Tolkien's 'Machine'

[davem]

I wanted to get some help on one of Tolkien's central concepts - the 'machine'.
In both the long interview with Christopher Tolkien on the VHS JRRT- A Portrait of JRR Tolkien, & in Carpenter's book, The Inklings, there's a mention of Tolkien's conception of the 'machine'. It seems to be less technology itself, & more the attitude/mentality behind it. Christopher Tolkien descibes it as the desire to control/coerce others, to impose our will on others/the world & force it to do as we say. Therefore he describes both magic as such & the Ring in particular, as manifestations of the 'machine'.
Does this mean then, that for Tolkien, the 'machine' isn't necesserally anything to do with machinery, or technology - ie as long as the desire to control is present then it is still the 'machine' behind it. Or does the 'machine' in Tolkien's conception have to involve machinery/technology in some form - ie, a 'man-made' object (including magic rings).
If I coerce someone into doing something with the threat of violence, for instance, or intimidate them with my intellect, is that the 'machine' as Tolkien concieved it?
Have I made any sense here?

[littlemanpoet]

Hi davem! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I think it's both. Before the advent of the machine's dominance (roughly coincident with the turn of the 20th century), there was nothing separating the powerful people from the powerless people except other people or the documents and feudal or other governmental systems the powerful had put in place. It remained personal, at least to a far greater extent than after the advent of the machine's dominance.

After above-mentioned advent, the machine stands between the powerful and the powerless in so many ways, and in every one of them, impersonally. This impersonalization makes it easier for the powerful to ignore, even to deny the personhood of the powerless. Anybody in modern life is familiar with the term, "Just a number." I think that about says it all.

The personalness of former society is one of the things Tolkien saw as passing, and grieved for it. Rightly.

[Kalessin]

Interesting subject - I will (very slightly) assume the role of devil's advocate here ...

I would say that the aspect of the 'machine', perhaps most vividly reflected in The Scouring of the Shire, and commented upon in Tolkien's letters, also includes an element of revisionist or nostalgic idealisation. He himself acknowledged what was for him an idyll of rural (or pre-industrial) England, of a resilient, cheery and honest folk with roots in the land (perhaps today we would talk about a sustainable eco-system) and gentle, charming idiosyncracies.

That this conception of Tolkien's was always a myth, or at best perhaps an occasional village pocket (particularly in England) is only part of the story. It is impossible to accept the notion today without also considering the way in which class, such a crucial factor throughout English history, is at the root of these romantic idealisations.

That simple, quaint parochial folk were happy to go about their minor business, with a mixture of disinterest and awe for the big wide world 'out there', is typically symptomatic of a paternal philanthropy that absolutely characterised the Victorian era from which Tolkien emerged into adulthood. Its unreality is especially framed by the fact that Tolkien's early life in South Africa, and subsequent comfort in the dreaming spires of Oxford, both represented environments in which rigid social divisions persisted, and the idea that 'everyone has their rightful place' would have been predominant.

Only through some level of rose-tinted illusion could the affectionate distortion of rural life, and thus it's unfortunate corruption by the 'machine' of industrialisation, urbanisation, secularisation and the breaking of the socio-cultural mould, be conceived. That Tolkien's narrative succeeds dramatically, and that the characters themselves are rounded and sympathetic, does not compromise the fact that 'Merrie England' is an aristocratic edifice.

Compare the references in Tolkien to the writings of near contemporary DH Lawrence, raised in the mining counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Both rail against the harsh anonymity of technology and the loss of individual spirit (and life) brought by world wars and manufacturing industries. Yet Lawrence is in so many ways far less sociologically romantic than Tolkien ... his working classes are resentful, philistine and violent, his aristocracy decadent and self-obsessed. No Elven elite of the wise, cultured and beatiful here [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].

It must be said that the sense in which the Shire and the nature of hobbits is an idealisation is entirely appropriate for epic myth, and finds its parallel in many tales from across the world, where a nostalgic harmony is evoked as a backdrop to change, destruction, and heroic redemption. Many myths indirectly and directly deal with the rescue of nationhood, the defeat of invaders, outsiders, or more subtly the resolution of conflict brought about by meddling Gods and other mystical beings. Whatever eternal or spiritual truths are present in any of these sagas, there is also a strong case for seeing the evolution of such cultural artefacts as a reflection of historical and social change, a means of rationalising and perhaps exorcising the collective experience of war and/or other societal disruption in an uncertain world.

In this sense, and in this tradition, the nostalgia in LotR is neither flawed nor inappropriate. Yet Tolkien reflected with some subtelty on the fatal nostalgia of the Elves, their cultural stasis and their 'falling'. This is an element of profound insight on his part, and gives modernity and a psychological reality to these mythic archetypes. Likewise, despite wishing to, Frodo can never truly return to the Shire, or to being the Frodo that he was, and again this emotive characterisation is both convincing and thought-provoking. Change IS permanent, it is the half-remembered that seems eternal, like those never-ending always-blue summer-skies that seemed to fill our childhood ... to be cherished with sadness, sought-for in vain - nostalgia indeed.

With that in mind, the politically dubious notion of simple rural folk in opposition to the dark machine can be accepted not solely as a stereotype born of privelige, but also, importantly, an acknowledgment of change and flux, and of the forces that buffet our illusions of permanence, of the humility that such awareness should bring, and the poetic beauty that myth confers on history.

Not solely ... but partly, at least. After all, we're all agreed that the art reflects the artist, right? (Sorry, just being mischevious [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img])

Peace.

Kalessin

[MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie]

Yes, I also think that it's both. However I think that it is more towards machinery and technology. Think about tolkien and his life. The industrial age had a great influence on him. 'War machines' were being made and destroying his beautiful childhood countryside. WWI like any war calls for a conversion in production. If they don't have enough factories they make more. It doesn't matter where they are made just as long as they are made. So, like Kalessin said, this can represent the Scouring of the Shire. The shire is a simple area of middle earth that is untouched by the outside world. They find joy in having and keeping it a simple life and land. Hobbits are like the amish in a way. The hobbits like the amish stay underdeveloped as a way of life (although the amish are more extreme). The Shire looks beautiful and that is the way that they want to keep it. When sharkey makes changes around the place it is like the coming of an industrial age to the hobbits and could be related to tolkien's personal experience.


This paragrapgh won't really help answer your question because it kind of strays from the topic.

I say that the scouring of the shire and tolkien's experience can be related. I'm not saying they are though. Tolkien said that the lotr does not represent specific events or people in his life. I believe him, but I think that they could have a large influence on how and what he wrote. He left it open for any reader and that is one reason his books are considered classics. He allows you to fill in the blank. If he said that the ring represents the nuclear bomb and that sauron represents hitler, then this book could have been limited to one or two generations. Since he says that lotr does not represent specific events or people in his life, it allows you to think of sauron as bin laden or anybody else you want to think of him as. People can do this for many years to come. However, this does not mean you have to this. For me sauron is just sauron.

I watched the National Geographic- Beyond the Movie for lotr. It came with the collector's dvd set for the extended fellowship. You should watch it too, it shows some valid points.

[Kalessin]

MLD ...

'War machines' were being made and destroying his beautiful childhood countryside. WWI like any war calls for a conversion in production. If they don't have enough factories they make more. It doesn't matter where they are made just as long as they are made. So, like Kalessin said, this can represent the Scouring of the Shire.

You are misquoting me, and that is not what I meant either. I did NOT say that Tolkien's representation of the Shire was linked to WWI munitions factories appearing in the countryside, and Tolkien himself explicitly denied the precise historical comparisons (or the dreaded allegories). My core point, and the essence of my post, was made in my opening paragraph -

I would say that the aspect of the 'machine', perhaps most vividly reflected in The Scouring of the Shire, and commented upon in Tolkien's letters, also includes an element of revisionist or nostalgic idealisation.

As this (and the rest of my post) makes clear, the Shire was NOT a reflection of a reality around him, either in its original form or after the Scouring. I compared Tolkien and Lawrence as near-contemporaries in the general sense that both writers could be said to have reflected on the horror of war, but made the point that unlike Lawrence Tolkien's view was romantic and had never been 'true'.

Sorry to be a real pain, as I enjoy your posts, but I also disagree with your comparison of Hobbits with the Amish. The Amish have made a conscious decision about avoiding certain technology, a decision that is explicitly ideological (or religious). In addition they are fully aware of the encroaching world, indeed their stance is an acknowledgement of that. Hobbits have, as Tolkien says, a long history of dealing with all kinds of folk, and are not bound by a religious injuction against either technology or interaction with outsiders. At best you could say the isolation evolved.

But I do agree with you [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] that LotR has an ambiguity and universality that make it accessible and potentially meaningful to a wide range of readers across the generations. Archetypes - and even stereotypes - are an necessary element to such universality. My post was concerned with the nature of Tolkien's rural archetype, the sense it which it both embodies a paternalist and arguably feudal idealisation, while at the same time carrying the potency of the collective memory and nostalgia that turns oral history (and truth) into myth.

I refuse to buy any of the various editions of the movie that come out until all the films have come and gone, as it seems to me there's always room for another 'Special Edition', or 'The Newly-Revised Director's Cut of the Director's Cut' etc. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img], and also I have to eke out a fairly modest existence, but I will look out for the feature that you mention and see if I can borrow it [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I am interested in this thread and hope it can develop, as the 'machine' was one of the central themes of LotR and has perhaps been discussed less than the other elements. Littlemanpoet as ever makes a worthwhile point about the sense of impersonality, or anonymity, that mass technology and warfare bring ... but it needs to be said that neither the 'old' feudal system, or any of the sociological hierarchies that persisted in England (and certainly in Tolkien's circles), had very much to recommend them .... unless you happened to be at the top of the heap [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].

Peace.

Kalessin

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]

[davem]

But what about the attitude - ie 'machine' thinking? Isn't it about a way of percieving reality & interacting with it?
The machine, as Christopher Tolkien states is about control & coercion. The Ring is the machine. Magic is the machine. Therefore, we're not talking about specific items, but about the mentality which produces & employs them. So, the machine is a way of relating to external reality/other people. A desire (to get all theological) to 're-make the world in your own image'. IE - it's the sin of Lucifer - the attempt to usurp the role of God. The opposite attitude could be summed up, maybe by the Aborigine concept of the Dreamtime/Dreaming, or by Tolkien as 'Art'. So, you have Artistic thinking & machine thinking. The Elves' approach is 'Artistic'. Create, perfect, preserve in a state of ideal beauty. Live life as an expression of your Art.
Does any of this make sense?

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

There could be a different meaning here, which is to do with thought. It's about thinking of a country, or a town or whatever, as a 'machine' rather than a community, with every part existing to help the machine work. As long as the part performs that task, it is useful and deserves to exist; if not it must be replaced or improved. People are not involved, only parts.

This is really what facism is all about. Of course, a degree of 'machineness' in society is necessary, but it can get out of hand and dominate.

[Kalessin]

davem (thanks for initiating this excellent thread), you have a strong argument.

It is possible to assert that a method (ie. The Ring, Technology etc.) are in themselves merely a manifestation of a mentality (Luciferian, Melkorian etc.) in which destructive ambition predominate.

The obvious counter-argument is that used by Boromir and later Denethor - that Sauron's weapons might be effectively turned against him, that the 'method' can be used for Good. However, Tolkien's narrative acts as a moral fable to the contrary - Evil in the end defeats itself, while Good triumphs (or survives) through a purity of means and motives. Evil, whether embodied in technology or magic, cannot be used for Good, and indeed corrupts even those who attempt it with good intentions. Magic is NOT used, or not comparably used, even by Gandalf, in the fight against the enemy.

The second, more logical, counter-argument is that technology, or industrialisation, cannot reasonably be seen to have a moral dimension that is an expression of its user. A gun, for example, is not Evil when fired by a murderer, yet Good when used by, say, The Lone Ranger (pretty good murderer himself, I think [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]). Hopefully you get my point - the object, the technology is morally neutral. In my view this is a pretty strong refutation ...

This IS arguable, however, in the context that in opposition to the 'machine' is not so much the Aboriginal Dreamtime, but the more specific and cultural idealisation of rural England by Tolkien that I posited in my earlier post. If you accept that premise, then industrialisation clearly represents a force of social and environmental change, inevitably negative change given Tolkien's romantic and nostalgic worldview. Alternative ideologies might see industrialisation as the first step towards the redistribution of wealth, the creation of opportunity etc. etc., and in light of these differing interpretations the idea that technology itself is an Evil thought, or will, is still hard to assert in a logical way ... but in Tolkien's world, if one accepts his idealistic premise, it represents the antithesis of his rural "utopia".

Whichever words you use - that magic and technology are the "tools", the "manifestation", the "embodiment", of the Evil will that guides them, the connection cannot really be extrapolated to the objects themselves. Naturally the narrative symbols have moral significance, and where those symbols are magical or technological they are signposts to our identification of the meaning, or to the intended moral sympathies of the reader - but there is ambiguity here also.

What is an acceptable level of technology - when does it become the Evil will? Really, only when it initiaties or facilitates the social or psychological change to what is painted as a society (or culture) at balance with nature and in itself. The threshold in any such case is necessarily relative, especially as we have few real examples in history, but in Tolkien's case the moral, cultural and geographical topography is so comprehensive (and I would argue in line with my proposed interpretation) that the threshold is clearly crossed by the machinations of Sauron and Saruman.

Gwaihir, you make an intersting point, but I am not sure about your conception of machine, for the opposite reason [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. Tolkien clearly intended to show that the idea of a community as an anthill where individuals were merely anonymous parts of a greater whole was more likely to result FROM technology than being a prequel to his own technological metaphor. Both fascism, communism and other ideologies have an idealised social model in which beings are gratified to serve the greater good, and operate in symbiotic harmony, and throughout history human nature has confounded such theories (often in quite depressing ways).

The theories in themselves, or the 'machine' as metaphor for some kind of 'sim city' version of Middle Earth, are at odds with Tolkien's actual narrative ... and his concept of art. In a societal machine where, as you put it, "a country, or a town or whatever, (is as) a 'machine' rather than a community, with every part existing to help the machine work. As long as the part performs that task, it is useful and deserves to exist", what would happen to the artists? Tolkien's very sweet story 'Leaf By Niggle', which I would very highly recommend indeed, gives us an insight into his sympathetic view of art as an aspect of personal, private transformation of immense value, rather than as a pinwheel in the social mechanism.

Peace [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Kalessin

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]

[davem]

I can see that in the context of LotR, the opposition to the machine is the pre-industrial shire - which by the way is very close to the rural Oxfordshire described in Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson, if anyone hasn't read that. It really enhanced my experience of the Shire.
But you could also put forward a pre-enlightenment/post enlightenment scenario, maybe.
For me it comes down to how one relates to/interacts with the world. Maybe even bringing in the Taoist concepts of the Uncarved Block as against the 10,000 things. A Holistic worldview (art/dreaming) in opposition to a fragmented, mechanistic one. Technology/ machinery in itself is not the issue, as you say. Maybe it comes down to seeing everything as an aspect of a (living?) integrated WHOLE, or just seeing the world as a mass of unrelated 'bits' - an 'assets & obstacles' view - ie everyone & everything is either an asset - something to be exploited, or an obstacle - something to be removed. The Elves are one with Arda, in a way that Men can never be. Men's destiny lies beyond Arda. Men are prone to 'machine' thinking, Elves really aren't. How far can we push this - Elves - Art/holistic relationships, Men - Mechanism?

[HerenIstarion]

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