[Bill Ferny]

Hobbits are depicted as isolationists, intrinsically. Hobbits, after all, aren’t humans, and we should not impose on them human virtues, or 20th century human virtues for that matter.

In principle I agree with your arguments against insular communities or nations. In general I agree with Tolkien’s opinion concerning hobbits (how could I not?). Nor am I a big fan the culture police in Saudi Arabia. I do think some cultures are better than others (which, no doubt, places me on more than one PC relativist hit list).

However, I am a big fan of national sovereignty and the dignity of a people to define themselves. I am a big fan of preserving cultural heritage and historical remembrance.

There is no paradox in this way of thinking. The only way for peoples to truly define themselves is to perceive that which is beyond themselves, both horizontally and vertically, both in the past and the present. This perception, though, can not be achieved by the whole simultaneously. It is provided to the whole by the mythic heroes who bring back from their adventures various elixirs. In Middle Earth these heroes were hobbits such as Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pip. In our world these heroes are scholars, pastors, missionaries, innovators, scientists, teachers, artists, and warriors (conspicuously absent are politicians [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]).

Those societies that fail to produce the mythic hero are likely to go the way of the Shire, the elf, the dwarf and the dodo bird.