Well, what can I say, but us Americans, are a bunch of lazy dumb asses. Our keep up with the Jonses economic culture, means that we have all the gizmo's and gadgets that make our life so comfortable, that as a whole we've become complacent and easily take things for granted. This parent helps prove this point by not even realizing, that our lifestyle and technology weren't alway's around, and therefore another way of living is inconceivable.
It would seem we have lost our sense of value in what helped make America the powerful nation it is today. Namely drive and ambition, especially in regard towards education. What need do I have learn anything, All i really need to know is how to operate my pc, log into and use the net, to find out anything I need to know.
So what woiuld happen if all our wonderfull technology were to fail overnight? I'd say within five years, most Americans would die from lack of knowledge to survive in a world without technology. All those third world countries with little or nothing, would quickly become first world nations.
As far as the characters in LOTR being educated. well only the main characters. If you recall, Merry or Pippin remark that they wished they'd paid more attention to the planning stages in Rivendell. So not all of the main characters were necessarily as well educated as it seems as implied. I imagine a lot of the characters history was preserved in the form as folktales which were to some greater degree for entertainment purposes than just educational, especially in the case of hobbits. Elves are immortal, so they have all the time in the world to learn their history, the same could be said of the dwarves. Aragorn, Boromir and Faramir, Eomer, Eowyn, Legolas and most of the others were of the nobility where an education was as much an asset as privilige, when compared to the common man. And JRRT provides very little contact with the common men of Middle Earth.
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