I have just watched the first two episodes of Amazon Prime “The Lord of the Rings:The Rings of Power” television series. Let me tell you something, I am only two episodes in and this show is spectacular!
So far we have been introduced in story form to, Elves, Harfoot and dwarves also I think we got glimpses of Orcs. Every story line has a lot of stuff going on. Lives are being lived, romance is kindling friendships and rivalries being formed and although the stories are separate they are all connected. I know that the stories are all connected because, the series is set thousands of years prior to the the trilogy by Tolkein.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Soren Kiierkegaard
The ability to look back on events that have already happened and believe that we can predict the future is called hindsight basis. Engaging in hindsight basis is very tempting.
It is important not to engage in hindsight basis because history does repeat itself but we cannot predict the future based on history. So then what should we do when trying to learn from history and make judgement calls today right now in our stories? Of course we should do the right thing and what is that?
The right thing is the thing that will harm the least amount of people and help the most. The right thing is something people have struggled with since the times of Plato and Kant.
I am not foolish enough to believe that I can answer the philosophical question of what the right thing is in this blog post. Spike Lee couldn’t answer that question in his 1989 masterpiece, Do the Right Thing.
Instead of engaging in Hindsight basis when considering what to do we should learn from the past. One thing that we have can do is learn from the past. A major lesson from the past is that kindness wins always in the long run and that kindness makes the difference.
The Corrigan Encore 