Elementals

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

For my part I'm perfectly content with things being described as "problematic" or what have you, as those are just another instrument of criticism with which one can agree or disagree,.

I'm not content with it.

I've reached my saturation point with the kind of mutated Puritanism that saturates Seth's article. I've heard too much of it over the years: "Tolkien is sexist", "Tolkien is racist", "Tolkien is classist", "Tolkien is reactionary", etc. etc. ad nauseum.

People can't even appreciate a good story anymore. Instead they take a good story like The Ring Trilogy and look for things that they can classify as "problematic" (or any of the other hackneyed Mc-Cliches they just have to use, or they can't sleep at night, I guess) in order to try and make pseudo-intellectualism seem like the genuine thing.

This is worse than medieval Catholics debating the presence of Adam's bellybutton; and I say that as a Catholic, myself.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

I'm not content with it.

I've reached my saturation point with the kind of mutated Puritanism that saturates Seth's article. I've heard too much of it over the years: "Tolkien is sexist", "Tolkien is racist", "Tolkien is classist", "Tolkien is reactionary", etc. etc. ad nauseum.

People can't even appreciate a good story anymore. Instead they take a good story like The Ring Trilogy and look for things that they can classify as "problematic" (or any of the other hackneyed Mc-Cliches they just have to use, or they can't sleep at night, I guess) in order to try and make pseudo-intellectualism seem like the genuine thing.

It depends what you think constitutes "pseudo intellectualism" as opposed to the genuine kind, and what it means to "appreciate a good story".

In my thesis research I read a lot of stuff that was very harsh on Professor Tolkien's work, typically and unsurprisingly from political positions quite different from his own. When I read such things I would shrug my shoulders and think "Well, that's this person's interpretation. It's no skin off my nose if they have such-and-such a problem with it."

That's why these things don't bother me. They're just other people's opinions, in the end.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

People can't even appreciate a good story anymore. Instead they take a good story like The Ring Trilogy and look for things that they can classify as "problematic" (or any of the other hackneyed Mc-Cliches they just have to use, or they can't sleep at night, I guess) in order to try and make pseudo-intellectualism seem like the genuine thing.

Well, we here at the Downs pick the works apart to find inner meanings and windows to Tolkien's imaginative process. That's just a good time.

But we (mostly) use Tolkien's own works and words to make our points, and recognize that imparting motives and inspirations to the books without firm evidence is a fool's errand. The theories espoused by Ms. Seth and other academics are interesting, but ultimately not provable, and in my mind, no more authoritative that anything I've seen aired in this forum.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

no more authoritative that anything I've seen aired in this forum.

Hey! I'd like to think that we are a darn sight more authoritative.

[ArcusCalion]

heeyyyy on a side note, does anyone know where I could find The Creatures of the Earth? Classification of Middle-earth deific figures is basically my passion, and this would really really help my project, but until I saw this post, I had never heard of it. If anyone has it, I would really appreciate it.