Thanks, Melichus, and I agree with you in part. The first half of your post I however feel to be slightly off the mark...
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In this day and age, we humans like to think of an advanced society as one that is on the technological cutting edge, not necessarily as one with a deep history and culture or a good way of life.(etc)
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An 'advanced' society is judged on two things, technology and social structure (i.e. how well-run the system is). I do not consider the society of, for example, the Incas (apart from their habit of human-sacrificing, of course [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] or of African hunter-gatherers to be less
dignified or less noble that ours, as you seem to be saying that people do.
However, it is true that such societies are nowhere near as
advanced as ours. Think of what you are doing now; think of what the Western world is doing and has done over the past millenium. We passed the hunter-gatherer stage, the tribal stage, long ago -- and more recently the medieval stage, a form of which Middle-Earth apparently exists in.
No-one, to my knowledge, has said anything that insults or looks down upon medieval/ME society. The statement that it is technologically significantly less advanced than ours is, however, entirely correct.
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In response to this;
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But I think that Tolkien intended for the 'Elven' culture to be more 'pure'...
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Which speaks for some of things you were saying, Melichus. My response to it is this quote, not from a Tolkien source, but an apt one; it explains very well the difference between the bounds that Elvish and early Mannish technology was happy with, and the difference of our own.
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It is not like bows or spears; they just store up your own power, really. But a gun gives you power from somewhere else.
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Our technology distances us, as has been said, significantly from the normal rythym and essence of naturality. A medieval or Elvish society is still very much in connection with this.
[ August 25, 2003: Message edited by: Gwaihir the Windlord ]