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Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

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Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#51

Post by swayvil »

jltsiren wrote: post #45

It's been a while since I last read The Silmarillion, so some details might be wrong. The reason why Middle-earth did not have an industrial revolution is supernatural. When the Ainur sang the songs of creation, there was discord. Melkor, the mightiest of them, wanted to create something of his own, which was the root of all evil. The world they created was flawed. Within the world, the minds of those who seek to cre…

An engineer has a dream of a work, of a machine he can build. That is to say he has a vision, or hears a song.

This could be called a lesser song, compared to Ainur's. Just a distraction really.

And in this state of distraction he acts.

Of course he's the bad guy.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#52

Post by galacticaactual »

nostrademons wrote: post #40
Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The industrial revolution is in the book, it's the actual antagonist of the story. Tolkien was a devout Catholic distributist and Hobbingen was his ideal Catholic community of self reliant Hobbits who answer to wizards and kings, not to factory floor managers and administrators.

Right, the industrialists are literally right there in the form of Saruman and the Orcs of Isengard: "Together, my lord Sauron, we shall rule this Middle-earth. The old world will burn in the fires of industry. Forests will fall. A new order will rise. We will drive the machine of war with the sword and the spear and the iron fist of the orc." The orcs could be looked at as an allegory of the faceless, dehumanized, i…

Paul Kingsnorth has some wonderful essays exploring this exact concept.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#54

Post by rockemsockem »

r_harriso wrote: post #11

The reason that Tolkien didn’t write an industrial revolution into the history of middle earth is that he hated industry. Hated how it destroyed bucolic village life. Having this take on LoTR is pointless. Just an annoying waste of time.

Less pointless than this comment for sure though

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#55

Post by thelittleone »

nostrademons wrote: post #40
Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The industrial revolution is in the book, it's the actual antagonist of the story. Tolkien was a devout Catholic distributist and Hobbingen was his ideal Catholic community of self reliant Hobbits who answer to wizards and kings, not to factory floor managers and administrators.

Right, the industrialists are literally right there in the form of Saruman and the Orcs of Isengard: "Together, my lord Sauron, we shall rule this Middle-earth. The old world will burn in the fires of industry. Forests will fall. A new order will rise. We will drive the machine of war with the sword and the spear and the iron fist of the orc." The orcs could be looked at as an allegory of the faceless, dehumanized, i…

If only Tolkien wrote another story where the industrial revolution in Middle Earth (as you describe it) occurs, along with a fellowship that brings it down and returns Middle Earth to it's former glory.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#56

Post by Thorentis »

Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The industrial revolution is in the book, it's the actual antagonist of the story. Tolkien was a devout Catholic distributist and Hobbingen was his ideal Catholic community of self reliant Hobbits who answer to wizards and kings, not to factory floor managers and administrators.

Yes exactly. The Scourging of the Shire - something no depicted in the movies but one of the best parts of the final book - highlights this perfectly.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#57

Post by avmich »

From https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n21/francis-spufford/ope... :

It was around this time that an encounter took place between two outlooks almost equally marginal to the spirit of the times in Britain. Arthur C. Clarke, by now a well-established science fiction writer as well as the author of the pioneering paper on satellite communications, had been growing increasingly irritated by the theological science fiction of C.S. Lewis, who saw space travel as a sinful attempt by fallen humanity to overstep its God-given place. In Reflections on the Psalms (1958), for example, Lewis had described it as learning ‘(which God forbid) to ... distribute upon new worlds the vomit of our own corruption’. Clarke contacted Lewis and they arranged to meet in the Eastgate Tavern, Oxford. Clarke brought Val Cleaver as his second; Lewis brought along Tolkien. They saw the world so differently that even argument was scarcely possible. Clarke and Cleaver could not see any darkness in technology, while Lewis and Tolkien could not see the ways in which a new tool genuinely transforms the possibilities of human awareness. For them, machines were at best a purely instrumental source of pipe tobacco and transport to the Bodleian. So what could they do? They all got pissed. ‘I’m sure you are very wicked people,’ said Lewis cheerfully as he staggered away, ‘but how dull it would be if everyone was good.’

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#58

Post by totetsu »

moomoo11 wrote: post #47
r_harriso wrote: post #11

The reason that Tolkien didn’t write an industrial revolution into the history of middle earth is that he hated industry. Hated how it destroyed bucolic village life. Having this take on LoTR is pointless. Just an annoying waste of time.

Thanks for introducing a new word to me - bucolic relating to the pleasant aspects of the countryside and country life. "the church is lovely for its bucolic setting"

referring to shepherds related to Bullock via bucula , and maybe the bugle horn

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#60

Post by djur »

> As mentioned in the quote introing this section, the Dwarves are explicitly described as mining coal in The Hobbit.

This is one of the key places where The Hobbit is unavoidably discontinuous with LOTR. Bilbo also has matches and a clock. Tolkien considered a larger revision of The Hobbit to bring it in line with LOTR but ended up only significantly reworking "Puzzles In The Dark", the chapter where Bilbo meets Gollum and obtains the ring. (Apparently the first edition also had a reference to tomatoes, which were replaced with pickles.) I don't think it's a strong basis for any arguments about the worldbuilding of Middle-earth.

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