David Perlmutter: Middle Earth's Lessons

[Lefty Scaevola]

The moral of LoTR:

"Life's a b**ch and then you become a disembodied wraith tortured for ages by a tremendously powerful malevolant being."

[Agathon]

Re: David Perlmutter: Middle Earth's Lessons

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Everyone should have a chance to see this article, and think about what he's saying.
I agree 100%, naturally, or I wouldn't be taking this time.
In fact, I've said much of this here previously.

1) Ordinary individuals matter.

I agree, this goes without saying.

2) Free peoples either stand together or die alone.

Yes, this is why the English, Canadians, French, Germans, New Zealanders, and all other free peoples must immediately declare war on the United States.

4) Evil can't be bought off or bargained with.

Yes - same response as (2)

I second the comments made about Mordor.

Tolkien has nothing to do with American peculiarities and this article is misinterpretation of the first class. From what I've read he, like most other English people of his class, he didn't think very much of the US.

Look Americans have no business appropriating one of the most fundamentally English books ever written. How many English people try to claim that Mark Twain refers to Britain and the British way of life. You aren't like the British at all - in fact, they think you Americans are slightly mad.

Now go away, or we'll send more of our bad royals like Fergie to live in your country.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking

The Dunedain kept the Shire safe without the hobbits even knowing they existed. That is virtuous exercise of power.

Yeah, they sure didn't grow drugs there, teach hobbits to torture each other, shoot Will Whitfoot the mayor of Michel Delving, or bomb Sandyman's mill because it "could" have been used to manufacture WMD's.

Aragorn is the quintessential reluctant leader. He does not seek power, but has leadership thrust upon him.

Yeah, and he didn't spend his years in Rivendell getting drunk and snorting coke.

[David Floyd]

I am not sure if stealing food to survive is evil or not. To me it is not.

*Bites tongue*

Agathon,

I agree, this goes without saying.

I'm gonna remember that for our other thread

Yes, this is why the English, Canadians, French, Germans, New Zealanders, and all other free peoples must immediately declare war on the United States.

*shrug* They'd all get their asses kicked in less time than it would take them to pass a declaration of war in their respective parliaments

[DinoDoc]

Look Americans have no business appropriating one of the most fundamentally English books ever written.

Why not? He was more famous here than there.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
So Tolkien is a ultra-reactionist who wants to the humanity to stuck forever in hunter-gatherer societies?

No, he was a Christian romanticist who idealized the agrarian life of pre-industrial England, and that good ol' fashioned religion, but not necessarily in that order.

[Agathon]

Because it originates from an attempt to create a national myth for the English people, much as the Kalevala [sic] was supposed to for the Finns.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the American moral/political system and American social mores (there are kings for one), which English people tend to view with distaste because they go against their own. I've yet to go into an American pub that was anything like the Green Dragon - yet the GD is recognisable as an English country pub. Tolkien is a sort of reactionary english country conservative - to my knowledge the same sort of person just doesn't exist in the US - at least I've never met one.

I wasn't being overly serious in much of the former, but people from the States tend to think that the Western Europeans are just like them and have the same values (even respected scholars like Samuel Huntingdon). The Canadians are probably the closest in sentiment to the US, but that isn't saying much. The rest of us tend to accentuate the differences (no death penalty, a dark sense of humour, the welfare state, public broadcasting, tort reform, pluralism without nationalism, no hang ups about the government, guns, etc.).



David:

Ordinary individuals matter, but more matter more than less.

[Drake Tungsten]

The American moral/political system and American social mores are descended from English models. They're different, but they're not that different.