Quote:
Originally Posted by Nogrod
Uniqueness and a known history of a thing make a difference - well, today they do.
But that has been different as well and quite lately so... I'm not old enough to remember the following myself but I have heard and read about the fifties and sixties when something made from plastic & from the assembly line was hip and cool and only the poor had hand-made old drawers, baskets, clothes etc. But there were remnants of that ideology even in my youth in the seventies when a pair of woollen socks made by a grandmother were the un-coolest Christmas-present there was to be imagined. Today they would be priceless!
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But Tolkien didn't like industrialism and all the hype surrounding it. And though I wan't alive in the times you speak of, I'm guessing that people liked the mechanical made stuff more, because it was new fresh, and something different, but at the same time, it made it possible for everyone one. And everything would be the same, all "perfect" or something. Just like when you get imported fruit and things, they're all regular and "normal in shape. Just as slightly OT side note, for some reason they sell chicken eggs brown here in the UK, but the fact is that they're also all the same. There is a certain appeal to getting something that you know will be exactly what you wanted, nothing more, nothing less.
But now mass-production has become so popular that we are finding it boring, for the very reason that everything is the same- you never get anything better or worse, there is nothing behind it except the emotionless copying of something over and over again.
And even today, though you may not go to a reknowned smith for what you need, people try to get products from certain brands that are known to have a good reputation, so the same sort of mentality continues, just under a different guise.
Rarity is important and that is why people value it so much. Just the fact that Narsil was a blade forged ages ago makes it special, as very few of those sorts remain. It could almost be called "collectible" or "antique" apart from the fact that it was still in serviceable use.
And look at the evil side- they have no special weapons. They have no reknowned smiths or craftsmen. All of their weapons are described as the same (excpet for a few exceptions- the high ranking ones) and are just average and do the job they need to- nothing more, nothing less. They are all mass-produced, maybe not by the same modern machinery as today, but nevertheless they were produced in great haste for one purpose. They were made simply to kill rather than as a form of art, or pride for the creator. I think that this is the horror of Mass-production that Tolkien hated. The mass-produced products have no uniqueness, no "soul" (almost literally if we look at some made especially- think of the talking Gurthang). In the things made by craftsmen, some part of the crfter goes into the item, even if it si just the style in which it is made, whereas in mass-production everything is the same.
PS. I did have another point but I've forgotten what it was, so I'll leave it at that.
