Hey Faramond,
>>>You say that when one has lived as a Saint, one cannot live as a Man afterward. Well, why? It seems right, and yet you gave a perhaps mild counter-example in the same post with the example of Strider becoming Elessar.
You are absolutly correct about Strider. There was a contradiction in my post in this respect. I wanted to stress the difference between the path Frodo has taken and the path Aragorn has taken. But in fact, Strider is not a real Saint; he just temporarily appears to act like a Saint and only on the surface. For he is not a true Saint. He does not solely live for the others, since he also lives for Arwen, and through her, through his love for her, for him.
Regarding the possibility of becoming a Man after being a Saint: I think that being a Saint is beyond Man's ordinary strengths. It is admirable, but it is not common. It is possible that the people we ordinary call Saints have been awarded a kind of "grace" (which origin is to be found in themselves I must add) and live in a state of bliss, but it is also possible (and this is what I believe) that being a Saint represents a series of extraordinary, almost inhuman, hardships that only rare people can overcome at the price of great suffering. For the real Saint must remain hidden; he is a nobody. He cannot live like a Man among other Men. People must not know what he has done for them, just like the Hobbits in the Shire do not really know what Frodo has done for them at the end of LOTR. So the Saint is alone and does not expect any reward, any acknowledgements from others. He cannot share his burden, not even with God, assuming the latter exists. It must require a tremendous inner strength, not to have the right to interract with the others. There is an excellent novel exploring the possibility of a suffering and lonely Saint by French writer Georges Bernanos, called Under the Sun of Satan. I think it has been translated in English (it is a classic) and I recommend it heartily. So, can a Saint after having roamed alone and hidden, come back to the normal life we live each day, where we live for ourselves, and for our family and friends, and not for the unknown others? I do not think so. It is a one way trip.
>>>Has Tom taken the easy path to knowing his own name?
Tom had no path to take. "He is". He was wearing his name before everyone else. He was "born" with his name, with the world. I am not condemning or judging Tom. I say that he does not know what it is to be a Man. And he does not need to know.
>>>Tom is concrete, and he does not change. I don't see what one has to do with the other, though. In fact, is it not the more concrete, the more real, that is more likely to change, while the abstract is unchanging? … I would think we are at our most concrete when we are capable of evolving, not by being shaped by the world, but by changing in response to the world. It is when we attempt to view ourselves as abstractions that we do not change.
First, I must underscore that I did not try in my post to analyze the human condition in terms of abstract against concrete, because I was not interested in such distinction. I was only concerned with the term concrete. Hence, when I used the term concrete, it was not with the intent to oppose it to the term abstract meant as type/classification.
Concerning the term abstract, I fully agree with you that we do not change when we see ourselves as abstractions or titles.
However, I also think that we do not change when we are concrete. Here is why:
I do not think that human beings should see themselves as a part of the spirit of the world or the Historical reason, assuming there exists such a thing. Hence, I do not think that we human beings should be concrete, within the meaning given to this word by Hegel, or should reflect the spirit of the world just like a rock would do. Why? Because being concrete here means to be part of the world, as the spirit of the world is reflected in ourselves, as if we were mere mirrors. As if we were even less than mirrors actually: the world looks at himself into ourselves, as if we were transparent. Hegel schematically says that we are part of the world, but that we do not know it yet, so when we respond to the world, we can only find out that we are part of it. We are a whole because we are a part of the whole/world. We are supposed to follow the spirit of the world, because the spirit of the world is the historical reason and reason is the sole reality, from which we are part. However, this is circular logic. If the only response to the world is that we are part of the Spirit of the world, where is our free will? The change that results from our being concrete is not a real change because it does not result from a conscious choice, it does not make us individuals, it does not give us a name, separate from that of the world.
We have an irreducible individual mind or soul, which is as important as the spirit of the world. It is infinite. Our mind or soul is not the projection or reflection of the spirit of the world. We are each one irreducible unit and one irreducible whole, distinct from the whole represented by the world. Yet, when we simply follow the world, as a part of the whole, where is our freedom, where is our ability to change regardless of the route taken by the spirit of the world? I think we should strive to be something else than historical creatures imprisoned by the present historical spirit of the world. Hence, this proposal: when we follow the spirit of the world, as a concrete part of the whole, as if representing the whole, we do not exercise our ability to move and change, and thus we do not individually seek to change, to find our name, which is not the name of the world. I agree with you that we can change in response to the spirit of the world, but precisely because we are neither concrete nor abstract, and only after we have named ourselves. We are a whole, the union of a soul and a body, but which cannot be separated (I agree that we should not be analyzed in dualistic terms). So we are the starting point, and we must find ourselves, name ourselves. Only after we have done that can we try to name the world, to find the spirit of the world if we want.. and if it exists.
Tom is concrete because he does not change. Tom is outside the affairs of Men. Either he follows the spirit of the world, or he is himself the spirit of the world. In a way, we are real, we exist, not when we blindly follow the spirit of the world, but when we follow our own path, seeking our name within ourselves. That would be a true response, to the world, where we live among men.
Perhaps Frodo's first answer to Tom should have been:"I am not Tom Bombadil".
Hmm. Does that make any sense? I guess it would in French, but in English?