The two towers

[nfotxn]

David Brin on The Lord of the Rings

"The very shape of society changed from the once-universal pyramid toward a diamond configuration, wherein a comfortable and well-educated middle class actually outnumbers the poor. For the very first time. Anywhere.

We can argue endlessly about the accuracy and implications of this "diamond" analogy -- and its vast remaining imperfections -- but not over the fact that a profound shift has occurred, driven by a genuine scientific-technical-educational revolution."

Some other good points are made. But his point that although simpler times are easy to romantasize in times of terrorism and economic hardship our lives today are really much, much better.

Not that I don't wanna see the movie!

Comments

[dizzi-d.livejournal.com]

But they still make movies like Goldmember... explain that, mister "well-educated middle class"!

*giggle*

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

There's a little enclave of people living not far to the north-west of me here, whose (n-times-great-)grandparents came here from England. These people, whose parents and grandparents (at least) were born in Canada, still speak with fake British accents, still carry on about how awful it is "over here", and how "back home" it's all roses and golden, live in faux-half-timbered-houses, refuse to separate their recycling because it's all just rubbish and beneath their notice, eat super-expensive canned crap from British-themed (but in reality Saudi-owned) boutique-supermarkets rather than soil themselves with excellent locally-grown food, won't use touch-tone phones or bank machines or cable TV or computers because they're just gadgets and anyone with real class has servants to deal with mere gadgets ... these people actually exist, and I am not exaggerating about the fantastical way they live their lives.

I'm not sure David Brin understands that Tolkien was only the mushroom induced on the huge underground mycelial mass of backward-to-a-lost-golden-age-looking class-obsessed Romanticism that permeates British culture, and so, also Canadian and American. It's not that this is a new thing that has suddenly become popular again, it's always been there.

Mmmm, mushrooms. Time for lunch...

[smointjoker.livejournal.com]

do you know where I can get some for new years?

Sj.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

not offhand, I'll ask around :)

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm well aware of these characters. Luckily I'm not related to any although I do feel for my two cousins. They have an aunt and uncle who lived in England for less than a decade, I'm sure. They had their first child there and upon return to Canada they had nothing but bad things to say about the nation. Even though at the time in their field it was probably on of the best places in the world to be. They even went so far as to teach their children to speak with a flase british accent. When they of course naturally started speaking like other Canadian kids they were still forced to put on their faux accent. This resulted in their second child having to see a speech pathologist because he became utterly confused with the conflicting information about pronounciation he was receiving at school and at home! The hardship their children endured because of their odd sense of cultural preservation I think bordered on abusive.

It's an unusual habbit some brits pick up, maybe it's self-consciousness about their accent. There's of course also the "everything is better back home" routine. I'm not particularly sure but I can definitely think of better ways of expressing my heritage than hating on the country I choose to live in.

[gusmacroy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's alot to what he has to say, but at the same time he is reacting emotionally to the phenomena around the books and now movies, and I think he's missed some points from the test, frankly. But alot of his commentary is also very astute.

Of course, I'm already down on the record against people who are taking the we like fantasy during hard times bent to not think seriously about the books. The movies, particularly, have their escapist qualities, but still...

[plaidninja.livejournal.com]

Actually that's an excellent point. Hollywood movies are almost always escapist fantasy, regardless of the prevailing social winds.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Sci-fi and fantasy fans aren't well known for keeping clear cut divisions between fantasy and reality. Therefore I think this article has it's importance. It's also nice to see the word coming from a sci-fi writer of Brin's calibur.

bad fad

[smointjoker.livejournal.com]

I wonder if we would get the same satisfation from giving twenty dollars to an agency for third world aid instead of burying ourselves in the dunes of Hollywood's make-believe.

If a problem does not go away because it is ignored, what is it that is being 'escaped'?

Re: bad fad

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it for two hours. That's what's being escaped. Besides, it's not an either or situation. Some can do both, see a movie and donate to a charity.

[smointjoker.livejournal.com]

Instead of being proactive about 'it', you are suggesting that one could go to a movie and escape thinking about 'it' for 2 hours?

What is being escaped in 'escapist' movies? Is it a good thing to 'escape'?
The word itself means getting away from something. Would doing something about it be better?

Meditation would certainly quite someone for two hours.

Da.