Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
Tolkien believed strongly in true multiculturalism- as in, having a multiplicity of cultures in the world. He was strongly against 'multiculturalism' in its modern connotation, which to him meant mixing all the cultures together until everything was just the same flavorless blended monoculture the world over. "The bigger things get the smaller and duller or flatter the globe gets. It is getting to be all one blasted little provincial suburb. At any rate it ought to cut down travel. There will be nowhere to go."
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I can sympathize with the 'duller or flatter' comment. I'm from the Boston area. Last year there was a large hurricane in the Southwest Pacific. I was mildly surprised by the number of people wearing Celtics T-shirts among the survivors.
But the lack of trade and travel in Middle Earth rubs my suspension of disbelief some. In The Hobbit, the elves of Mirkwood and men of the lake traded with one another, and this extended to dwarves as well when there are no dragons in residence in the Lonely Mountain. And yet, in LoTR, the area around Rauros Falls was portrayed as completely abandoned. In the real world, at the point where navigable rivers become unnavigable, where one encounters the first serious rapids or waterfall, one expects a trade town. The lack of a trade town at Rauros implies a serious lack of trade between the upper and lower Anduin. Of course, the presence of the Shadow in southern Mirkwood might have had a lot to do with this.
But if Tolkien thought the homogeneous blandness of modern cultures inhibits the tourist trade, why no tourists in Middle Earth? Why did Sauron and Radagast have so little knowledge of where to find that uncouth land called Shire? If the wise of Gondor don't have a clue how to find Rivendell, who does?
I'm not going to whine and cry about this, but it seems to me there is a lot of isolation and provincialism in LoTR.