Destruction

[thorondil]

Tolkien's take on technology seems to be the theme in many a thread, and for good reason. I was very interested to learn that Tolkien thought the internal combustion engine to be the greatest evil ever visited on mankind. All of Eru's creations, who try to improve in some way on the Creation, seem to meet with some kind of evil. They wish in their own way to become God or usurp the providence of God by manipulating or changing, or in their own minds, improving on the Creation, and often end up embroiled in evil, or intentionally or unintentionally causing evil. The manipulation of the universe to suit one's own ends is a tricky business, and beyond fire and shelter and the basic necessities of life, one often begins to pervert or subvert the essence of Nature, and the purity of Good, and begins to try like Aule, to imitate in a less than perfect, slightly askew way the meaning that God put into the Universe.