Okay, I'm beginning a new chapter as the discussion is - to put it mildly - a bit slow...
I have indeed been too busy to read all of it yet (believe it or not) but there is a classic in the beginning I'd like to make an observation on to get this running.
It's the row between Sam and Ted Sandyman of course.
It's a great example of a traditionalistic & conservative society facing news / ideas they're not too keen to take in as those things could imbalance the beliefs of the group and their basic security on their shared worldview.
I don't find it too far-fetched to compare the discussion between Sam and Ted to one that could take place in RL in some rural community today.
Think of a youngster that has gone to a big city to study and who comes on holidays back to his childhood village pub and starts to tell people of atoms or quarks - or evolution. The jokes might be quite similar indeed. "Can you see those atom-things? Like in this table? No? So there ain't no such things!" (applauds for a score made from the crowd), "You say these atom-things dance around each other... but this table is staying right where it is. You must have taken a pint too much if it looks to you this table is dancing!" (the crowd bursting to laughter with the wit of that one), or "So we're descended from apes and before that another life-forms you say... well that explains why they said my uncle was a bit fishy!" (the crowds getting wild with appreciation of "proving" these weird thoughts wrong) etc.
Okay. I know some people would interpret this scene between Ted and Sam more readily as a discussion between faith and empiricism - and it might be closer to Tolkien's personal ties as well... but the way he writes this part really seems to draw nicer parallels with the example of modern physics than with belief in God.
Second thought (and I promise my last one on social inequality in Hobitton... I mean I'm getting ashamed of bringing this forth time after another...)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Tuor in Gondolin
the Gaffer seems economically on a par with Bilbo (not counting Bilbo's Excellent Adventure gold and silver).
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Now in the beginning of "the Shadow of the Past" it's made quite clear that Frodo is not doing anything for living. He just wanders around and gets anguished (like rich people with nothing to do, do). The Gaffer and his son really need to do work to pay for their living. I wouldn't call that being "economically on par".
At this point in the story a many occupations have been already introduced: there are millers, inn-keepers, gardeners (servants?), cooks, postal workers etc. but clearly Frodo needs to do nothing. He can idle himself from the early morning to the late-night. So there are classes in Hobitton. Some own property and/or treasure enough while the others need to work for their living. The Gaffer may make his living - and probably does - with his own merits aka. work and thence be self-subsistent, but the difference is that Bilbo (or Frodo) need not to.
Now one might argue that Bilbo has earned his wealth with his work (the expedition to the Lonely Mountain) and I'm not too eager to go against it right here - even if it seems he wasn't the poorest hobbit before that either (the question concerning the equality of the starting points is the crucial one for any economic liberalism). But Frodo is just chosen by Bilbo, from a whim one might say, to inherit all - well, most of - he had and so became luxuriously rich with no merit of himself but only that Bilbo happened to like him and his parents got to an accident.
I agree with Tuor in Gondolin that the relations between the classes were not hammered in stone - as the example of Frodo and Sam let us see quite clearly. That was indeed what I was pointing at: that Frodo and Sam broke a pattern there. But for that to happen Frodo had to be the "higher one" to graciously give the part to Sam. If they were equals Frodo could not be generous as they would both be at the same level and neither could "out-present" the other with grace.
Only that one who has power or position over another can indeed be gracious!
PS. Did elves have to work for their living?