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> Confession time. I have never read Lord of the Rings. I’ve tried. It’s boring as hell.
When your whole article is based on something you have zero knowledge about... Sorry, I'm just not going to spend the time.
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.
Tolkien lived in a city in Oxford which was neither bucolic nor a village. It sounds more like you hate industry and wish to return to bucolic village life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tolkien lived in a city in Oxford which was neither bucolic nor a village. It sounds more like you hate industry and wish to return to bucolic village life.
Tolkiens views weren’t subtle or complicated.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism_in_The_Lord...
High-labour-cost, low-coal-cost is fine and might fit our world. However, to get people to spend years in R&D you need specialization and scale. Without the first you don't have R&D people. Without the second there's no profit or even much advantage to the new tech. To get both of these you, well, need people. A good number of people to support specialists which aren't part of the Nobility (or at least Nobles which are engaged in activities which weren't historically considered very Noble-like in nearly every society in our world), and a good number of people so that scale can generate a profit.
Industrial revolution can't happen by itself in ultra-sparse societies as in the LOTR era. The author cites estimates which are an order of magnitude lower than 17th century England, and I'd go one order of magnitude lower still*.
Now if he asked the question about Númenor that's a different matter... (Yes, it was destroyed, but there were populous colonies in Middle Earth which should have kept any tech?)
* Judging by the level of hostility involved and very high internal coherence of the protagonist societies I suspect a more total mobilization than your typical feudal society where losing simply meant the peasants served a different lord.
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.
Tolkien lived in a city in Oxford which was neither bucolic nor a village. It sounds more like you hate industry and wish to return to bucolic village life.
There are two explanations for this: (1) this is an accurate explanation of a phenomenon or (2) it's an unreliable narrator projecting propaganda.
Orcs are also often associated with industrial activity. If (1) is true, then there might be a real connection between industry and evil. E.g. the downfall of the dwarves is related to their industrial greed. If (2) is true, there might be a stigma against industry due to its association with orcs.
There is a fan-fiction that expands in the vein of (2), although I haven't read it yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer
My immediate thought is that the technium of Middle Earth did not develop like ours due to rhe ubiquity of magic. Indeed, it is in these books that the last lights of magic are fading, and the world is being given over to other powers. Imagine if there were like an additional physics sitting on top of ours, and its use was isolated to a few hereditary practitioners, and let us see if the mundanes can scraps together…
There's also the hint, at least from the movies, that Sauron and Sarumon could produce an unlimited supply slave labor.
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.
"Confession time. I have never read Lord of the Rings" - the guy who wrote an entire article about how much he doesn't like it.
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.