Disclaimer: [In this piece I refer positively to fictional examples of martyrdom, and while I hold that these instances are virtuous, I am not in any way advocating for anyone to become a martyr, nor am I calling for violence, nor is this necessarily a “call to action” in any regard.]
A recurring motif I see in regard to those who oppose, for one reason or another, the fight for liberty is “There has never been a truly free society that always respected individual rights and dignity, the world will never be how you want it to be, and this relegates the anarchist as nothing more than an idealistic child in a world that does not care about their aspirations”.
This criticism comes from many distinct directions, although it is often employed by former libertarians who became discouraged by the results (or lack thereof) of their own activism.
For many, they see that their struggle has bore no fruit, and they begin to accuse anarchism as being inherently unworkable, unnatural, or just not suitable for man due to how difficult it is to bring about and how counter-intuitive many think it to be.
My friend Dean had a brilliant insight that many of these types often echo a sentiment similar to Anton Chigurh, the main antagonist in Cormac McCarthy’s famous 2005 novel, ‘No Country for Old Men’, in which he asks “If the rule you followed led you to this of what use was the rule?”
To the people I’m referencing, many former libertarians, seem to have the impression that libertarian/anarchist principles are a blueprint, a specific set of rules that when implemented, will produce an anarchist society or at the very least, shrink the state, and when it doesn’t, they think the principle wrong. While it is true that if these principles were followed universally, it would indeed shrink the state to 0 by necessity, the purpose of these principles lies not in some external end besides themselves, but rather the fulfillment of the principles is an end in themselves. They are not a tool, they are not akin to a sword which when dull, can and should be replaced by a different blade to better fulfill its purpose.
We don’t follow the non-aggression principle because we believe doing so will bring about an anarchist society, we advocate an anarchist society because it is the moral imperative of the non-aggression principle on a social level.
For them, the growth of the state is a failure of the non-aggression principle, or at least a failure of those who bind themselves to it. They believe it constrains us from doing what is necessary to achieve some form of political “victory”, and it has either been instrumental in growing the state or has been unable to stop it.
Are they right? Is it all just hopeless? and if it is, should we become “realists” and abandon our “childish” dreams of a better world?
This has been on my mind for some time now, and this brings us to the very important concept of “The Long Defeat”.
Popularized by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Long Defeat is a concept that describes a situation in which defeat, or the victory of evil, is ultimately inevitable, and every small victory or noble deed that is achieved along the way emerges in the context of an even greater shadow of defeat that cannot be fully thwarted, and perhaps most importantly, this harsh fate is often known by the ones achieving the small victory.
A titular example of “The Long Defeat” found in Nordic mythology is the cataclysmic event known as “Ragnarök”. Ragnarök, sometimes referred to as “The Fate of The Gods”, is an apocalyptic event in Norse mythology in which the gods engage in a climactic battle that causes the death of most of the gods, humans, and creatures in the realms. Ragnarök is not just an event, it is a prophecy of what is fated to transpire, and the gods know it. This is the most important aspect of the myth, the gods know that they are destined to die, and nevertheless, they fight to the end all the same. Tolkien referred to this attitude, this unyielding resistance in the face of predetermined defeat, as “Northern Courage” and found great value in the concept which would later greatly inform his masterpiece, The Lord of The Rings.
[SPOILERS TO FOLLOW]
In The Lord of The Rings, the term “The Long Defeat” is mentioned explicitly by Galadriel, who recants her and Celeborn’s travels to Middle Earth:
"He [Celeborn] has dwelt in the West since the days of dawn, and I have dwelt with him years uncounted . . . and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat."
In Tolkien’s mythos, Elves are immortal, and because of this, they are granted a unique perspective in the battle between good and evil that a mere mortal could not easily comprehend. Galadriel here is referencing the ongoing conflict between these forces, from Morgoth’s destruction of the trees of Valinor, to his theft of the Silmarils and the bloody battles that followed it, to his dark reign over middle earth and the War of Wrath, to Morgoth’s Lieutenant, Sauron, and his deception in creating the rings of power and ultimately The One Ring, and on and on. Galadriel understands that the elves’ time in Middle Earth is limited, and all the beauty they’ve built will eventually fall into disrepair. If The One Ring is not destroyed, it will only be a matter of time before Sauron’s forces march across the land at the doorsteps of Lothlórien and all other elvish lands. On the other hand, If The One Ring is destroyed, then Galadriel’s Ring of Power, Nenya, will no longer be able to enchant the forests of Lothlórien, leading to the eventual ruin of the forest. This is true of all the beauty the elves have created with the three elven rings. Despite this, the elves are not crippled into stasis by this realization. Despite this inevitable loss, many of the elves assist in the aim of destroying The One Ring despite their inevitable defeat in Middle Earth.
We see the themes of The Long Defeat echoed many times in the books and movies, most notably in The Battle of Pelennor Fields where the Rohirim charge against the seemingly insurmountable armies of Sauron knowing full well they have no chance of victory. In the movie, this theme is presented beautifully when Théoden and the Rohirim begin to cry out “death!” “death!” “death!'“ at the enemy before them, but this is not a threat that they will slaughter their foes, but rather a proclamation that they know they will all likely die on these fields, and nevertheless, they will die for a moral victory knowing full well that they cannot achieve a military victory on their own. Despite the fact that the good guys ultimately do win the battle of Pelennor Fields, The Rohirrim’s willingness to fight and die in battle was not contingent upon this expectation. A moral victory is a good in itself, even if physical defeat is certain. The Rohirrim are exemplars of this idea of “Northern Courage” that Tolkien was moved by, an unyielding tenacity to do what is right, despite the fact that loss is assured (or assumed to be assured in the eyes of the one’s taking the heroic action).
There are many more examples in the books, movies, and extended writings of Tolkien, too many to list for this piece, and I think you get the picture now.
Tolkien started to write a sequel to The Lord of The Rings that was set around 100 years after the fall of Sauron, and ultimately detailing the everlasting nature of evil and its rise if left unchecked. Tolkien later found the story not worth continuing, but the theme of The Long Defeat nevertheless remained in his mind.
Tolkien was a Catholic, and while fully committed to his catholicism, he was very moved by certain themes and concepts in pagan myths. He attempted to extract what he saw as the virtues of these concepts and synthesize them into a more totalizing Christian worldview.
In one of Tolkien’s letters, he writes: 1
“Actually I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect 'history' to be anything but a 'long defeat' – though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.”
For Tolkien, man is destined to suffer an ongoing defeat by evil until divine intervention occurs and a new heaven and earth are made with the return of Jesus Christ. The key takeaway here to remember is that even though Tolkien believed in an eventual final victory belonging to God, he never saw this as a reason to not do good or honor commandments until that time came.
The Christianization of The Long Defeat that Tolkien subscribed to parts from its more Nordic roots by envisioning a final victory through divine intervention, but nevertheless, the long defeat will persist all the way until that time comes, in Tolkien’s view.
The Long Defeat then is exemplified, in a moral sense, as the continued unyielding commitment to do good or resist evil, with the foreknowledge that evil will persist or win, and eludes your ability to fully defeat.
For many, I know the concept that we’re, at best, locked in an eternal struggle, or at worst, going to be fully defeated, is not generally a case for optimism, and while I am not fully suggesting that we as anarchists are doomed, (in fact, I think there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future), I do think it’s vitally important to consider and internalize the possibility that we are in a long defeat, and it is your response to this concept that will likely determine the contents of your character.
We have the capacity to control many things, and we often can effect change in ways we didn’t dream possible at a moment in time, but we have to always remember that we are also limited in how much we can control, and for anarchists, the fact that the state is not defeated, or that most people are not anarchists or minarchists, does not necessarily imply a failure on our part.
The world is not our fault, but it is our responsibility to respond to it, and if we are of moral character, we must respond to it with a commitment to justice even if this justice is never realized.
In one of the most famous exchanges from The Lord of The Rings, Gandalf imparts this wisdom to Frodo who is lamenting becoming The Ring Bearer and that he must be the one to endure this struggle:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
This truism is to say that sometimes all we can do is make the best of a bad situation, and despite the fact that the surrounding circumstances may be horrible, you still have moral agency within your surroundings and retain the choice to give in to despair over your situation, or to accept or resist it in whatever way you can, doing the best you can along the way. Despite the fact that Frodo is justified in feeling that his position is unfair, he still has the responsibility to choose how he will act in his station, and the attitude he will adopt.
I regard this as the dilemma all anarchists must face. We are thrown into the world and in becoming anarchists, we need not look long to find injustice, but we should not be so absorbed by this injustice that we do not appreciate the actual goodness that takes place every day, all the freedoms that people still have and enjoy, all the technology that is making people’s lives better.
Constant despair over the anarchist’s situation is nothing but a concession to injustice.
If the world will not be how we wish it were, why should that mean we should abandon our moral obligations to others? Why should that mean that we should side with injustice merely because it may be stronger, or have a final victory? We will eventually die. Death will eventually take us no matter how much we strive for health and happiness, but does this mean we should just hasten our death because it is inevitable? There may be an afterlife, in fact, I hope there is, but I’m not going to hinge my reason for continuing on, on the basis that I may be rewarded in the future. I carry this approach over to my ethics, I do not hold my ethical beliefs contingent upon whether or not they have some final, eternal victory, where my deeds will bear fruit in the future.
In my view, the anarchist’s role may very well be to embody the counter-force in an eternal battle against injustice, even if there is no final winner, even if we lose in the end.
In a letter to his son, J.R.R. Tolkien encapsulated the ethos of The Long Defeat, and more importantly, their place in it. 2
“…you and I belong to the ever-defeated never altogether subdued side”
In Greek Mythology, there is a man of great philosophical importance, named Sisyphus. Sisyphus committed many actions throughout his life that embarrassed the gods so deeply, including cheating death twice, that when he finally passed into the underworld, he was given one of the cruelest of punishments. To pay for his treachery against the gods, Sisyphus was commanded to roll a massive boulder up a hill—the catch was that whenever Sisyphus would near the peak, the boulder would roll down to the bottom of the valley again, and again, and again, for eternity.
All of what I’ve described should sound bleak to you, and it is, but there is another key insight here that we’re missing.
The French Philosopher Albert Camus took great interest in the myth and its philosophical implications in his most famous work - ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’
Camus believes Sisyphus to be a metaphorical exemplar of what he calls “The Absurd Hero” in which man, a meaning-seeking creature, is thrown into a seemingly meaningless universe, and the meeting of these two forces is what Camus calls “The Absurd”. For Camus, Sisyphus embodies a similar paradox in which his existence in the underworld is completely meaningless, yet Sisyphus embraces this and carries on anyway.
Camus makes one final claim about Sisyphus that ties the entire essay together, in ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’, Camus writes: 3
“All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling. I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Camus makes the bold claim that Sisyphus is happy, but why does it matter if Sisyphus is happy? What relevance does that have?
It is crucial to understand that Sisyphus’ enslavement is not directed by the gods toward some external end, Sisyphus is not pushing the boulder in order to clear the valley so the gods will have a nicer view, or to procure stone to build great temples, no, Sisyphus is constrained to the fate he is because it is meaningless, it is by design to make Sisyphus suffer.
Sisyphus cannot defeat the gods, he cannot achieve a physical victory over them, for he is only a man, but In Sisyphus’ choice to be happy, he commits a heroic gesture. By this one choice, Sisyphus transforms his very existence into an eternal act of rebellion, and in doing so, Sisyphus achieves a moral victory over the gods.
Sisyphus belongs to the “Ever-defeated, never altogether subdued” pantheon.
In closing, I believe it is helpful to imagine that we, as anarchists, are locked in a long defeat, a Sisyphean struggle, with the state and other forms of tyranny. Rather than this causing despair, the ethos of the anarchist should be a type of joyous resistance, an unyielding commitment to justice even knowing that we may not prevail.
This type of rebellion need not be physical, and often shouldn’t be, as Sisyphus’ rebellion is not a physical one, but rather a refusal to feed into the despair of injustice. The ones committing injustice would love nothing more than for you to be completely demoralized in your cause. All too often I find anarchists who are completely “blackpilled” in their outlook and I wanted to offer my perspective in the hopes that you could look into the void and maybe realize that it’s not cause for surrender.
Merely choosing to live your life in a moral and happy way is a rebellious act and it will remain a virtue whether or not we achieve a physical victory over injustice.
To end with a quote from Albert Camus:
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 195, December 15th, 1956.
J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 77, July 31st, 1944.
The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus, p24
In the LDS belief, good and evil are eternal principles just as everything is eternal, including humanity and all the creations of God. But, being eternal principles, they are neither created nor destroyed; rather, they exist, to be adopted by different adherents through-out the time of eternity. If one looks at the etymology of the word "Satan," it comes Greek & from Hebrew words meaning "adversary" or "one who plots against another." Satan may be an individual person, Lucifer, who plotted against God & his "plan of happiness," as its called in the LDS belief, seeking the throne & glory of God itself, but his titled is one that can fit anyone who behaves like him. As such, even if there is a final destruction of Lucifer himself, or even if Lucifer were to repent and pay restitution for his crimes, however that might be possible, and returned to the fold, the evil of "Satan" will still exist, to be learned of, adopted, and practiced by another or others at some other time in the timeline of eternity. Which means there will always be a struggle, a war between good and evil, as they are eternal. But just as there is a "long defeat" with its periods and places of of darkness & tyranny, so too is there a "long victory" wherein there are times and places where good will triumph or be the predominant norm among the inhabitants of whatever place sticks to the practices of good. Even in the LDS doctrine, even after the so-called "Millennium" of peace under Christ, there will be a period of time where "Satan" is loosed again & wreaks havoc all over again till he is defeated again. But what defeats him, or what defeats the evil he represents? The people, the vast majority of whom voluntarily choose to live by the peaceful precepts of Christ instead, so that, though existent, "Satan" remains "bound" in that he has no power as few to no one follows his path/ways. Point is, evil is always gonna exist, & sometimes it's gonna win battles and may even reign for what seems like a long time but in reality is but a spec in the timeline of eternity; and it may have several specs in that timelines; the vast majority of the eternal timeline will be long periods of the reign of good, with shorts specs of evil occurring every once in a while. Evil may have its short times of reign, but if the vast majority of times will be the reign of good, why give up on the good even when evil reigns when you know good will have its time again? You can't achieve good by abandoning good for evil in order to try to defeat evil, whatever the impatient post-libertarian/anarchist "sunshine patriot" believes to the contrary. Good will always exist & evil will always exist; & neither will be fully stamped out no matter what we do. So, why not choose good? Besides, the way to keep evil & its tyranny at bay is by being good. Evil can't destroy you unless you let it by embracing it.
Brilliant and timely piece. It is incredibly disheartening to me that so many who count themselves among our ranks find it inconceivable that they should do good for it's own sake.