Only recently my wife and I had a chance to see the Lord of the Rings trilogy on Netflix. It’s about a ring whose accidental owner, a Hobbit named Frodo, goes on an epic journey to destroy it.
Why is the ring so dangerous? It makes the ring-wearer invisible, with enormous power. Although the series has many heroes and characters, aside from Frodo the most significant one, at least to me, is named Gollum.
Gollum used to be a decent Hobbit himself. But, robbing the ring from a friend who found it, and killing him to do so, he has been completely possessed by the magic of the ring, which gives him the absolute freedom of action — therefore absolute power. In short, as a sad remnant of what was once a sweet creature, Gollum has become half-man and half-animal who, in his struggle between good and evil, guides Frodo to his destination while covetously eyeing the ring.
Frodo himself is alternately tempted by the desire to wear the ring and experience its godlike power on the one hand, and fear of the ring’s ultimate power to corrupt and ruin him on the other.
The ring represents power, our ability to control our freedom of action to do whatever we want. Once you wear the ring, you can disappear from all human-social obligations, free to do anything without restrictions. Both Gollum and Frodo are constantly tempted — as both have experienced the delirious pleasure of absolute power once they wear the ring.
At the end, as Gollum and Frodo finally arrive at the destination where they can throw the ring into volcanic fire and destroy the source of their evil forever, they succumb to the power of the ring and the weakness of their own resistance to evil. As the two struggle for the possession of the ring, Gollum to take it from Frodo and Frodo to keep it from Gollum, the ring accidentally falls into the fire and is destroyed, but without affirming either Gollum’s or Frodo’s moral victory over power’s beck and call.
Although the story itself ends here with the destruction of the ring — the ultimate source of human weakness and evil — the viewer is left with the feeling that both the weakness and evil are still with us, unconquered: The power of temptation is just too strong and the seduction of evil simply too persistent in our nature. We are more like Gollum than Frodo and are constantly tempted and seduced by the lure of power, to become free from our neighbors and society.
What is our present-day magic ring that tempts and seduces us with the call of power and freedom from society and humanity, whose addictive power we find ourselves powerless to resist?
Why, it is none other than the smartphone, which promises and delivers our absolute freedom away from each other and our promised magic land where we can enjoy all the powers and freedoms unencumbered by other human beings around us. Like the magic ring, once we click on our smartphone, we can simply vanish from everybody, like demigods, and from the controlling tethers of community and society.
We become instantly invisible from all other humans, disconnecting and disengaging ourselves from every chain of social and human inconvenience, and enjoying the full magic of pleasure that the smartphone opens up for us. We tremble like Gollum whenever we are near the gadget, with the desire to return to the magic of the smartphone which, like Homer’s Sirens, promises a complete freedom of power and pleasure. Millions of choices are available once we wear the new magic ring of the cellphone.
Just like the magic ring with Gollum and Frodo, and many others who know about it, the freedom and power of the smartphone drives us mad. Humanity as a whole has never had such a magical access to all the calls of our secret desires arising from deep in our hearts. With one click of the gadget, the whole magic world opens up and we cannot possibly resist.
Unlike Gandalf the gray wizard who represents good and humanity, our “white wizards,” all the marketing and advertising specialists, and all the psychologists who know how to tempt and seduce, are working for the corporate drug lords who want to make their opium as delirious, potent and irresistible as possible.
Our human nature, especially in America which was created as a natural society and its citizens for the sole purpose of gaining personal freedom and power, is built to be tempted and seduced. In many ways, the new nation of America itself was the strongest drug the world has ever seen, a magic ring that promised all the freedom-loving individualists to come to America and enjoy its new thrilling pleasures of getting anything they wanted — a magic ring for every American!
After all, as Americans we were never meant to resist such temptations and seduction offered by our good fortunes. The new nation of America was designed to be history’s new magic ring of freedom and power, which has now created an entirely different, certainly new, species of humanity we might name “Homo sapiens/Gollumnus,” who have found their magic ring in the smartphone in every pocket.
What would be more quintessentially an “American” act than disappearing from all the social connections and human obligations into the magical world of invisibility and freedom? Why, once there, you can indulge in all your fantasies and dreams as long as you want — alone! Americans and smartphones are truly a match made in heaven.
Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and professor emeritus, lives in Greenfield.