You know Jen, I am guessing that he would not have minded the Luddite title at all!... Part of the great attraction Tolkien is for me
is the complete escape from the artificial world we have created. - I loathe the city and walking on concrete. Middle earth is the place I can go to when the rest of the world seems much too removed from anything that was natural.
Maybe that is why Star Wars fails to appeal to me at the heart. It is a vision of a world of nothing natural... a vast constructed environment that does not look like a place I would want to visit. Middle Earth, I would not visit either, but move in and never leave if I could!
From the article...
This doesn't mean, of course, that either Tolkien fans or Star Wars fans -- if there's any difference -- ...
[snicker] we all look the same to him.
I think I object to the use of "Luddite" because I equate Luddites with those Greenies who don't want us to use any technology, not to make life easier or more interesting. Frankly I don't care what Tolkein thought of washing machines; I don't watch Star Wars for my opinions on bioethics. They're for entertainment, and sometimes a little more, but if they preach something I don't accept I simply throw it out. (For instance, I read science fiction. Most of the authors seem to be devoted atheists and humanists. That doesn't mean I don't read the books, nor does it shake my faith.)
So it's not what the article is calling Tolkien, it's what the article is implying about us that I mind.
Ah, great to see yet another LOTR thread galloping over the plains of FRland once again...
Any LOTR news I haven't picked up lately?