Quote:
Originally Posted by Nogrod
Even if it will make myself look like a total ignoramus here as well I must confess I have never heard of this Brin-guy before either until reading this thread. So I definitively have not been listening to him.  |
Sorry mate, you must have misunderstood me (no wonder, my post was a bit of a mess). The questions was to tumhalad2.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nogrod
I don't see the point of this here... I'm all for demanding changes in cultures, like getting the Western culture less individualistic without falling back to religious or nationalistic fundamentalisms etc.
|
Agreed. Just a thought I had at the time. Never mind that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nogrod
But the question now remains how we should tune ourselves with it? Should we treat is as an original mythology (no!), should we treat it as a piece of the most ingenuine piece of fiction based on traditions (yes!), should we treat it as a way guiding us to a moral and good life in today's society and world (yes/no?).
I think it's the last question - or the interpretation of what it means - that may divide many of us.
|
Perhaps. My answer is that if you do find a moral guideline in his works, that's great. Tolkien certainly had a lot to say about morals. Personally, although I also appreciate much of his more philosofical and theological stuff, I read his books because I love the stories and the language.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nogrod
The things and ideas Tolkien brings forwards in his work are those of the mythological era and thought but he does it in a way that demands a modern reader an effort to think it her/himself - a mark of a purely modernist attitude in itself.
|
I dunno if the ideas are those of a mythological prehistoric era. I highly doubt that the people in the actual 'mythological' era ever reached the subtlety of Tolkien or of his characters.
As for the debate of how modernistic Tolkien was I'm afraid I can't add much. I was under the impression that 'modernism' was the much akin to positivism, the belief that logical reasoning based on observable facts (the method of the natural sciences) is the best, if not the only way forward into the future. Based on this belief I did not think Tolkien would appriciate a modernistic agenda with scientific progress and rationalisation as a top priority. But I also knew that 'modernism' had other applications in other fields, and some posters have argued that Tolkien indeed was modernistic. To be honest, I find concepts such as modernism, post-modernism, symbolism to be rather silly and restrictive and the people who like to use them often do so in a vain attempt to appear more clever than they really are. But please note that I'm not talking about the people writing on this thread.