We build too many walls to be completely honest with ourselves. ― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara
I’ve been a fantasy buff since plucking The Hobbit off my elementary school bookshelf at the age of seven. At nine, I ploughed through the entire Lord of the Rings series, with which I was obsessed; I followed that up at the age of 12 or so with The Silmarillion, which I still reread once in a while. Starting with Tolkien absolutely ruined me when it came to more “age-appropriate” fare; I found C.S. Lewis absolutely silly and repellant, and saw right through the ridiculousness of Jesus Lion.
I did, however, enjoy Terry Brooks’ Shannara series, then limited to three books; Shannara, I should point out, is the last name of various protagonists, and not the world in question. The Elfstones of Shannara is perhaps his strongest, although I also enjoyed The Wishsong of Shannara. And while the first in the series – The Sword of Shannara – is shameless rip-off of Tolkien with a dark lord, evil minions and a party of heroes, I was a kid and I loved it. (Sadly, a few years ago, I found that it wasn’t better with a re-read, although Elfstones and Wishsong held up. All of the books after those three edged into boredom and goofiness for me.)
There is an element of The Sword that I find striking to this day, however. The namesake weapon isn’t Nuada’s sword, which claims the life of any creature it touches. It’s not the One Ring, granting invisibility while eroding your soul.
The sword’s magic power … is truth.
And the “weapon” itself isn’t fancy in the least. It looks rather cheap and worn, and was successfully concealed among a gnome’s junk and trinkets. Yet, held by the hands of a descendent of a long-ago elfin king, it could topple the darkest magic.
The Warlock Lord believed he was immortal, you see. The cheap, banged-up sword of truth simply held up a mirror and said, “No, you are not. You’re actually dead.” That’s all it took: the undead wizard blew away with the mist, the Skull Kingdom shattered and peace returned, after various peoples swept up the damage. To an adult reader, this scenario may seem patently ridiculous and even a bit lazy, as if the author was desperately trying to come up with a non-Tolkien ending for his Tolkien-style dark lord.
The Lord of the Rings teaches us that power ultimately comes through humility and perseverance, mercy and the willingness to sacrifice, as seen with Sam and Frodo. The mighty all too often fall to corruption. And indeed, these are valuable lessons.
But maybe The Sword of Shannara has something to teach, too: the power of truth to heal. And this truth needn’t be artful and flashy; it’s not Instagram-worthy or something you will find on a Pinterest board. Truth can look a bit cheap and dirty, and not like a “weapon” in the samurai sense.
But without truth, illusion can twist you and sicken you, even strike you dead. Lying isn’t just an ethical offense; it’s a soul-wound. It starts with lying to yourself, and embracing what you know to be absurd as truth.
Truth: Authoritarianism always involves batshit.
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire
I wish that I had Jerle Shannara’s banged-up sword when I read the political news du jour and consider the rise of authoritarianism all over the world. Wouldn’t that be a blessing? I could hold it aloft, and the illusions from which dominator systems are woven would loosen and lift, dissipating like mist. If it were only so easy.
These days, truth seems to be in retreat. State even basic facts, and folks will gainsay it with the most ridiculous assertions: making “chemtrails” out of condensation, accusing political opponents of drinking babies’ blood, even proclaiming that the Earth is flat. I’m reasonably sure that folks spewing garbage like this know that they’re lying: That’s kind of the point.
Authoritarianism is, in essence, based upon a fundamental dishonesty, which functions as a test: If you’re willing to believe the absurdities and commit the related atrocities, you can be part of the dominator in-group, which has its privileges … such as the abuse of the subjugated out-group. Lies and loyalty are the glue that hold this system together.
And authoritarian systems are always kakocracies, or rule by the very worst. Because they cannot rise on their merits, kakocrats use loyalty to cement themselves to the reigning strongmen for privileges, and then demand loyalty from the next wave of underlings. And this holds true whether it’s an individual strongman or a totalitarian party, the latter of which always devolves into an individual strongman at some point. (See: Jefferson Davis, Hitler, Franco, Stalin, Putin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, ad nauseum.)
Whether it’s ostensibly from the left or the right, whatever ideals are lauded and celebrated, authoritarian systems end up the same: horrific abuse and often wholesale slaughter of minorities, however these minorities are defined. Wealth, health and power sucked up by a narrow band of sycophantic elites, with the masses consigned to a dreary, powerless poverty. Punishment meted out at every opportunity with a bully’s sick joy.
And a wide array of absolutely batshit “beliefs.”
Lies function as initiation into the system; as George Orwell pointed out in 1984: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” Lying is a test of belonging.
Here’s the thing, though: Dominator society isn’t some top-down phenomenon, decreed by Angry Sky Dad, that first of monarchs. It’s not created by presidential candidates or political parties, or even the corrupted airwaves. It’s not encoded in our genes, or the inescapably sinful result of illicit apple eating, or the vast amorphous concept we call “human nature.” Power-over systems – which is what authoritarianism is, at its heart – are neither inevitable nor imposed from without.
Authoritarianism starts from the ground up: with the way we raise our children, the way we structure our schools and workplaces and institutions, the sacred stories we tell in our faith-paths.
And it starts first and foremost with the lies we tell ourselves.
Truth: The system is working as designed, which is why it sucks.
There was a madness in the scheme of life that men were forced to accept either with resigned fury or blunt indifference. – The Sword of Shannara
As I’ve mentioned before, I am currently reading The Myth of Normal by Canadian physician Gabor Maté. I am not quite halfway through – it’s a book big enough for flower-pressing – but damn. As I told Shoshen: “I don’t need to keep a blog anymore. This dude is saying everything that I want to say.”
Maté doesn’t use Riane Eisler’s terminology, but he essentially describes how authoritarian systems – i.e., dominator society – create widespread physical and mental illness by circumventing our social mammal-tude. Most of our maladies aren’t caused by genetics, but by the impossible strains of living in a system designed to inhibit our nature, deny our needs and break our spirits. A certain small subset of people accrue power (and lots of money) via the dominator system which, in our current iteration, is synonymous with late-stage capitalism: That’s why it exists and persists.
Think it’s farfetched that situational suffering – particularly in childhood – can cause ALS, cancer or autoimmune disorders later in life, even schizophrenia? He describes the actual mechanisms behind this: epigenetics, the hormonal cascades created by emotions, the physical effects of long-term stress. There is no division between body and mind, or self and society, or human and nature; they’re all the same ecosystem.
By the way, there is also no scientific proof that “mental illness” exists in the way that we normally think of it: There are no biomarkers, no “brain chemicals gone awry.” Science keeps on looking for that silver bullet, and every bit of authentic research demonstrates that it doesn’t really exist. The brain differences of people experiencing mental health conditions … are identical to those of people who experienced significant trauma, especially as children. The same goes for addiction.
Addiction, mental illness and, in many cases, physical illness aren’t “things” but processes of disruption caused by trauma. And as much as we don’t want to admit it, there are payoffs to addiction and illness: We can escape, even if just temporarily, the horrific stresses of our power-over culture through heroin or madness, an illness that leaves us bedbound, even death.
I know this sounds far-fetched, but it really isn’t. Dr. Maté has apparently discovered the Sword of Shannara.
Truth: Your coping mechanisms are not your personality.
Whether we realize it or not, it is our woundedness, or how we cope with it, that dictates much of our behavior, shapes our social habits, and informs our ways of thinking about the world. — Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture
Human beings, according to Dr. Maté’s research, have some irreducible core needs. At the heart are attachment and authenticity.
Attachment is, essentially, belonging and care. Humans have a long, helpless childhood; we cannot stagger off on our own in the manner of a fawn or colt. Hence, attachment: We cling to our parents (and adults in general) with all our primate ferocity because detachment means death.
As social mammals, our attachment needs persist throughout our entire lives; it’s how we form pair-bonds, friendships, communities, civilizations. Attachment is, quite simply, belonging: We are wired to belong. Just like sheep, we don’t do well when we’re pastured by ourselves.
Authenticity, on the other hand, is our unique, individual self; being a spiritual, theistic type, I would argue that it forms part of our soul. It’s not enough to belong; we need acceptance by others for who and what we are, to be seen and heard, to have our existence validated by external community. This, too, is part of social mammal-tude.
Attachment, in a sense, is us reaching out to the world and trying to find our place in it, while authenticity is the world welcoming us in. They are often in tension, but as with so many opposites, we require both in right measure.
But for all too many of us, that’s not the message we get – particularly as children. Authoritarian systems use attachment as a cudgel to compel obedience and submission. Think of those old-time cultural standards: Spare the rod and spoil the child. Children should be seen and not heard.
We socialize people to sacrifice their authenticity – the truth of their lives – to belong, first to the family unit and then to the larger culture. For the majority of people, attachment needs will outweigh their need for sovereignty because it’s an immediate survival issue. Starting as children, we are socialized to suppress our emotional and even physical requirements for the comfort of adults – to believe absurdities such as “I have no needs” and “what I think and feel doesn’t matter.” We’re not talking about a shiny, new toy, but such basic concepts as love, attention, soothing, personhood, even basic safety.
As a result, lots and lots of us end up with maladaptive coping mechanisms that we consider to be our immutable personality. Forbidden to display negative emotions such as anger, fear, terror, grief or sadness, we begin to deny the very existence of those emotions in ourselves – even when we’re actually drowning in those feelings.
We lie to ourselves. And more than that: We gaslight ourselves, forcing absurdities down our own throats.
But just because we refuse to acknowledge emotions, trauma and pain doesn’t mean that pain magically dissipates; just the opposite. Researchers have known for years that certain “personality types” are associated with chronic and even fatal disease – specifically, the self-effacing, super-nice personalities. (Rage-driven personality types, on the other hand, have long been associated with heart problems.)
Yes, there are most likely biological predispositions, but the stress of being unseen and unheard, of fighting for attachment like a stray dog for scraps, of not being able to acknowledge the basic truth of your life makes you sick. It can even kill you.
Truth: I’m not a very nice person.
Once upon a time, I wrote in a poem: I make a god of truth. It’s probably one of those nine-line poems in my first few years of daily verse-penning, and I don’t remember the rest offhand. That line, however, is probably the truest description of me that I ever came up with.
I make a god of truth.
Unlike a lot of people, my need for authenticity overpowers my need for attachment. I have an incredibly powerful sense of self, which is one of the reasons I am so introspective and challenging – a lifelong affliction. As a kid, I figured out the game: In order to belong, you have to be a certain way, say what people want to hear, repeat the lie.
And I just couldn’t.
Which is probably one of the bucket of reasons pastor(s) disliked me so much – both the pastor of the church I was dragged to, and the one around the corner from our house who thought I was mean. In fact, lots of kids and adults thought I was mean because I said without reservation what I thought and felt; I’m like a person-shaped avatar of emotional honesty. I don’t give the comforting lie. And no, I’m not very nice.
“She leaves scars on people,” one girl said about me when I was 11 or so.
Weirdly, it rarely occurs to me to lie, even when it would make my life easier. At the age of 15, I blithely admitted to my father that my boyfriend was pressuring me for sex, and that I said no and would continue to say no; it absolutely floored him that I would admit something like that so openly. When my mom asked me in college whether I smoked weed, I shrugged and said, “I tried it, didn’t like it.” I write openly about some pretty painful things in this blog, ask people direct questions in daily life, and refuse to drop my eyes in shame.
Like so many things about me, my penchant for honesty is a bit contradictory. After all, I fawn under stress, right? But that’s not the same as lying; when I “fawn,” I am emptying myself out into the cup of your need, while neglecting my own. It’s a healing instinct gone awry.
Charismatic people – people with stand-out social skills – are often inveterate liars in our culture. That’s what authoritarian systems demand: dominators who issue the lies, and followers who parrot them as the price of admission. Eric Hoffer explores the workings of this dynamic in The True Believer.
Dominators are both charismatic and prideful. Prideful people are by necessity dishonest: a lot of their soul-energy goes into maintaining illusion, much like Broca the Warlock Lord in The Sword of Shannara. We use dishonesty to shield ourselves from vulnerability, to safeguard our reputations, to make ourselves seem just a little bigger and more powerful in an atmosphere of threat.
But dishonesty comes at the price of our soul – and as any shaman could tell you, losing your soul has some pretty dire consequences.
Truth: Honesty isn’t self-hate.
I’m not even to the middle of Maté’s book, but I did flip around a little. Even early on, he offers foreshadowing for his later advice: Facing the truth of our lives heals us – often in partnership with medications, therapy and medical interventions. Truth heals our deepest selves and souls, and can even heal our bodies. (Sadly, not always; oftentimes, the stress that makes us sick is deeply rooted and lasts for decades. Unraveling long-term damage of this type isn’t always possible.)
Healing soul-wounds requires honest assessment; it’s not optional.
That being said, I need to point out what honesty isn’t.
Yes, honesty requires accountability – but self-hate isn’t honesty. Discounting the influences and impact of external persons, happenings and events (i.e. trauma) and accepting full blame for anything bad that ever happened to you isn’t honesty … because blame isn’t honesty. Rejecting the good about yourself isn’t honesty.
This is why I so fiercely reject the narrative of sin that permeates our Christian uber-culture. That narrative, too, is fundamentally dishonest: It tells us to only see our shit and disease, our weakness and fault, that our only salvation lies with rejecting our authenticity and hoping for bliss beyond death. The concept of sin strips people of self-worth and soul, and drives them to addiction and desperation. With no trust in herself, the convinced sinner bows her head to the yoke of domination and the self-hatred that leads to very real physical, emotional and mental illness.
But despair is yet another comforting lie. So is the cultural narrative that only the extremes are real and valuable, that only the threat of punishment keeps us good (i.e., properly submissive to authority).
Remember, we are creatures of balance: power and compassion, mirth and reverence, honor and humility, attachment and authenticity. We must question and trust. Love others and ourselves. Practice accountability – and acceptance.
I’m not sure if truth and love are one and the same, but they intertwine in some integral way. Yes, there are exceptions: Letting a person with Alzheimer’s live with the illusion of their eternal present can be an act of love, for example. You can also wield truth in an unloving way – which, I must admit, is something I did as a mean little girl. But for the most part, lying poisons love, making us sacrifice our authenticity for attachment.
White Cat Grove 
11 thoughts on “The Sword of Shannara: The lies behind authoritarianism and the healing power of truth”