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Old 08-12-2003, 04:43 PM   #4
Måns
Haunting Spirit
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Stockholm
Posts: 63
Måns has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

Sorry for posting the last thing twice, my bad.

Anyway, the first part I do not recognize at all as mine, sorry I can't reply to that, I have never thoguht that there was no technological or other development in that time. Though you have to admit that the development did not go far, it went from early medival to high medieval in 9000 years, a process that took around 400 years here.

I know perfectly well of Tolkien's conservatory and reactionist views on industrilization, but what does it matter. There is one assumption, caused by modern society I guess, that follows you through your entire post. You say taht to be development it has to be good. It hasn't, as long as it's something new, different from what was before it is new even if I and all otehrs prefer change to be for the better. Morgoth made engines of war, but, and I quote Eru himself: "And Thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined." Morgoth was but the tool of Eru when inventing those war machines, as where men when they invented, the difference is that what Morogth did was predicted in the First music of the Ainur, while men could do things new to all. Thus Melkors actions could only take effect to some extent, when his part in the music was over, so was his influence of men since they were unbound by his actions adn had their ability to create new things. Of course a part fo emn went into Morgoth but he could not change them as a whole in their nature. They were impatient, not like hte elves and that had not with Morgoth to do. Anyway, there is a point that you seem to have forgotten. Development hasn't got to be good, it ahs to be change.


Elves were bound to nature in a different way than men, but not more or less. They understood it better, because they were more like it but there is absolutely no proof of an elvish conscious attempt to preserve their kinship with nature by any elf.

I don't see the problem you've got with development ahving to be positive when you are yourself saying it can be negative. Of course, the second world war had upsides, the ousting of Fascism and so on but it does not compare to the downsides, for example the death of up to eigthy million people (NOT 50, that is the Russians losses alone, 20 million is a number supported only by Stalin's word for it at Potsdam, and do we usually trust him today?). I don't say it was good at all in any way, but it was development.

What is so absurd about it? I think that you are a little to rash in your judgment on me. Do you not think that there were other reasons for Gondor being at the height of it's power before such a great war? Moreover, remember the word elf friend. The elvish culture lived extremely strong from Númenor, many spoke Sindarin though they did not use it in everyday speech. So eager to remind me, friend, of that you must have missed naother part, that they needed the elvish wisdom to some extent, surely but that this was static and did not develop. Need I remind you that it was after the ending of the contacts with the elves Númenor became the mightiest and most advanced, though not the happiest?

Please, why do you think that men's lore would stop were the elves had? Since it is a representative of this world, I do think our boats are superior to that of the elves, adn actually, it was all predicted in the song, they could do that but stopped at that. The elves did not invent anything Illúvatar did not want them to invent from the beginning, and thus it was not inventions, while men used the materia of Eä to form new things, for good and bad.

Well, once again I am sadly enough forced to repeat that it might not be progress for a better and happier world we have made, personally I think the 20th century the worst ever, followed by the 19th but we ahve developed much. You don't see, men are creators as well as destroyers, but sometimes, those two are not very far away from eachother. We surely do not understand nature, which teh elves do but they cannot change what they understand, bound as they are by the song of the Ainur. Men have the power to create, and that is the gift Eru gave them which the elves could not comprehend.

Måns
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