand) is broken apart and swallowed by the sea. The Silmarils are recovered only to be lost again in tragedy.

Tolkien called his story a fall, but if we apply Esler’s distinction, does The Silmarillion depict an unplanned fall or a purposeful rebellion? Both actually, but more the latter. On the one hand there is the evil counselor Melkor (the renegade Vala), who deceives the elves with lies about the Valar. If not for his lies, it is doubtful the elves would have been turned to evil purpose. On the other hand, once the rot sets it, they act resolutely, intending to set up shop for themselves in Middle-Earth where they can rule various kingdoms and wage war to fulfill their hideous oath. In this the elves resemble the Watchers far more than Adam and Eve.

Here’s how the drama unfolds: The evil god Melkor, having recently been put on probation by the Valar (the fourteen gods and goddesses), ingratiates himself with Feanor, the most powerful and gifted elf of all time. Feanor has created the three Silmaril jewels which contain the light of the Two Trees, and Melkor wants them. He seeks to corrupt the Noldor (the high elves) by turning them against the Valar, as well as against their own Noldor kin. So he tells Feanor “secrets” which the Valar have supposedly kept from the elves: that the race of men will soon awaken in Middle-Earth and challenge the elves; and that Manwe (the highest of the fourteen Valar) has been essentially holding the elves captive in paradise, so that the Valar can keep them on a leash, and leave Middle-Earth to the race of men, who are weaker than elves and thus more easily managed from a distance. Melkor also poisons Feanor against his brothers Fingolfin and Finarfin, not least with the lie Fingolfin and his sons are attempting a coup against Feanor and their father King Finwe. Feanor believes the lies, in anger draws a sword on Fingolfin, and is banished by the Valar from the city of Tirion for twelve years. He and his sons and other Noldor go to Formenos in the north, accompanied by King Finwe who can’t bear to part with his firstborn son; Fingolfin is left to rule the city of Tirion. Melkor goes into hiding, since the Valar have now exposed his deceptions. Melkor soon comes to Formenos to ingratiate himself with Feanor again, but Feanor sees through him, rightfully guessing that Melkor lusts after his Silmaril gems, and throws him out. Melkor disappears, going deeper into hiding, and Finwe sends a word of warning to Valmar (the city where the Valar live). But even though Melkor has been outed, the damage has been done. He has sown enough dissent in Feanor and his sons to initiate an elvish “fall” from paradise.

Years later, Manwe tries to heal the feud between the Noldor and summons Feanor to a festival on the high peak of Taniquetil. Feanor is reconciled with Fingolfin, but in that very hour Melkor and the giant spider Ungoliant descend on the Two Trees outside Valmar and destroy them, cutting off light in the world (this was the time before the sun and moon). The Valar ask Feanor for his Silmarils, as they are the only way to restore life and light to the Two Trees. Feanor refuses, highly possessive of his Silmaril gems. But he couldn’t have given them if he wanted to: at that moment messengers arrive from Formenos saying that after destroying the Trees, Melkor hurried to Formenos, killed Finwe, stole the Silmarils, and crossed the sea to Middle-Earth. Feanor curses Melkor, and curses the summons of Manwe which brought him to Taniquetil at this hour. Soon after, Feanor comes with his group of Noldor to Tirion (though his 12-year banishment is still in effect), summons all the Noldor elves to speak to them, and openly rebels against the Valar. With his father Finwe dead, he claims the kingship of the Noldor against his brother Fingolfin, and scorns the decrees of the Valar. For all his hatred for Melkor, he repeats Melkor’s lies as he still truly believes them: that the Valar had tricked the elves in order to confine them in paradise so that men might rule in Middle-Earth. He calls upon the Noldor to leave Valinor and forsake the gods. Then he and his seven sons swear a hideous oath: to pursue the Silmaril jewels at all costs, after which they plan to rule in Middle-Earth as lords of light; and to kill anyone who might stand in the way of their cause. If the drama began like in the book of Genesis, with Melkor leading Feanor astray with cunning lies (as the serpent did to Eve), it ends like in the book of the Watchers, with thousands of elves proudly and defiantly rebelling against the Valar (as the Watchers did in the heavenly court). Feanor and his sons even swear a Watcher-like oath. Then they proceed to the coastal city of Alqualonde and kill many of the Teleri (the sea elves) when they refuse to join the rebellion and supply the Noldor with ships. This is the first kinslaying in history (elf killing elf), signaling beyond doubt that the Noldor have “fallen” from grace.

That’s what happens in the early chapters of the The Silmarillion. The rest of the narrative tells what happens when the Noldor reach Middle-Earth and rule kingdoms in Beleriand. The world is on borrowed time. Like the Watchers in I Enoch, the elves initiate actions that spiral out of control. There are reprieves here and there, but the trajectory is clear: the forces of good continue losing ground to Melkor, they end up doing more harm than good in the name of fighting evil (both intentionally and unwittingly), and after six centuries it finally takes an apocalypse, with the intervention of the Valar, to get Melkor in chains. In the process, the entire realm of Beleriand is destroyed and sunk into the ocean. The forces of good and evil are both decimated.

“Fall” in the Second Age: The Rings of Power and the Elvish Paradises

The story of The Silmarillion is followed by two brief accounts of the Second Age: the creation of the Rings of Power (involving the elves), and the destruction of the island of Numenor (involving the men). Both involve a fall, and in both cases the evil agent is Sauron, who had been Melkor’s lieutenant in the First Age. The idea of a “second fall” seems counter-intuitive. What is there to fall from? The elves and men have already fallen (or rebelled) in the First Age, and they remain in their broken states. Neither race has been reconciled to their original destiny. But in Tolkien’s world it is possible to “fall” lower than before, if one keeps opposing the will of the gods. First let’s consider the elves.

To deceive the elves, Sauron disguises himself with sorcery to look fair, and takes a new name (Annatar), as he wouldn’t stand a chance otherwise. He finds the elves’ weak point in suggesting that they work together to make Middle-earth as beautiful as Valinor. Out of their joint efforts come the Rings of Power, and with the Three Elvish Rings the elves work magic to establish places of refuge: the hidden valley of Rivendell, the enchanted forest of Lothlorien, and the Grey Havens on the western coast where ships sail for Valinor. We know these places from Lord of the Rings, as they are the safest sanctuaries against Sauron and his evil minions. This is especially true in the Third Age, when the elves are free to use their Rings (since the One Ring is lost and Sauron can’t dominate them when they use theirs). Elrond uses the Ring of Air (Vilya) to hide Rivendell and make it a place of healing; Galadriel uses the Ring of Water (Nenya) to make time pass differently in Lothlorien and insulate it from hostile penetration; and Cirdan at the Grey Havens uses the Ring of Fire (Narya) to warm hearts and give people courage. These refuges become the cherished pocket paradises of Middle-Earth, and it’s hard to see anything evil about them.

Yet for Tolkien these sanctuaries represent a second fall of the elves. They were nothing less than

“… a veiled attack on the gods, an incitement to try and make separate independent paradises. In this we see a sort of second fall or at least ‘error’ of the elves. There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering [in Middle-Earth] against counsel. But they wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of paradise, and yet to remain on the ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild elves, dwarves, and men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor.” (Preface to The Silmarillion, xviii-xix)

I remember first reading this explanation decades ago, and it was then that I finally “got” The Lord of the Rings. It wasn’t the feel-good fantasy that was becoming popular in the ’80s. It’s a very somber fantasy about the long defeat of Eru’s (God’s) children, who keep falling and falling despite their best efforts. Sauron may have been defeated at the end of the Third Age, but The Lord of the Rings is about everyone’s defeat: the suffering and passing of Frodo, the foreordained deterioration of men in the Fourth Age — and not least the fading of the elves, as their earthly paradises are rendered impotent by the destruction of the One Ring, which nullifies the power of their own Rings. That’s what it takes to bring the elves back home to the true paradise of Valinor; and that’s why the Grey Havens epilogue is so moving and sad. The elves are finally reconciled to the gods — at the cost of their power.

But what kind of “fall” is this? Is it more akin to Adam and Eve in Genesis, or the Watchers in I Enoch? It seems that in this case the elves are closer to the Genesis model. There is no purposeful rebellion here. The elves don’t defy the Valar, invoke any oaths or curses, or act out in righteous anger. They genuinely believe the Rings of Power are a project for good, until Sauron reveals himself and they realize their error. In Genesis terms, they “see themselves naked for the first time” when Sauron puts on the One Ring. They are exposed and must use the powers of their Three Rings guardedly. There are no apocalyptic consequences to this fall. The elvish paradises are never destroyed. The elves’ punishment rather is that they are now tied to the fate of Sauron and will remain so throughout the Third Age. Their paradises depend on the evil of the One Ring to exist. When Frodo embarks on the quest to destroy the One Ring, the elves fear that outcome; they’re not fully on board with his quest. Galadriel tells Frodo, “Your coming is as the footsteps of doom. If you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlorien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, “The Mirror of Galadriel”) The elves are screwed either way — whether the One Ring is destroyed or re-obtained by Sauron — thanks to their own investment in the Rings of Power.

“Fall” in the Second Age: The downfall of men and destruction of Numenor

To reward the men who fought against Melkor in the First Age, the Valar give them Numenor, a huge island they raise out of the sea about halfway between Middle-Earth and Valinor. They forbid the Numenorean men to sail westward, for fear they will get too close to Valinor which mortal men cannot set foot on. Naturally, this ban — like the ban against eating the fruit of the tree in Eden — is what will lead to their second fall.

This is how Tolkien describes the second fall of men:

“It is partly the result of an inner weakness in men — consequent upon the first fall (unrecorded in these tales), repented but not finally healed. Reward on earth is more dangerous for men than punishment. The fall is achieved by the cunning of Sauron in exploiting this weakness. Its central theme is (inevitably, I think, in a story of men) a Ban, or Prohibition. The Númenóreans must not set foot on immortal lands, and so become enamored of an immortality which their nature could not in fact endure.” (Preface to The Silmarillion, xxi-xxii)

It’s crucial to note that the first fall of men, which is the Genesis account, happened in the First Age, though Tolkien never describes it. (Tolkien didn’t want to explicitly portray the Judeo-Christian myths in his stories.) The transgression in Eden happened 200 years after the elves’ rebellion in Valinor, though where the garden of Eden is on Tolkien’s map is something he never clarified. It’s also noteworthy that Tolkien believes men need special bans to constrain them. While the immortal elves “fall” or “rebel” when they become gods of their creations (the Silmaril jewels, the Rings of Power), mortal men “fall” or “rebel” when they break a commandment to pursue immortality.

Under their first twelve Numenorean kings, the men obey the Ban of the Valar freely and willingly. The 13th king Tar-Atanamir the Great is the first to speak out against the Ban, and also the first who is unwilling to surrender his throne voluntarily before dying. Subsequent kings follow his lead with increased resentment, until they finally rebel under the 25th and last king, Ar-Pharazon, who captures Sauron in Middle-Earth and brings him back in chains to Numenor. Sauron wastes no time corrupting Ar-Pharazon with lies, and soon graduates from prisoner to chief counselor.

Specifically, Sauron denies the existence of Eru (God), saying that the One is a mythical invention of the Valar, and that the Ban is a jealous commandment to keep men small and inferior to the elves and Valar. He starts a new religion in Numenor, building a temple and leading hideous rites of blood sacrifice and necromancy. Finally he convinces Ar-Pharazon to go to Valinor and seize everlasting life. The king begins building a great fleet to attack Valinor, and within ten years he breaks the Ban and sails west. For this outrageous act of blasphemy, he and his warriors who set foot on paradise are buried by an avalanche of falling hills, while the rest of the fleet is swallowed by the sea, and the island of Numenor itself is completely destroyed by the Valar — pulverized by cataclysm and sunk into the ocean.

This “fall” is clearly more a rebellion like that of the Watchers in I Enoch than the ban-breaking in Genesis. Not only is there purposeful defiance, the men actually have the audacity to wage war on the gods. And while it does take Sauron’s lies to bring them to this point, the first grumblings of discontent come naturally, starting with the 13th king, without any prompting or trickery from an outside agent.

Conclusion

Comparing the accounts in Genesis and I Enoch to those in Tolkien’s stories yields the following:

	Adam & Eve (Genesis)	The Watchers (I Enoch)	The Elves (The Silmarillion)	The Elves (II) (The Rings of Power)	The Men (II) (Numenor)
Deceived by an evil agent?	Yes (the serpent)	No	Yes (Melkor)	Yes (Sauron)	Yes (Sauron)
Unplanned fall or purposeful rebellion?	Fall	Rebellion	Rebellion	Fall	Rebellion
Consequence	Men labor hard to live; women labor hard in childbirth	Destruction of the world (the Flood)	Destruction of Beleriand (the War of Wrath)	Elves are tied to the fate of evil; their powers depend on the existence of the One Ring	Destruction of Numenor (Cataclysm and engulfed by the sea)

I have no idea how familiar Tolkien was with I Enoch. But these patterns are striking when we apply Philip Esler’s distinction between “fall” and “rebellion”. While there are serious repercussions to a fall, a rebellion calls forth a divine retribution that is wholly uncompromising: annihilation. I can’t help think the Watchers were in Tolkien’s mind when he wrote the rebellions of the elves and men.

“There cannot be any story without a fall,” wrote Tolkien, and he meant business by that remark. A proper story for him involved alienation from an intended harmony, and miserably unhappy endings. He was obsessed with the consequences of  those who “crave godliness” — whether elves wanting to be gods of their own creations, or men wanting immortality. The result may be fall (men in the First Age, elves in the Second Age) or catastrophic rebellion (elves in the First Age, men in the Second Age), but either way, Tolkien held out precious little hope for the children of Eru.