[Raynor]

Originally Posted by davem

However, the fate of the Noldor is more interesting, admirable, poignant & fulfilling as Art.

I wouldn't say they were agents of Art. Of History, maybe - a tumultous one, one which shaped the ages to come. They produced Art directly while they were in Aman; and rarely after, mainly when they associated with Men, who "were raised to their fullest achievable stature".

Originally Posted by davem

Would Mozart's music have contained the beauty it did if it had not come out of his experience as a Man (a mortal who will die), & would it speak to us as it does if we did not share his mortality?

I wasn't arguing that the general fate and status of Men or Elves be different. If Men are immortal, there is little to differentiate them from Elves, apart from creative powers. "Elves and Men are just different aspects of the Humane, and represent the problem of Death as seen by a finite but willing and self-conscious person". A Man Mozart in Arda Unmarred would still have the experience of mortality.

Originally Posted by davem

Living forever in a nice peaceful world is a nice fantasy, but a boring reality, which would not produce 'Art' but blandness, because nothing would actually matter - in fact it probably wouldn't produce anything much, because we could do it tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. '

I respectfully disagree; by large, artists produce their work because they have an inner drive, passion, sensibility, and because they want to achieve self development. I would also say that artists can be traumatised by negative experience; given an enough negative experience, a human being, almost any human being, can become inert, dead inside, unable to produce and to be beneficial to society. Arts and culture generally advance in peaceful times; in warring times, more basic needs, survival, hunger, shelter, are what occuppies the minds of most.

Originally Posted by davem

'Corruption', death, breaking down, is another word for liberation, because it frees us from the past & liberates us to do something new.

Maybe if it wouldn happen to someone else. Corruption usually ties one in to something, not necessarily the past; death is not something peculiar to Arda Unmarred only; breaking down a liberation? Maybe; but I am not condemning a normal cycle of life, only the accelerated decay introduced by Melkor.

Originally Posted by davem

The fact that other potential Mozarts, Platos, Einsteins, have been lost inspires us to do what they might have done if they'd had the chance.

I'll be frank, role models who actually existed do inspire me ; they could inspire me to produce art or knowledge. For those who didn't leave a single mark, I could at most make an elegy.

Originally Posted by Lal

Eru himself states that Melkor and his rebellion are necessary.

Where exactly did he say his rebellion was necessary?

Originally Posted by Lal

It is necessary as it serves to create the circumstances under which all the created beings of Arda can work for and serve Eru, can discover and enact pity and redemption and peace and all those good things that just wouldn't happen if there was no Darkness.

I disagree; if corruption can make "individuals and groups to be, by us at any rate, unredeemable", how can they still serve Eru, consciously and willingly? Esspecially if Men have only one life at their disposal for this? How many humans do actually repent? Was it at least half the humankind that thought with the host of the valar at the war of wrath? What about the elves, who, if they are severely tainted, may spend all "eternity" in the halls of Mandos, wailing, ever filling Nienna's hands? I am also not convinced that Melkor's rebellion created darkness and morality - these must have existed before his rebellion, after all, he was created from Eru's mind; I don't think he created evil, only that he "discovered" it and became its most formidable agent.

Originally Posted by Lal

And it's after Melkor's rebellion that Eru creates Men - creates them with mortality, sadness and profundity inbuilt.

I wouldn't agree; the Children were made by Eru alone "and none of the Ainur had part in their making".

Originally Posted by Lal

If the world was 'perfect' then there would be no need for inspirational figures such as Gandhi or the Dalai Lama.

I disagree; there are many obstacles to be overcome, even in a life sheltered from evil. One's potentiality, for both morality or spirituality, or for anything actually, has to be developed through effort, and a master eases the path, in almost any set of circumstances.

Originally Posted by Lal

There would be no need for scientific endeavour or even education and we could all lie around on our chaise longues eating chocolate tangents for eternity.

Aman was thoroughly sheltered from evil, yet the amount of Art and knowledge produced there by the noldor exceeds anything they produced in Middle Earth. And to return to my argument about corruption and Art,

Originally Posted by Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor, Silmarillion

And [the Valar] mourned not more for the death of the Trees than for the marring of Feanor: of the works of Melkor one of the most evil. For Feanor was made the mightiest in all parts of body and mind, in valour, in endurance, in beauty, in understanding, in skill, in strength and in subtlety alike, of all the Children of Iluvatar, and a bright flame was in him. The works of wonder for the glory of Arda that he might otherwise have wrought only Manwe might in some measure conceive.

It doesn't look like they expected Feanor to continue to make Art after he: was marred, blasphemed, killed fellow elves, and set out to war. But what they know, they are just Valar .

Originally Posted by Lal

And there would be NO Tolkien!

Not the same unique Tolkien. I would dare say this is the logical fallacy of argument from ignorance . Again, I am not arguing that Arda Unmarred doesn't have morality in it, only that evil isn't one of the strongest (the strongest?) moral and physical force in it.

Originally Posted by Lal

If you look at all the great pop and rock music it is there purely because of suffering and struggle

I have started reading an interesting book, The Social Movements Reader; on its first chapter, it makes a striking statement: it quotes researchers in the field of sociology stating that people rise to challenge their condition only when they perceive the difference between their status and their potential one. As long as such a difference is not perceived, many, most, of the afro-americans, women, homosexuals, workers, or other oppresed humans, just don't do anything about it. They endure through their oppression, they assimilate their understatus. And they do this for years, decades, or centuries. Once they know that they can be better, they can improve; otherwise, they merely stagnate in their condition. It is said that it is not worth making the world perfect if it takes the tears of a baby to do that; I certainly wouldn't equate the value of various works of art coming out of knowing the consequences of deep corruption with the suffering and death of others, esspecially if among them there were artists.

The Men stagnated for the most part untill they met the ones who had higher status. They received knowledge, wisdom, and they beheld role models, which emboldended them to advance. Humans would definitely have models to emulate, in a world where cultivation of one's ability would be in hand's reach, where knowledge of past peaks still endures, undimmed maybe, in form or memory.

Originally Posted by Lal

If it was so beautiful and perfect why didn't Tolkien write about this?

Because no Vanya made it back to Middle Earth; because what Men know about Aman is pretty much what they know from the numenoreans, who in their turn know from the exiled Noldor, who, of course, wouldn't know what happened during their exile even to their kin in Aman, let alone to the Vanyar.