Tolkien, Technology, and... War

[The Saucepan Man]

I take your point, Child, but Tolkien also wrote:

Of course, I suppose that, subject to the permission of God, the whole human race (as each individual) is free not to rise again but to go on to perdition and carry out the Fall to its bitter bottom (as each individual can singulariter). And at certain periods, the present is notably one, that seems not only a likely event but imminent. Still I think that there will be a 'millenium', the prophesised thousand-year rule of Saints, i.e. those who have for all their imperfections never bowed heart and will to the world or the evil spirit (in modern but not universal terms: mechanism, 'scientific' materialism, Socialism in either of its factions now at war). (Letter 96)

and (to expand on a quote given earlier by Son of Númenor):

There is the tragedy and despair of all machinery laid bare. Unlike art which is content to create a new secondary world in the mind, it attempts to actualize desire, and so create power in this World; and that cannot really be done with any real satisfaction. Labour-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labour. And in addition to this fundamental disbility of a creature, is added the Fall, which makes our devices not only fail of their desire but turn to new and horrible evil. (Letter 75)

There does seem to a slight inconsistency between these quotes. The first suggests that he regarded mechanism as a manifestation of 'the evil spirit' in itself. The second suggests that, while not evil in itself, machinery would, as an inevitable consequence of the Fall of Man, be turned to evil (because it actualises the desire for power, which is itself an evil purpose). Either way, even though he might have acknowledged that mechanism did have its beneficial side, he appears to have thought that it would inevitably be turned to evil and that this, in itself, was a reason to regard it negatively.

The paradox I see here is that Ted Sandyman's mill (before 'corrupted' by Saruman) is a mechanism of sorts. As are the bow which Legolas uses and the cart in which Gandalf arrives in Hobbiton. They are all products of a certain level of technology, and yet Tolkien is happy to accept them as having the potential to be used both for good and for evil, without the latter being an inevitable consequence. It seems that it is only once technology develops beyond that stage that he sees the evil use as being inevitable. That, to me, is illogical. 'Fallen Man' is no less (and no more) capable of using the 'infernal combustion engine' for good than he is the horse and cart.

It seems to me that the 'embalming' nature of the Elves has its roots in Tolkien's dislike of technological advancement. Just as Tolkien himself was, the Elves are resisting change in Middle-earth, viewing the status quo as preferable by far. Yet I see this quality of Elvishness as extremely unnatural, as it seeks to work against the cycle of nature, which welcomes change and development by clearing away the old to make way for the new. Indeed, Tolkien himself states on a number of occasions that this desire to 'preserve' was one of the Elves' great failings. And, as you point out Child, the Elves' use of 'technology', in the form of the Rings of Power, to further this preservation of Middle-earth in their preferred state has dire consequences. Does this perhaps represent a recognition by Tolkien that his own resistance to change and development (in technological terms), however instinctively right it seemed to him, was in fact a flawed aspect of his own beliefs?