Tolkien...the Philospher

J.R.R. Tolkien published The Fellowship of the Ring in 1954. As I was reading a passage to my children, I was struck by how close to home this passage was to the current reality we are now experiencing. I have quoted it below. The setting is Rivendell and the formation of the Fellowship of the Ring.

"Despair, or folly?" said Gandalf. "It is not despair for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power, and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning" (Tolkien, 1954, p. 352).