Quote from: ralfy on April 30, 2024, 11:42:35 PM

Quote from: blackstone on April 29, 2024, 08:02:42 AMDoes anyone find it ironic that is was the Left during the late 60s into the 70s that was a champion of Tolkien's works? The "Frodo Lives!" slogan spry-painted on the walls of many college campuses by anti-establishment students is well known.

Today? Quite the opposite.

Now his works are denigrated by left-wing post-modernist pseudo-intellectuals.

Personally, I think it comes down to jealousy.

Those left-wing ass hats wish they had a 10th of the creativity Tolkien, Vance, Heinlein, and others had. Their short cut to creativity is the post-modernist route, which is a lazy man's way. All you're doing is taking all of the age old tropes of story-telling and reversing it all. That's it. Nothing more.

It's not creative. It's a stupid person's way thinking they're clever, which is pathetic.

Because the worst kind of stupid is the guy who thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, and everyone else knows he's as dumb as a sack of hammers.

Both sides should go back to reasons why Tolkien wrote the books. From what I remember, he specialized in medieval studies and wanted children to read LOTR so that when they grew up they would then read and appreciate Beowulf and others. Meanwhile, he became critical of industrialization and war because of what he experienced, like trench warfare and many of his friends dying, and then concerns over consumerism and deforestation, which might explain why he depicted them through Mordor. Finally, even with that he knew that Avalon would never return, which is why he or his estate reluctantly licensed the work to producers, publishers, and merchandisers.

I think what happened was that those who appreciated LOTR in the 1960s were young adults, which meant that they should have moved on to medieval literature following Tolkien's beliefs but didn't because they were the first products of a television culture, which in turn is part of a consumer society. Later, their children, who grew up with in the same society and spoiled by all sorts of consumer goods (including, ironically, movies, toys, etc., about LOTR) began to react negatively to the same society, but because they could not imagine living in anything outside it, remained in it.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on May 01, 2024, 02:29:33 PM

Quote from: Omega on May 01, 2024, 03:01:30 AM

Quote from: blackstone on April 29, 2024, 08:02:42 AMDoes anyone find it ironic that is was the Left during the late 60s into the 70s that was a champion of Tolkien's works? The "Frodo Lives!" slogan spry-painted on the walls of many college campuses by anti-establishment students is well known.

Today? Quite the opposite.

That is because the moral busybodies are like parasites and will jump from one host to the next, always targeting whomever they repressed and championing them now.

Could you give some more examples of this process?