>>24860260
>is Evil a distinct thing or merely the absence of the Good?
i think Tolkien definitely would take the viewpoint that it is the absence of the Good, because in Tolkien's lore, Eru was all there was originally. Melkor is ultimately weaker than Eru, and since Eru is good (yes, he has "evil" elements within him, but he controls them and doesn't let them rule him) and Melkor is the origin of evil, that means that evil isn't really a distinct "equal" of Eru, but something lesser. When Melkor and Eru had their battle of the bands moment, Melkor often just did stuff opposite of Eru simply to try to disrupt Eru. I.e. Melkor isn't creating, he's just trying to destroy and be contrary, and this is less powerful ultimately. Creation is more powerful than just sheer destruction. Anyone can destroy a sand castle, it takes real skill to make a sand castle though.
I think ultimately this fits in with Catholic (or at least Christian) theology since the bible quote from Isaiah about God "forming light and creating darkness" is consistent. Catholic doctrine always makes God out to be superior to Satan, and this idea that Satan/Melkor/Evil is ultimately derived from God is consistent with that. Now if Melkor/Satan was originally coexistent with Eru/God from the beginning, and they both were equals in power, then it would be inconsistent with Catholic theology and something more heretical. (I forget the names, but there were early heretical christian ideologies that thought evil and good were equal powers at war with each other, whereas Catholic thought is that God is ultimately the only power, and evil is a shadowy nuisance that is just throwing a tantrum against God).
There's a lot of similarities in these ideas, about whether good and evil are equal or unequal, in the ideas of Hierarchical Authority vs Decentralized Flows, which the philosophers have been duking out for a long time.
So the leftist/communist style philosophers absolutely hate Authority and Hierarchy, and they craft these systems that work to undermine them. Authority/Hierarchy are like a gov't, with a leader at the top, or like a pantheon of Ainur with a God at the top. De-centralized rhizomatic, asubjective organizations are like covens or witches or gangs of orcs, all coordinating with each other to undermine and degrade the Tower. (The "Tower", because a tower is a hierarchy that overlooks the land, the king/leader/god being at the top of the tower.) Leftist philosophy is anti-authoritarian, "dividualistic" (stealing that term from someone else), basically means divided. An individual is a Unity, a Subject, whereas a dividual is a divided, fragmentary force, a flow, a flow among other flows, a gang among other gangs, all coordinating together, each claiming a territory and not extending into other territories, but all feeding off and degrading a Stratified Authority Structure, like a gov't.
This is analogous to how Melkor works. He tears down Eru's works.
