[Nogrod]

[QUOTE][QUOTE=Raynor] Well, he does distinguish between kinds of magic, esspecially in relation to the one of the elves (cf Letter #131):
"I have not used 'magic' consistently, and indeed the Elven-queen Galadriel is obliged to remonstrate with the Hobbits on their confused use of the word both for the devices and operations of the Enemy, and for those of the Elves. I have not, because there is not a word for the latter (since all human stories have suffered the same confusion). But the Elves are there (in my tales) to demonstrate the difference. Their 'magic' is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation"But what is this art - power dualism about? In this context one would have to read 'art' as conjoining with an overtly romantic vision of artistry, fancied by the late 19th century poets' & painters' that got hold of the wider public imagination, at least after the WW2, and with the ideas of power then attaching to the nuclear bomb, Stalin etc. (Tolkien, of course being academically schooled, should have been cognizant of these ideas quite earlier, with lots of fellows' being productive artists' at the time). But what I myself am interested in, is, whether this interpretation on Tolkien is correct to begin with.

So was Tolkien a conservative "luddite" (you remember this James Ludd, who went to destroy machines?), who just tried to say that machines are bad, or was his relation to technologies' more subtle?

I would here vote for a more "down to earth" Tolkien, who saw the inevitableness of the advances of technologies and the requirement of sacrifices in front of them - that could actually bring forth good things, but quite a loss as well, f.ex. as a disappearance of "magic" with it. It's kind of a basic thing: when things change, they will be different: you lose something and you acquire something. And with a certain personality, you just take the new good things as given, and just make a slight sigh to the remembrance of the things past.

So should we be happy with the new things (peace, stability, welfare etc.) or sigh for the lost (action, heroism, virtues, honour etc.)? That's a question we could put to ourselves too....