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Originally Posted by Bęthberry
It's interesting to consider this in relation to Tolkien's attitude towards the "long defeat."
If people have a natural inclination to the good side, as Tolkien assumes, what causes the long defeat--why doesn't this natural inclination result in victory rather than defeat? Is there an inherent fallibility which limits this natural inclination? Or is evil stronger than good? In the mythology, Middle earth is inherently flawed. How does this attitude towards an innate goodness fit in with this idea?
Just pondering these points out of idle curiosity.
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Good point - Tolkien assumes such a 'natural morality' in the reader but
not in all the inhabitants of his world - which seems to imply that his secondary world does not operate by the same 'rules' as the primary.
Yet possibly this comes back to the different creation myths - the primary world was created 'good' & fell post creation, while the secondary world was created with Melkor's 'flaws' inherent in it.
So the reader is reading about an 'alien' world in which the 'natural morality' which holds in our world does not hold in that world. The inhabitants of M-e, it seems, do not have such a 'natural morality' - which seems to mean that when they make choices in conformity with
our 'natural morality' they are making an
unnatural choice. So one could argue that such choices are more difficult for them than they would be for us......
Unless....but... what I mean to say is.....er....