And it slips through our fingers

[Angry Hill Troll]

So are things getting better or worse? Well, my personal view is that a plausible case can be made for either side, which to me indicates that the answer isn't all that clear cut: some aspects of life, the world, etc. seem to be getting better, and some seem to be getting worse.

For me personally, at a more fundamental level, I'm not sure the question is all that important:

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But it is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

I have always found the quote above to be very inspiring and meaningful. We live at a certain point in time not of our choosing, nor can we control to any great extent the characteristics or history of our time on earth. But certainly it is important how we choose to live in our alloted time. Was Frodo any more or less noble than the heroes of the First Age, simply because he lived in a time in which Arda was diminished compared to what it had once been? I think Elrond is correct to equate Frodo's deeds with those of the Elf-friends of the First Age.

I think that apart from the philosophical implications of the 'entropic' nature of Middle-earth, it gives the narrative rather a pseudo-medieval feel. The idea that 'progress' was inevitably destined to make everything better in the future than it had been in the past (an idea which Tolkien clearly did not share) has only been around (in western civilization) roughly since the Renaissance. Before that people looked at the history and remnants of the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations much as the people of late Third Age viewed the ruined works of the elvish and Númenorian civilizations, as examples of technology and achievement they could never hope to equal, and whose knowledge was lost. It was only when, during the Renaissance, that various discoveries unknown to the ancients were made, that a psychological shift occurred, leading in the extreme to a rather trite idea that 'progress' would inevitably make everything better.

I personally don't really buy into either idea. I put a disclaimer, that based on my actual career field (science) and outside interests (linguistics, among other things) in Arda, I would definitely be a Noldorin elf in the vein of Fëanor. That said, I think that science and technology are morally neutral: having more technology at your disposal doesn't make you a better, or a smarter, or a more morally upstanding person, it just makes you a person with more gadgets, however you may choose to use them. Of course, we are all having this conversation on the Net, so clearly none of us have such a dislike of this technology that we choose to run away from it. On the other hand, there are many uses to which the Internet is put which are better left unmentioned.

Cheers, everyone