The Parable of the Black Numenoreans
The Corrupting Influence of Death Anxiety
Thanatophobia is the pathological fear of and anxiety around death and dying. Like other phobias and pathologies its rates seems to be rising and it appears more pronounced in our culture. Some might say it is the defining aspect of our culture. It can be seen in consumption patterns and attitudes towards aging & family & public health.
This is part of a series I began which explores pathological societies in fiction and history and relates aspects of them to our current era. The Black Numenoreans (in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion) represent thanatophobia and the degeneration which accompanies it, the 15th-century Aztecs represent sadistic bloodthirstiness and superstition, and 1930’s Russia represents the waste of state-level collectivism and the horror and dishonesty of life under totalitarianism.
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, and then The Lord of the Rings… and throughout the writing, he was creating a vast backstory of ‘the Music of the Ainur,’ the open-ended but mythologically complete story of his fantasy world and its creation and ancient history.
I received a copy of The Silmarillion in high school (I think) as a gift. Like many books during that period of my life I found it to be too weighty and dry. I set it aside for a decade. The Silmarillion tells the story of the creation of the world, the death of the two trees of Valinor, the forging of the Silmarils, the Kinslayings, the defeats of Morgoth, the fall of Numenor, and the first three ages of Middle Earth. It uses much less novelized and descriptive language than The Lord of the Rings and has an almost Biblical (or Homeric) cadence, full of accounts of battles, great deeds, genealogies, and epic romances.
Melkor (‘he who arises in might) is the greatest among the demigods of the legendarium (the Ainur), second only to Eru Ilúvatar (The One, Father of All). He’s been created with penultimate power but also a great deal of pride. He spends long ages wandering in the void places and his solitary time lends him strange thoughts and kindles a desire to possess and control the Secret Fire (the flame imperishable), which is the engine of creation and the spark at the heart of all living beings. It is the element that gives creatures life and agency and Melkor desires it greatly.
But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself. To Melkor among the Ainur had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and he had a share in all the gifts of his brethren; and he had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame. For desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Ilúvatar. But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren.
After the elves are created Melkor makes war upon them and the world, and he is named Morgoth (‘dark enemy’ or ‘black foe’). Thousands of years later men are created in the East. They are known as the Edain (‘after-born,’ for they are the last race created by Eru) in Sindarin. (Tolkien was a linguist by education and took great joy in naming things in this manner).
The Edain are made mortal by Eru, unlike the elves (who have an infinite potential lifespan, and who return to a kind of afterlife-the Halls of Mandos-after dying). Death is (earnestly) called the ‘gift of Ilúvatar,‘ for it is the will of the creator that men should have the opportunity to individually experience only a small share of life’s wonders. It is by his command that men should have the chance to display true bravery (which is only possible in the context of mortality) and to love more fiercely and to savor life with a kind of intensity unknown to the elves or to the Valar. It is an intensity born out of life’s transitory nature and, In Tolkien’s writing, it is the will of God and a kind of blessing.
I will get to the point. (I could relate events from Tolkien’s narrative all day!). The greatest race among men (the ‘Men of the West’, with lifespans of centuries and possessed of great stature and strength) are given the island of Numenor as a reward for their valiant opposition to Morgoth’s evil plans. Sauron, a kind of lesser Morgoth, twisted by his own desires for power and control, is bidden to return to the realm of the Ainur and answer for his crimes (committed while he was Morgoth’s chief lieutenant) but he stays in Middle Earth, hiding from cosmic justice. In time he creates a great nation (in Mordor) but the Numenoreans assemble the mightiest fleet in history and sail against him. Despairing of victory, Sauron sues for clemency. He is taken back to Numenor as a prisoner… and his cunning is made manifest.
The Island of Numenor
Now aforetime in the isle of Númenor the weather was ever apt to the needs and liking of Men: rain in due season and ever in measure; and sunshine, now warmer, now cooler, and winds from the sea. And when the wind was in the west, it seemed to many that it was filled with a fragrance, fleeting but sweet, heart-stirring, as of flowers that bloom for ever in undying meads and have no names on mortal shores. But all this was now changed; for the sky itself was darkened, and there were storms of rain and hail in those days, and violent winds; and ever and anon a great ship of the Númenóreans would founder and return not to haven…
He begins to twist and ruin the culture of Numenor. He begins to subtly begin to craft and spread a new narrative: death is a penalty, and a mockery inflicted by Eru. It is a terrible punishment and can be delayed, through dark magic and human sacrifice to Morgoth and through mastery of black arts. Sauron changes the entire culture of Numenor, making it a corrupted and evil thing and an expression of thanatophobia and hatred of the divine. There are still good elements in the society, who remember deeds of valor and the grace of the Ainur and who still honor them. They come to be known as the ‘King’s Men’. Eventually they depart from their home, sailing off and settling across Middle Earth. This turns out to be their salvation.
And so the line of Numenor began to fear death above all else, and fell victim to the influence of Sauron.
Sauron convinces the Numenoreans to sacrifice their young and virginal and engage in detestable practices and live hedonistic and cruel lives. Perversely (but predictably) the changes wrought by Sauron have the opposite effect: they shorten the lives of the Black Numenoreans (which is what those Edain who come to revere Morgoth are called) and they make their cities unhappy places-and increase their thanatophobia and resentment of nature. Eventually, Sauron convinces them to sacrifice their few, precious divine trees, which were given to them by the Ainur as a sign of nobility. A single tree is smuggled off the island where it becomes the standard of the kingdom of Gondor (and its eventual king, Aragorn).
The White Tree of Numenor, last of its kind
Sauron caused to be built upon the hill in the midst of the city of the Númenóreans, Armenelos the Golden, a mighty temple, crowned with a mighty dome. And that dome was roofed all with silver, and rose glittering in the sun, so that the light of it could be seen afar off; but soon the light was darkened, and the silver became black. For there was an altar of fire in the midst of the temple, and in the topmost of the dome there was a louver, whence there issued a great smoke. And the first fire upon the altar Sauron kindled with the hewn wood of Nimloth, and it crackled and was consumed; but men marvelled at the reek that went up from it, so that the land lay under a cloud for seven days, until slowly it passed into the west. Thereafter the fire and smoke went up without ceasing; for the power of Sauron daily increased, and in that temple, with spilling of blood and torment and great wickedness, men made sacrifice to Melkor that he should release them from Death.
Eventually Sauron convinces the corrupted Numenoreans to assemble a fleet and essentially make war upon God himself. The king, Ar-Pharazon, is growing old and regards the coming of his life’s end with fear and rebelliousness. He’s been counselled by Sauron for many years and has come to believe that immortality can be won with an assault upon the abode of the demigods. The Black Numenoreans gather a fleet of war and begin sailing to the undying lands. As a punishment-and a warning-Eru strikes the island with volcanic upheaval and earthquakes. The island sinks and the population perishes, and a great wave annihilates the belligerents.
It is a joy to read and consider the works of Tolkien. I’ve considered a lengthy treatment of Amazon’s Rings of Power series-a corrupted bastardization of a brief bit of Tolkien’s narrative with all the moral purpose and drama and layered existential complexity removed-but I simply can’t bring myself to do it. You can call a feminist fan fiction with parodic dialogue and glacial pacing and relativist moral themes different things but you can’t aptly call it ‘Tolkien’. I prefer to focus on more interesting things. It’s an interesting case study of corporate wastage (with a $1 BILLION price tag) and clumsy propagandizing and journalistic malpractice but it holds no wisdom for the ages. You can’t learn anything about the human condition by watching The Rings of Power or reading about it because it was created by shallow and childish people who themselves don’t understand the drama of life. Tolkien wrote heroic prose because he was a hero, in every sense of the word. Heroes are rather thin on the ground these days, at least in Amazon Studios writers’ rooms.
Like all great works of literature The Silmarillion has themes which are universal and messages which can apply even to modern dilemmas and debates. I prefer to leave the particulars of the message to your interpretation, but I would like to leave you with some reflections:
Aside from truly religious people and institutions (an increasingly slim constituency) does our culture have anything to say about death? Is there any sense of the beauty of life and the nature of honor and sacrifice… or do we simply rush to maximize our utility while we can and frantically rush from meal to meal and trip to trip, trying to blot out awareness of our mortality?
Spirituality is essentially the only means by which we can grapple with the reality of death and all true spirituality is suffused with the simultaneous presence of death and eternity. As a character in the film First Reformed says:
“Courage is the solution to despair; reason provides no answers. I can't know what the future will bring; we have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind, simultaneously, Hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.”
I think it is very possible that the chief benefit of psychedelic therapy for modern people is that it creates a confrontation with the reality of death, and the beautiful wonder of something beyond it. As the Greeks said (of the psychedelic ritual Mysteries of Eleusis):
If you die before you die... you will not die when you die
Does thanatophobia have any implications for culture, or public policy? Does the phenomenon of young (mentally ill) folks still frightened of COVID say something about the bleakness of their lives and the hysteria of our thinkers? Keep in mind, many journalists resemble those poor young malingerers more closely than they do you or I. Such people (unhinged though they are) are well-represented in the media and in activism and in Hollywood. What ideas might result when their phobias are formative for our cultural products?
Are the busyness and sexuality and cynicism of our civilization mostly just compensatory reflexes for a deep well of immaturity and existential fear?
Does our society treat the old with care and grace or does it try to isolate them and forget their existence? Do those old people accept their fate or do they cling to this world, sucking up vast quantities of federal spending (which could be well-spent by the families and businesses producing the wealth in the first place)? It’s not just that our society neglects the old-the old struggle to live like the young, and seem to expend great effort in order to maintain the convenience and independence and excitement of young people. Older women often go to great lengths to hide their age or present themselves as young people-sexy, vibrant, youthful. Of course they do. What else can they do? When your primary (only) concern is your own life and your happiness is inextricably bound up with riches and popularity and youth and beauty what else can you do but wring every drop out of the thing that you can, even if it sometimes seems a little indecent or bizarre? Older men struggle to date younger women and enjoy fast cars and seek to control ever larger amounts of wealth. There’s nothing remarkable there-they’re displaying drives which are as old as our species. But our society permits and encourages these things. When all you have is this brief life in which to find meaning and the only things you value are women and houses and cars, you have little choice. What else can you do? Develop humility and wisdom? Reflect upon deeper realities? Absolutely not!
Nature is the ultimate guideline of ethics. Everything that we treat as normative hangs on a scaffold of biological reality and material incentive. We regard certain things as wrong and depraved because they have collectively been found to be harmful and antisocial by our species. Sexual morality and food taboos and rules of behavior develop as solutions for the problems of communal living in this world. The more universal commandments (tolerance and compassion and empathy) arise from the reality of a world in which tribal groups are so myriad and interconnected-and increasingly unimportant-that we must truly behave as if each group and each person has meaning and should be treated with some basic respect. There are activists who describe moral ideas as patriarchal or oppressive or reactionary, and history as essentially evil (all while rejecting the very notions of ‘good’ and ‘evil’). Social norms are reactionary, in the sense that they are reactions to the problems and constraints of the world. Perhaps some of them are no longer so applicable or wise but they all had their uses, or they wouldn’t exist. These ideas are popular among a small and wealthy group of elites with less life experience than your average Middle Age child. The idea that new moral laws can be created from scratch (or abolished altogether!) by these people-who themselves have little experience of love or war or child-rearing or sacrifice-is patently absurd. It’s always a mistake to mistake your insecurities and your fears for ideas and beliefs.
Consider the many ways our society has become unnatural. Consider the competing visions of morality and well-being at play in our civilization. Do they understand the spiritual nature and violent history and biological constraints of human existence? In my opinion, anyone who tries to redefine the concept of ‘woman’ or treats the grand scope of religious tradition with disdain, or who scoffs at competition and romance and battle and nobility is not to be trusted. Anyone who tries to sweep away or reframe the wisdom of history is not to be trusted. Anyone who disregards or minimizes the prime position of child-bearing and child-rearing and child-protecting in a culture is not to be trusted. To such people I always recommend the same thing: don’t try to change our ethics. Live according to your ethics… and if we find your lives to be compelling, we can imitate you. Nothing about you indicates anything like the almost supernatural level of wisdom one would need in order to re-order our ethics from the top down. Attend to your own life.
Perhaps the connections aren’t clear. Perhaps COVID hysteria and denial of biology and the perverse urge to uncouple ‘gender identity’ from the bodies of people (children) and rejection of history & tradition and the pathetic displays of consumption and narcissism that you can instantly find on Instagram, every day, arise from somewhere other than a fear of death, and an aversion to natural law. Perhaps our fixations on sex and equity and wealth and radical change are more complicated than just being deep discomforts with the constraints of history and morality and achievement. If that’s true, then where is the conception of death in our culture? If we don’t fear or hate aging or death or God then why can’t I name or identify our cultural attitudes to these things? Culture reflects the priorities and beliefs of groups and individuals. Can it really be that our culture is so saturated by fear of death and hatred of nature that it has chosen to say nothing about these things? These are pretty big blind spots. I can’t believe they’re incidental. Is it merely a coincidence that, after thousands of years contemplating morality and creation, we have decided that these aren’t worthwhile subjects? Or could it be that our peculiar omission of these themes is related to our extraordinary wealth and our collective immaturity and our completely unprecedented levels of loneliness and distraction?
A culture is just a set of ideas and practices developed collectively and transmitted to the young. If our ideas and practices are saturated in thanatophobia, where does that leave us? Death is coming regardless. You can meet it with grace and equanimity and use its imminence to motivate you to focus on kids and community and compassion or you can try to repress the anxiety of what you know to be true, filling your days with superficiality and distraction. You can accept nature and try your best to flourish under its burdens or you can go to war with it-but you won’t win.
I lack the time at this moment to write responses to every thoughtful question you've posed, but you've hit a very interesting point regarding what our culture has at say, to the extent that it addresses the issue at all, about death.
There is a deep contradiction I think between what most people might still say, versus what we see from Hollywood, the media, academia, and many activists and politicians united by a "progressive" perspective. I think most people would still generally agree that life is a good thing, even an Inherently, Objectively, Good, even if they lack the arguments to articulate or support that thought since it has been so self-evident to so many for so long that it naturally fit into our culture as an indisputable premise needing no defense.
OTOH, there has emerged another contrary thought, almost a dark twin of Tolkien's framing of Death as a gift (after all, a recurrent theme of Tolkien is that evil cannot create, it merely mimics and corrupts the created). Death IS a gift because it is the End; not in any sense that the temporality of our mortal condition inspires a greater appreciation of life and beauty due to its very scarcity, but rather the opposite: Life is suffering and Death therefore a release. Death is a mercy. Death is dignity. Death is justice. Death is ease. I can't say whether these are the thoughts of people so terrified of Death that they desperately seek to clothe it in a more comforting light or the genuine thoughts of people seeking Death, nor do I see much difference in practice.
Death is embraced across our culture. Action movies and war correspondence promise the vicarious thrill of watching our enemies perish. Abortion, 'assisted dying', and Capital Punishment serve to remove 'inconvenient' people from our experience. DNRs and suicides proliferate while organ donation and fertility alike falls as people come to implicitly believe that life is not worth living. Mass shooters choose to commit suicide by cop while taking an escort of innocents (or, as they see it, the Guilty) with them in a spectacle of nihilistic vengeance. The choice to bring children into this world becomes condemned somehow as simultaneously a sign of selfishness in environmental terms and selling oneself into indentured servitude for the next two decades to rear a life that will both reject you and itself be rejected by the world. When Life is viewed as no more than a state of being trapped in suffering and a burden on the World, Death even takes on an aspect of moral obligation: that sometimes the best thing humanity can do is to simply die out quietly without inflicting any more damage upon an uncaring planet.
This is riveting.
I’ve read the Silmarilian. You made it better for me. I was an easily distracted teen at the time. Wish I’d seen what you saw. Glad I see it now.