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Hi Faramir,
Thanks for responding... and also well met and thanks for the excellent article.
This topic is extremely fascinating and I don't really know where to start.
The anachronism aspect is interesting. Tolkien was writing about an imaginary world in a long gone era, but doing so through he eyes of a modern man living in an age defined by totally different values and attitudes. I was aware of the Shire anachronisms, ranging from Bilbo's manner of dressing to umbrellas and even touching on the post renaissance instruments of the dwarves (which are strangely not re-mentioned once outside the Shire and can so be considered part of the Shire anachronism as much as they are part of the dwarves' identity). But besides artefacts, I hadn't considered that there might also be anachronisms in terms of attitudes and values. This is definitely a topic deserving further study.
Much of Middle-earth was a feudal society. Men were not free in the manner that we consider freedom today but served their masters, to the point of following them into war and dying on the battlefield - without questioning the necessity of their sacrifice. The Shire may have been a little freer but basically anywhere else we so no evidence of any common man having had any choice in the matter. They were thus fighting for their lord and master before they were fighting for Gondor or for the West. In my opinion it was the beakdown of the feudal system that led to some vacuum and caused nationalism. People no longer had a compelling reason to obey their masters and nationalism with all its symbols and flags and music was a necessity to fill in this gap and continue to make war possible in a society that was otherwise elightened and free.
Concerning the enemy being Satan in person, I don't know how any state of this world would react to that situation. But presumably it would lead to totally different attitudes. However, that is a question of theology. If you're fighting somebody, you're first of all fighting an enemy, and that this enemy is Satan is only a second argument after that. If somebody is out to kill you, you fight for your life, no matter whether that enemy is Satan himself or a mouse on steroids or a bearded guy in a cave in Afghanistan. Besides which, propganda machines always try to paint the enemy as Satan incarnate. Look at what the media made of Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein to cite just some recent examples. So where this argument is leading me is the question, does it make a difference if for once the propganda machine is right and the enemy really is Satan. Does the common man or the collective psyche see through the propaganda and still make the difference? An interesting question.
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