Quote:
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No arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. - Thomas Hobbes. (1588–1679)
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Well, I don't think Tolkien pictured life in Middle Earth being as dire as Mr. Hobbes' 17th Century Europe, but I'm sure there were some parallels.
Tolkien paints an idealized picture of life in Middle Earth, but it is, in fact, a strangely empty world. Except for the enclaves of The Shire, Rivendell, Lothlorian, Rohan, and Gondor, we see little evidence of small towns, freeholds, or settlements. Perhaps this is a result of The Great Plague of 1636 T.A. But 1300 years later, at the time that Bilbo first set out on his quest, you see no evidence of recovery. The land is as barren of human habitation as it was when the plague devastated the population. This should tell you something of what conditions were like for the common folk.
Gondor itself was a great civilization in decline. Though they had the advantages of Elven lore, and the basic nobility of the Numenorian race, I'm sure they had lost many of the skills and arts that would have made life more pleasant for it's citizens. You get the impression that until the return of the King, Gondorians outside the city walls were pretty much left to fend for themselves.
Also Tolkien the author, as many other authors do, glosses over many of the mundane details of survival and daily living in a pre-industrial age. He doesn't much go into the lack of sanitation in large cities, the sub-par medical care, lack of dental hygiene, deoderant, soap, basic nutrition information...well, you get the picture.
Add to all of the above mentioned disadvantages the fact that most of the civilzation in the Third Age were, in a way, under seige by forces of evil (Orcs, Wargs, and the like), and it's likely that, for many of the denizens of Middle Earth, life may well indeed have been "nasty, brutish, and short."
Don't get me wrong, though. It was possible to have a decent standard of living back then. It just took having a tight, homogeneous population that was not subjected to many of the stresses of fighting off outside foes or the brutal whims of their rulers. This describes The Shire to a "T". So in many ways, though it may have been boring and provIncial, the Hobbits probably were doing better that the folks of Gondor and Rohan.
That is at least until the Return of the King. Sadly, after being discovered by the outside world, I'm afraid it was all downhill for the Hobbits.
[ June 07, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]