"Guns don't kill people, people do." (NRA)
"Technology isn't to blame of the state of the world but people using it are."
Somehow I disagree strongly with the first declaration and agree with the second one even if my reason tells me I should treat both accordingly.
How is the reason of those thinking the opposite: guns good, technology bad?
A typical European "leftist intellectual" then? Not able to admit his own shortcomings and blaming others?
Maybe... well I try to argue against myself now... (typical leftist rhetorical-posture?)
And what has this to do with Tolkien?
I think the most important thing is the cohesion of the society, the prevalent trust inside a community - and the way it defines itself as a community - the way people see the world and the options open to them as well as those honourable and/or discraceful or outright bad ways to behave in it.
Let me make an example.
Had I a gun I would never ever dream of killing anyone. In Finland there are something like second most guns per capita around the world but only something like 1/100 kills with a firearm compared to the U.S.. But still Finns are the "second most violent" (well, third, fourth or something) nation in the world. People here kill each other by a knife, an axe, or by a fist (or a foot)... basically when they are drunk...
But.
The guns in Finland are hunting-guns owned by the rural people, about 10 each... and we have no gun-culture where people carry guns when they are walking down the street or one in their bedroom-drawer just in case. And we are not afraid of each other constantly and all of the time. We trust each other - looking at the statistics that's a bad guess but still it's the one we tend to make - and that's good...
There is a difference as to how a culture defines how some things are used.
The question of technology seems to follow that line of thought. If the leading idea of what the technology is for is fast money / immediate gains for me, it's certain we have the world we have right now. If the general attitude towards the technology would be "let's see how it can help us to sustain a balanced planet" all would be different.
So in a funny sense the conservatives and the leftists join hands in here. A global capitalism that the media (owned by the mega-rich) and the top-politicians (owned by the mega-rich) shows us encourages us to think that it is a game where everyone needs to guard his own and try to make a maximum profit whether it be wealth, sexual experiences, power, a newest brand-items or quartiary profits etc...
It's easy to see how Tolkien would have reacted to that...
More than guns or technology themselves this crazy desire for individual fulfillment - based on unnatural models drawing from a thwarted basic assumption of competition of one against each other (like those of the beauty-queens, athletic-heroes, so called "reality-tv"; or those ridiculous ideas of Hobbes the new right so happily endorses) and of personal experiences as the meaning of life as the primordial human condition - has really poisoned the western societies today.
And Tolkien would howl and whine today for these developements.
Try a test.
Not the one whether Tolkien confessed the same religion you do - or was a christian anyway - or whether his ideas of gender-roles fit your own. Or whether you still think in chivalric terms about things like friendship or courtly love (typical conservative notion of an idolised past that has actually never been) or if you distaste Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera...
But would you change extra money for more free time?
Would you walk to your school or your working-place? And if you live in a suburbs and use a car everyday - would you acknowledge the way of your living is the downfall of us all and do something about it?
Would you live without the telly, sitting with a friend / friends in a tavern every night rather than watching TV?
Would you love rather than gain?
I think I know what Tolkien would have answered...
