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Originally Posted by Skip
*Edit: I see I crossposted with tumhalad2 and this is a question to you:
You seem like an intelligent and reasonable guy, well able to form your own opinion. Yet, in the op you appear concerned that the criticism of this Brin fella might put you off Tolkien. But seriuosly... this Brin, who I've never heard of btw, sounds like a pretentious but not very bright tosser to be honest. Why would you listen to him?
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Even if it will make myself look like a total ignoramus here as well I must confess I have never heard of this Brin-guy before either until reading this thread. So I definitively have not been listening to him.
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Originally Posted by Skip
a culture can't ever change unless we're allowed to critisize it.
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I don't see the point of this here... I'm all for demanding changes in cultures, like getting the Western culture less individualistic without falling back to religious or nationalistic fundamentalisms etc.
Talking about the subject then...
I do agree with your points about there being "inside tensions" between the "races" in Tolkien's work. And surely the question about the benefits of mortality / immortality have been questioned long before the Christian thought in Gilgamesh or Greek legendarium in written form and in many earlier myths to top that fex.
But to me the question here is more what kind of worldview Tolkien brings forwards in his "mythology for England"? It coincides with these mythological strata of our history... and that is natural as he was the scholar who tried to make it look like an arcane mythology.
But the question now remains how we should tune ourselves with it? Should we treat is as an original mythology (no!), should we treat it as a piece of the most ingenuine piece of fiction based on traditions (yes!), should we treat it as a way guiding us to a moral and good life in today's society and world (yes/no?).
I think it's the last question - or the interpretation of what it means - that may divide many of us.
I tend to agree with Lal that Tolkien had much more modernistic views about things many of you are ready to grant him. Thence I think we should be able to think about his views much more seriously - but in another vein than just championing his "traditionalism" or basic "christian values".
The things and ideas Tolkien brings forwards in his work are those of the mythological era and thought but he does it in a way that demands a modern reader an effort to think it her/himself - a mark of a purely modernist attitude in itself.