The Scourge of The Dark Side...Tolkien and Modernism

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Hot, crispy nice hobbit

Actually technology comes before industrialism, if one takes the stance that technology is the knowledge of developing and using tools for survival.

Absolutely.

Etymologically technology comes from the old Greek tekhne (skill, "know-how", knowledge) and logos (truth, wisdom, knowledge, language, discipline) and thence can be tracked back to the Greeks. And surely it's an older phenomenon dating back to the stone-age or what have you...

It seems self-evident that there can be no industrialism without technology. But the question remains whether there could be an alternative present with technology without industrialism...

Originally Posted by Hot, crispy nice hobbit

As always, it seemed to boil down to simple economics.

That's a question of the viewpoint. Interpreting subsistence as kind of economics backs the argument and those engaged in the technology like to bring forwards the idea that wealth could be produced in "nature-friendly" ways. In Tolkien's times that was pure fantasy - and I'm afraid it's that in our days as well.

Anyhow. Leaving subsistence aside economy can be put on the second place, or third, or fourth...

Then it becomes a question of values.