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				Rationality and Religion
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
6 Rituals and Sacraments


Finally we come to what might be the main point of @TheDag's original question, which is that, frankly, rituals seem irrational.  Why should one make the sign of the cross here, or bow there?  Why does the priest pray the epiclesis ("Make this bread the Precious Body of Thy Christ")?  Doesn't that all seem...well...superstitious?  Definitely not reasonable?  Like, what is it doing?


There are two easy answers, both of them wrong.  The first is that it is, or is attempting to be, magic.  That the sign of the cross wards off evil for no particular reason, like a vampire.  That the priest pronouncing the magic words is what makes the Eucharist transform.  That would, indeed, be superstition, and the Church is at pains to make clear that, while miracles may occur in such rituals (reliably do, in the case of the Sacraments), it is not the ritual that effects a miracle, nor that a failure to pronounce the proper words exactly or make the proper motions nullifies it.  These rituals are not enacted to do magic or to attempt to manipulate God.  (This may not be true of all religions and rituals, but it is true of Christianity.)


The other wrong answer is that rituals are there as a sort of human bonding experience, that the content is irrelevant and the impact purely social.  This is, it seems, a common anthropological story, and it's true that there are a lot of purely social rituals in the world.  But this is not the point of religious ritual, and if you are just seeking social bonding, you will miss something important.


The theology of sacraments in particular is a giant can of worms, so I'll leave that aside and focus on something smaller.  In the course of the liturgy, the people will make the sign of the cross, bow, and (on weekdays and in Lent) make prostrations.  Why?  None of these is magic, and they seem... contingent, perhaps?  Arbitrary?  Why this ritual and not another, why now and not then?


To an extent there is something arbitrary about the specifics.  But there is something more than that, and it comes down to symbolism.  The sign of the cross is a symbol of prayer, and of faith in Christ (hence the sign of the cross), so for me it becomes prayer and an affirmation of that faith.  Thus I make the sign of the cross during the litany to participate in the prayer, or even when I am alone, at home, to make a wordless prayer.  Bowing is a sign of reverence; thus when I bow I not only display appropriate reverence, but orient my emotions and intentions toward reverence.  That is, the point of the rituals is not how they affect God, but how they affect our attitude toward God and others.


When seen in this light, the rituals are not irrational behavior, but a deliberate way of orienting ourselves.  And this is one reason they can be healing, because giving oneself the right attitudes influences everything else.


There's a part of the Liturgy, common in east and west, called the sursum corda, in which the following dialogue takes place between the priest and the people:


Priest: Lift up your hearts.


People: We lift them up to the Lord.


Priest: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.


People: It is meet and right (in the Byzantine rite, this sentence continues "...to worship the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in essence and undivided." -- my understanding is that this is a later theological elaboration to the original rite)


Here there is a goal: to "lift up hearts" (i.e. to put oneself in a reverential and contemplative orientation to God), to give thanks to God, to worship God. And the means for that goal is this very call-and-response ritual that lays out the goal, and, as it says, this is appropriate ("meet and right").  The whole Liturgy is full of things like this -- the cherubic hymn with the words "[let us...] now lay aside all earthly cares", the litanies with "Let us pray to the Lord" -- "Lord have mercy".


Why does this work?  That's a question about human psychology, and I don't know the answer, but it does, and in that light it's no less rational than talk therapy or being polite to dinner guests or any number of other things people do.


7 Final Thoughts


This turned out to be longer and more wide-ranging than I'd initially intended, and I'm sure will invite a lot of disagreement. I'm aware that I didn't do a lot of "prove this is rational/true" work above; even if that were possible to do to everyone's satisfaction, this essay is already long enough.  I intend to interact with any comments in the same way -- to explain and lay out a way of thinking, not to argue that everyone else should accept it.  I totally think they should, but, in line with my thoughts above, I don't believe that I've offered sufficient evidence to persuade most of you to become Christians, and I don't think that my words-on-a-screen could, unless you're most of the way there anyway.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Your comment made me think: there's an essay here, somewhere, about how grand scope secondary world fantasy is a fundamentally Christian impulse.  It allows one to imagine things that are facially inconsistent with Christianity but elucidate it.  I think that it's no accident that Tolkien was a Catholic.


Whereas most fantasy (I except traditional faerie-stories, slightly[*]) stories set in the real world are at best uncomfortable from a Christian perspective, because Christianity itself is a thing in the real world and you have to fit that in somehow.  Does anyone remember that old HPMOR meta-fanfic with the wizard-Christians?  I felt that, as really awkward as it was, it was more honest than the original HP in that way.


[*] Obviously many faerie-stories have a pre-Christian origin and skate by on that. But people tried to wrestle with these things in ways that would make moderns very uncomfortable; IIRC there are some stories about Irish saints converting faeries to Christianity...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Book Review: Men Trapped in Men's Bodies (Part 3)
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not that I can recall.  I got a little of the usual crap from peers about being a nerd instead of a masculine/athletic type, but that's not at all the same thing, and they didn't know about any of my more feminine interests (I only had a few -- overall I was within normal "nerd" range).  My family didn't care, but then I never did anything like cross-dressing, it was all stuff like "interested in cooking and sewing and likes pretty colors" which hardly counts when there's also "interested in math and computers and likes video games" going on even more prominently.


I just don't get forced feminization fantasies, so maybe the reason I don't find plausible is actually correct but I just don't understand other people's psychology.  My fantasy was always either undergoing a magical transformation willingly, or having been female all along (i.e. including imagining a different childhood/puberty).  I didn't think the thing I wanted was shameful (although wanting it was, hence why I didn't share it), just impossible.  And why would I imagine something unpleasant if there was a pleasant version?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think it's a small proportion but I also think that unfortunately they are the loudest and most visible and most online.




It seems we differ in our estimates here.  Maybe it would help to draw a distinction between, let's say, people with disordered sexual desires (in which group I would include any autogynephilia in natal males), and people who are "visible perverts" (you know about them because they do perverted things in public or are publicly loud about their proclivities).  I agree that the latter group is rare and unrepresentative of trans people, and it's crazy that the trans lobby doesn't want to get rid of them (probably this is downstream of "pride" stuff).  I think, though, that the former group includes probably the majority of MtF trans individuals as well as a decent percentage of men who don't transition.  This is probably not usually acknowledged because it's perceived as unflattering to trans people, and to be fair the people loudly crowing about how "it's just a fetish" are being cruel and are not helping the matter.


I think we ought to have some charity even for the "visible perverts" crowd; they need it even if they don't deserve it -- but what I'm really referring to here is the other group.  Right now all they are hearing is either total silence, "Eww, you pervert", or "That means you're really a woman deep down!  You must be trans!"  I think there is a need for counseling, along the lines of "So, you know how you really really want to be female? And how you find that idea sexually arousing, too?  Yeah, that's a thing; it's something a bit wrong with you, but it doesn't mean either that you are disgusting or that you are 'really' a woman or should try to become one.  Let's try to help you figure out how to deal with your feelings."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree that the things you've outlined (everything is a tournament profession; success at being a man is measured in terms of impossible ideals; the previous masculine success parameters are less attainable than they used to me) are real problems.  Probably solving them would mitigate the kind of gender issues that "end on incel forums" (or in suicide, another thing that's been trending up).


But I'm not sure I buy that these are root causes of a substantial fraction of MtF transitions.  Are the majority of transitioners really people who have decided they should become a woman because they think they will fail (or have failed) at being a man? I'm curious as to what evidence makes you think that is the case.  If you're right, that makes the problem much easier than I think it is, which is a really good thing!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I confess that I am confused by this response.  Who is being officially deputized by whom to kill whom?  And how does any of this make sense in the context of @FarNearEverywhere's parent comment, which already posits a massive change in how the official parts of society deal with trans stuff?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 28, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Roti Prata is delicious.  Go to a hawker center get some.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My theory is that the "right side of history" narrative (and its close cousins, casting being progressive as just being a "decent human being" and denigrating opposition as "retrograde" or "reactionary") is so ubiquitous because the progressive left is deeply confused about whether it believes in moral realism, and so adopts an inconsistent (but very effective) posture on moral questions.


On these big social questions, there are, at root, three reasons for acting:


    

  1. You are a moral realist and believe that X is right/wrong as a fundamental fact about reality.  (How do you know?  Maybe you believe God -- who knows such things -- said so; maybe you believe you have a direct apprehension of the truth; maybe it is a logical consequence of other things that are in the first two categories.)  You act because you think it is right, period.
    2. 

  2. You have a preference that you want to fulfill, and think that you and those who share it have the power -- or can obtain the power -- to enforce it.  You act out of pure preference and power.
    3. 

  3. You just want to go along to get along.  You don't have an independent reason to act, so you don't act independently -- maybe you stay out of it, or maybe you join a cause you think will imminently win (or is most of your social circle) so that people will like you.
    4. 



"The right side of history" tries to have it all three ways while not committing enough to any of them to expose weakness there.


Straightforward moral realism is a problem for the progressive left (at least in its modern incarnation; past movements vary) for two reasons.  First, because most of its thought leaders are not moral realists, and many of the rest would reject moral realism if the question were put to them (though they may implicitly act as if they believed in it).  Second, because the natural response to "It is a moral law of the universe that [insert progressive cause here] is good" is to say: "And how do you know?  I'm pretty sure I've always heard that God said the opposite, my intuitions disagree, and anyway you just got done telling me that you don't believe in hearing from God, so why should I believe you?"


Straightforward appeals to power or preference are not persuasive -- at least not unless you already have the power and just want to compel, not "win hearts and minds".


And finally, appealing to people's "go along to get along" instincts is tough unless you can offer social proof that either your cause already dominates, or soon will.  (It works wonders when you can, though -- see what happened to gay marriage.)


Enter "the right side of history".  It appeals to moral realist intuitions and persuasive force, while not actually committing anyone to staking out an actual claim about ground truth morality.  It can be a threat based on present or claimed future power without being explicit about it.  It appeals to "go along to get along" without having to actually produce the goods in terms of current social influence.


Time will tell (ha) about whether the rhetorical strategy will continue to be effective, but I expect that, absent major ideological realignment, it will continue to be used in one form or another.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Who the hell wants to ban porn?




Quite a few people, actually.  Even on the ACX survey (not a demographic known for its social conservatism) over a quarter of respondents said that they would wave a magic wand to end pornography permanently if offered the choice.  Now making something magically disappear is not quite the same as banning it for a number of reasons, but the sentiment is much the same.


You might be confused because of all those statistics indicating that 90%+ of men have used porn.  Past, or even current, porn use is not inconsistent with wanting it to not exist.  People don't have perfect self-control, after all, and it is Well Known that people have diminished judgement and self-control under... relevant circumstances. Many people are quite capable of disapproving even of their own vices, and think that it's bad to have widely available temptations for them and others to succumb to them.


I am almost certain that banning internet porn is part of the intention of laws like these, not an accidental consequence.  For the state of Texas (and for other states with similar laws) this is the system Working As Intended.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This was a great recommendation -- I'm enjoying it very much.  It's like the game show version of a puzzle hunt.


Why aren't any American game shows even close to this good?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
FWIW I agree with both @hydroacetylene and you here, and I expect that he'd agree with you too.  What I would mean, and what I expect he means, by "trans isn't real" is that none of the people being classified as "trans" are "born into the wrong body" or "assigned" the wrong gender, nor are they "really" (in some sense) the opposite sex -- that it's not just a matter of overdiagnosis and a classification of some people as "trans" who aren't, while there is still some smaller subset who are "really trans" and where that the most appropriate treatment is the constellation of "gender-affirming" (what a euphemism!) treatments of hormones/surgery/social transition/etc.


I do agree that there is a separate mental illness (probably more than one) which correspond to "trans" -- that it's not just depression or anxiety or whatever that causes boys/men to want to be girls/women (or vice-versa), or to be unhappy because they aren't, or to (at times) convince themselves that they "really are" what they want to be.  And I get that there are some people who don't believe that and think that the entirety of "trans" is just some current-day-cultural nonsense.  But I do think that there is a meaningful and important sense in which "trans isn't real" is true, and I think that's what he's getting at.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for March 6, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I ordered an l-theanine supplement (green tea also has caffeine, I don't want to mix that in and I'm not a huge fan of the flavor anyway) on your advice; the palpitations and insomnia [edit: I think some of the insomnia is secondary to palpitations continuing way past the other effects] sucked (at least the serious jitters were only with the first dose). Would you recommend taking it with the Adderall or in the evening?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes.  I started having wrist pain about 5 years ago in my right wrist, to the point where it was seriously impacting my work. I did some research and bought a cheap vertical mouse, and my pain went went away in about a week and never came back.  Best $25 I ever spent.


If you have larger hands, make sure to get a larger mouse, though.  They vary a lot in size and I find smaller ones not nearly as comfortable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Possible explanation: "Public writing" has a lower barrier to entry than it used to, both in terms of who can do it and how easy it is to write something for public consumption.  This means more of that writing will be sloppy, which in turn lowers the expectations people have of themselves (people emulate what they see), so the standard amount of effort is lower and people who would in other circumstances have written carefully are sloppier too.


Putting question marks at the end of statements to indicate uncertainty is just a stylistic fad, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So is "you know someone who works there" pretty much the only way to signal general competence?  I suppose the question, then, is: how does anyone get hired any other way even if their resume ticks all the boxes? If a resume doing X well doesn't signal general competence enough to be hired to do Y absent having someone on the inside who can vouch for you... then why would it be a sufficient signal to get hired to do X?  (Maybe the answer is, it isn't, which is why the whole search process is terrible on both sides?)


Not going into too much detail to avoid self-doxxing but I was hired directly into a senior role from academia with no industry experience... I did have a personal recommendation then, and I guess I didn't give enough credit to how important that was for getting my foot in the door.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is this about divorce (the relevant difference here is not actually moral but ontological; the official Catholic line being that divorce is impossible)? About economia in general?  Something else?  I don't think there are any major differences in moral teaching, so this has got to be about how the teaching is applied, but that comparison doesn't seem to come out with Catholicism-as-actually-practiced (as opposed to in theory) being notably stricter.


So I am kind of confused by this and would like you to elaborate.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for September 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you like self-reference and logic (and who doesn't, really?) Gödel, Escher, Bach is a lot of fun.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think there are potentially two things going on here that we should be careful not to conflate:


    

  1. The X is Good --> I Want to Be X pathway (a good pathway in many cases, by the way); it is my belief that this improperly and strongly activates in sexual matters in many trans people (as well as "trans-adjacent" people like me who ultimately decide that they just have some Issues to work through), leading to the Venus-AGP and Eros-AGP described above.
    2. 

  2. The tendency to move from "I want to be X" to "I am already X", which is what you seem to be describing.
    3. 



It might very well be the case that (2) is more prevalent among people who decide they are trans than among those who do not, but I doubt it is a strongly indicative characteristic in the same way as (1).  A bunch of (2) is just in the cultural water (particularly in progressive circles); e.g. "if you have written anything, you are a writer [regardless of whether it is published or earns you a living]", referring to anyone who does some math in school as a "mathematician", etc. so I would be surprised if the tendency was that much stronger in trans individuals than in generic progressives.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Related and potentially even more controversial questions:


    

  • To what extent does this analysis apply to homosexuality?  Are there people who are "homoromantic" without being (significantly) sexually aroused by the same sex, or vice-versa?
    • 

  • How about other fetishes?  Are there many where an "Eros" aspect is reasonably common?
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I recommend staying off of social media and away from any other places where people argue about things you care about in ways that you have a bad reaction to.  Change your passwords, log out, delete your browser history if you have to.  Yes, there are ways to try to deal with it (I think dark is giving good advice) but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is your question more along the lines of "How do I figure out what parishes are near me?" or "How do I figure out which parishes are healthy and suitable for me?"


For the first question, if you are in the United States and are looking for an Eastern Orthodox parish, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops maintains a directory of all parishes here, and at least the larger jurisdictions maintain their own, which may or may not be more up to date (e.g. the OCA has one here).  I imagine that your local Roman Catholic diocese will also have a directory.


For the second question, I can't speak at all for what Catholic parishes are or are not traditional, but every Orthodox church will use the same traditional Divine Liturgy, with differences mostly being minor cultural practices (e.g. which melodies are used for singing, whether people sit during part of the Liturgy or stand the whole time) and what language(s) are used.  I converted to Orthodoxy not terribly long ago and have had a great experience in my local OCA mission parish (we use English).  I'd recommend trying to find a church that serves Liturgy in a language you understand.  It may be hard to tell without attending or poking around which parishes are healthy or not, so probably just try one that looks reasonable.


If you do decide to look into Orthodoxy, feel free to DM me if you feel like you need to ask someone random questions,  There's lots of good resources available online (and in book form) but there's also a lot of weird/incorrect stuff online and sometimes it helps to ask a live person, even if it's only someone you barely, vaguely know from a niche internet forum.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for April 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Ayn Rand and C.S. Lewis could have been fantastic collaborators




Admittedly I know much less about Ayn Rand than about C.S. Lewis, but given what I do know I'm having a hard time seeing this.  I'd be quite interested to hear your reasoning.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wow, that's even worse than I thought.  It makes me even more glad I'm not involved anymore.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean, that perspective is certainly important and present.  There are lots of icons like that (and always have been; I think there are icons of Jesus looking like a Roman in the catacombs)!  But I'm not convinced it was an overwhelming consensus across time and space (we're talking about probably more than 1900 years of practice over vast swaths of territory, not just medieval Europe).


My general sense is that people who hold to perspective (2) don't think that these icons are not real icons, just that they aren't ideal.  This often applies to other aspects of iconography too; there's a lot of formal and informal rules about how icons are "supposed" to be painted in various Orthodox traditions, for instance, and a lot of people are somewhat uneasy with the "realistic" (western) style of many post-Peter-the-Great Russian icons.


Icons are interesting because they combine the symbolic and the representational; they depict people or events, but usually in a way that is symbolic and does not literally represent what happened.  So "the icon is not a photograph, it is supposed to convey certain truths and should be painted in whatever way does that best" and "these are real people, you can't just make them look however you like" are both highly defensible, and have been defended.  I'm inclined to the first one myself: we don't always have a good idea what the subjects looked like anyway, recognizability is more important than accuracy, and symbolism in e.g. clothing is uncontroversially more important than realism anyway.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Honestly seeing that card makes me glad I quit playing Magic entirely five years ago, and it has little to do with making Aragorn black (which is stupid and jarring exactly because it makes no sense for reasons already outlined).  The card's art is bad (nothing new for Magic, but at least the bad art used to be kind of quirky), the card name is stupid, the flavor makes no sense (the war is basically over when they get married, and they don't fight together), the mechanics are completely uninspired and have little sensible connection to the flavor, and the whole "let's make a boring cash-grab set based on random other fantasy IP" ...ugh.  About the only thing that makes sense about the card is the color.


In Middle-Earth there's very little to do with (ordinary human) races.  The humans, elves, hobbits, dwarves (and, of course, the orcs and various monsters) are all quite different, but they don't at all map onto race-as-we-know-it, and it would be, uh, pretty racist to try to make them match human races.  You might be able to pull a Brandon Sanderson and make the elves be East-Asian but extra tall, but even that is questionable.  (You could just race-swap the whole setting en masse and have everyone be the same non-white race, and that would be better, but it still misses that the setting is a fundamentally European mythology.)  The problem is that while race (as it actually exists) is a non-issue*, genealogy is definitely not (as you point out), so you can't just have random people be random races.


*There's the well-known exception that the Haradrim are called "swarthy" at one point.  But this definitely doesn't make them black and doesn't seem to have much to do with mapping to race-as-it-exists; they're just darker-skinned since they live in sunnier climes further south.  If anything, the picture is of North Africans: the Haradrim invading with their Mumakil are probably intended to evoke the Carthaginians under Hannibal, and the Corsairs of Umbar, the Barbary Pirates.  And going a bit further afield, the shrunken Gondor holding out against Mordor has shades of the Eastern Roman Empire against the Turks.  But again, using race to represent this is a bad idea, not least because these resemblances are just evocative, not allegorical and definitely not intended to reflect on real-world races!