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Its about understanding what another human being has to say to you, not about your opinion of what he's saying. And how can you even have an opinion of what he's saying if you don't listen as objectively as you can? What I bring to reading Tolkien's works has little or no value, (imo) in comparison to what Tolkien has to teach me.
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I will assume,
davem, that you have taken this position as a rhetorical or logical strategy, to attempt to redefine the discussion rather than as a literal statement that we who do not agree with you do not listen to others but operate out of our own personal vanities and egotism. The first I consider a fair part of discussion; the second I consider unfair and disrespectful of the many who have given a great deal of thoughtful time and effort to this thread.
Where are we to find this person who you want to teach us? You seem to treat the concept of Author as separate from Art, some kind of validating or authorising principle which helps us understand the Art (aka the Text). Thus, it seems to me, you would give priority to such extra-textual statements as can be found in letters, diaries, personal reminiscences.
For me at least, I would regard this position as denying the value and integrity of the Art; it says that peripheral and extraneous statements must take precedence to the Art/Text, which somehow fails to identify itself adequately and must be explained. This is like saying that readers cannot understand literature without some sort of guiding hand.
It seems to me that this concept of Author is a substitution for God as source of ultimate meaning. (Forgive me if this offends your personal beliefs or values, or those of others.) I would say that, if the Art / Text is to have some sort of universal or transcendent value, it ultimately must be given to the ages; it must be understood anew for each generation/reader.
And what do you mean by "listening objectively"? Are you suggesting that
SpM, Aiwendil, Fordim and I are reading solipsistically and self-centredly? Am I not to bring my understanding of Anglo Saxon literature to bear on my reading, or my knowledge of northern myths and other mythologies? Can I not bring my understanding of why people find such worth and value to quest literature? In short, must I leave behind other Art/ Texts in order to listen to your god-like Author?
Maybe I can put it this way: When I listen to and speak with the people around me, I am invariably involved not just in decoding idiolects (mine and theirs) but the entire range and variety of dialects which make up the English language and the social culture of my time. It gets a little crowded at times, but to suggest that there is just one valorising or validating voice, the person I am speaking with, limits the nature of language. When we speak with others, there is always this balancing or negotiating of one out of many, of listening to the unique voice out of the plurality that makes up language.
Treating Author as God strikes me as limiting the Art very much. It isn't that I don't listen to Tolkien, but that I bring to my conversation with him my conversations with other Artists as well. And Tolkien now being dead, that conversation must involve the Art he left behind.