Fantasy Morality

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

And who exactly do you think has been putting forward this position?

I have spent a good deal of time on the Fourth Turning web site, a forum that discusses a modern theory of cyclical history. (Little to do with Dakêsîntrah's ancient cyclical perspective. These cycles last about four score and seven years.) I learned there to discuss ideas rather than name names. I'd be pleased to discuss ideas, but am not inclined to call people out, to turn things personal and partisan.

Originally Posted by Nerwen

blantyr–

No, I mean did you understand that in the latter part of this thread we have been arguing, not about the original subject, but about Dakêsîntrah's
claims regarding the supposed esoteric symbolism of... um... anything and everything? I ask, because neither of you sounds as if you do.

No, I sort of glazed out with his first two long posts. He went on too much of a tangent for me. I guess it was enough of a tangent that the academic perspective would have to dominate.

I can see something of a cyclical pattern in Tolkien if I squint and tilt my head sideways. The Fourth Turning cycle theory suggests a major crisis every four score and seven years. Tolkien has a crisis at the end of each Age. Both might be viewed better as a spiral than a circle, as at the end of each crisis the culture has gown and adjusted. Rather than return to where one once was one ends up standing on the shoulders of the giants that navigated the crisis. Toynbee in A Study of History presents another cyclical perspective, of civilizations that rise and fall. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations works on a similar scale.

But these are historical rather than mythic cycles. None of them apply very well to Tolkien. Way tangential.