Enactivating the lost language of the elves

Walking Elven Pathways: enactivating the pattern that connects (Part #8)

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There is a major disconnect between the boredom -- for many voters -- of the "reasonable" social projects that emerge from intergovernmental programmes and the excitement of unusual "irrational" triggers to the imagination (eg Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, etc). To these, billions are increasingly attracted. The "demonic" winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006 may well be the closest thing to an elven orc that has appeared to widespread popular approval -- supported by EU public funding. Such examples, including Live8 (2005), could be usefully recognized as symptomatic of the disconnect between institutionalized soullessness and the integrating myths that globalized society calls into question and denies -- myths that are nevertheless echoed in (multi-)media fantasies of widespread appeal.

Recent history suggests that it would be highly dangerous to dismiss such phenomena as trivia. The best cautionary example is perhaps the capacity of Adolf Hitler to integrate a violent political agenda with Germanic myths and music. The subtle integration of Christian fundamentalist "end times" myths with an American faith-based foreign policy in the Middle East offers a quite different example.

Is there a "lost language" -- "of the elves" -- to be rediscovered in order to enable people to travel the walkways of their culture? Perhaps a language to give meaning to the vital challenges of the time? A language that could embody all that is notably lost in the costly multi-lingual babelization of institutionalized communication required for international policy-making? It could be argued that the dominant languages of the world do not embody the capacity to highlight those pathways with sufficient credibility so that they can be walked in practice -- rather than only faintly recognized and honoured through incidental poetry and music. (cf From Information Highways to Songlines of the Noosphere: global configuration of hypertext pathways as a prerequisite for meaningful collective transformation, 1996).

Is there now a case for inventing a language to give greater credibility to the subtle relationships vital to sustaining quality of life? The process of elaborating its characteristics might even result in the recognition that many already "speak" it and -- as with the misrepresentation of the "discovery of America" by Europeans -- that it is already a language understood by many, however poorly. Such a "lost language" may actually be related to some form of deep racial memory -- offering an explanation for the manner in which its significance can be triggered by certain symbols and works of art (as well as dreams).

For example, as author of Lord of the Rings, J R R Tolkien, developed Quenya ("the Ancient Tongue") as one of several "languages of the elves" (now notably sustained by the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship of the Mythopoeic Society), as well as many associated languages. Many others have invested in the creation of artificial or constructed languages.

Long before the development of the virtual world Second Life, Erik Davis (1998) argued succinctly:

Tolkien's work proved the point he himself made in his essay On Fairy Stories. A great author of fantasy "makes a econdary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside." Like designers of virtual worlds today, Tolkien knew that successful secondary worlds were not wild flights of fancy, but products of creative method and potent technology -- what Tolkien described as an "elvish craft" capable of suspending the disbelief of "both designer and spectator".

Many of the dominant visions of future "development" are elaborated under the influence of the Gnomes of Zurich -- a euphemism for the ultra-secretive, powerful businessmen that supposedly exert a high degree of influence on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (as part of the Washington Consensus). Curiously, following initial political use of the term in the UK in 1956, it was used for Project Gnome in 1961 -- the first of 28 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions (terminated in 1973) with the objective of developing nuclear explosives for peaceful applications through excavation of craters..

It might therefore be argued that such visions are first articulated in a "gnomish language". This might be understood to imbue such visions with the heavy, dwarfish cunning of gnomes of miserly, secretive temperament focused on the earthen resources of the mundane world. The challenge is to provide carriers for other qualities -- as addressed in part by Tolkien in articulating a lighter, subtler language of the "High Elves" (Tareldar) and the "Elves of Light" (Calaquendi). It is most curious to note that a certain understanding of various "elves" and "gnomes" forms part of the jargon of the international investment world (cf Andrew Beattie, Elves and Gnomes: a fairytale world of investing, 20 May 2003) -- currency traders are also referred to as Gnomes of Zurich.

In the light of such arguments, perhaps the options for the future should first be elaborated and debated in a more suitable elvish language -- only then to be translated into the various languages favoured by the United Nations. Preference should therefore first be given to a language emphasizing a dynamic reality rather than a static one (in contrast to the preference for reports on the State of the World, the State of the Union, or the State of the Environment -- or for the "statutes" of an organization, or even for nation "states").

Given the "gnomish influence" of the past, perhaps currently unresolved challenges, such as popular agreement on a "Constitution" for the European Union, could be addressed by understanding such agreements in dynamic terms -- treating the "Constitution" as a verb rather than as a noun, perhaps in song rather than text. The elvish language required should therefore be one in which verbs were dominant rather than nouns -- perhaps according tonal significance to "notes", as in some languages, to benefit from harmonic resonances. Perhaps the challenge of the identity of "Europe" could itself be understood dynamically as a verb -- or an overtone -- rather than as a noun. Any reform of the United Nations, or its global strategies, could also benefit from such an elven approach -- with the singability of their basic texts being held as an indicator of both their requisite complexity and their popular comprehensibility.

Any such shift from an inherently "static" approach to a dynamic one could well enable a greater political will for sustainable change -- in contrast to implementation of remedies that are quick, simple and judged by hindsight and history to have been disastrously wrong. Much of the currently lauded policy-making is indeed made by neglecting subtle relationships and feedback loops -- effectively denying the relevance or existence of elven pathways. The limited efficacy of such strategic thinking is subsequently made evident by the new problems engendered as a consequence of this negligence. Future reality is then disastrously, if not catastrophically, evoked -- a reminder of the subtle checks and balances associated with elven pathways, and the power they subtly represent.

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