/lit/ - Literature

>>14654592
Not him, but just saying it's not a binary between 'allegory' and 'totally random events with no meaning'. There is a middle ground, Tolkien himself called it 'applicability', it is most accurately understood as his attempt at MYTHOLOGY (and not straightforward history). In mythology there can be multiple overlapping "hidden meanings", but they are of a much more psychological or archetypal flavour. Tolkien's work is utterly replete with these deeper human truths which is how it vibes so well with Christianity as well as other European mythology. My analysis is that the essayposter above has looked deep and seen some shit and much of the stuff about the Jews is based on truth but he is clumsy in articulating this in terms of Tolkien's work, as if it were deliberate symbolism. Again, archetypal mythological symbolism is absolutely rife in LOTR at multiple levels, but it doesn't reach the point of calling out specific (((tribes))) in the real world. That so many specifics CAN be derived from the work indicates how deep down into our roots Tolkien was able to reach.

>>12375983
>It seems like he wants to be the one guy who points out the errors but then offers no solution.
it could be because he would have said that, for the time being, there *isn't* one. Heidegger is a conservative philosopher; when everyone around you is running around with a handful of Solutions in each hand, and *all of them are stupid,* the answer is to wait. because it is in that very act of awaiting that the actual answers you are looking for are going to be found. you're waiting for a *good* solution. in poker parlance: you're folding shitty hands.

it has always seemed to me that the clearest expression of Heidegger's thinking is given in Tolkien (again, the irony that IRL Heidegger was working for Mordor and not Lothlorien is not lost on me, nor is it to be ignored). the answers are to be found in Being. what does Galadriel 'do'? what are her 'solutions?' she doesn't have any. the age of the elves is over, the age of man is yet beginning, and there is a strong possibility that the age of the Orc is yet to come. i think Heidegger would have found Tolkien's view pretty much in accord with his own.

ask yourself: what is the 'purpose' of Lothlorien? i'm aware that by putting these words in quotation marks i am probably sounding like every douchebag academic you have ever met. and it's true, a lot of the stuff that you hate about postmodern thought (and which i share) proceeds from Heidegger's own meditations on language, action, Dasein and much else. but in this case it is not quite as douchebaggy as all of that. Being, Dasein, Aletheia, these concepts that Heidegger is expressly preoccupied with are all very insightful modes of considering these kinds of questions: what are we supposed to do? as you say,

>Is there a way we can maintain authenticity with technology giving us our needs?

this is not an easy question! this is an incredibly good one, and a whole shitload of German poets, intellectuals and other writers were very keenly aware of the handwriting on the wall when they were thinking about this. Mordor is a pretty good characterization of the gestell, and all of this is on display in the films: the Fires of Industry, Dark Satanic Mills, all the rest, chewing up the world. but Heidegger knew that IRL *there was no Sauron,* that this was rooted in thinking. and what you need is a kind of thinking that was...not that. what That would look like is, well, a long story. today, sadly, it has morphed into being a thing really no less horrible and oppressive. such is the plight of the phenomenologist and philosopher.

to balance authenticity and technology was, in some sense, what Hitler wanted, and he appealed to the mythopoetics of race to do so. a lot of people were okay with this. in hindsight, it didn't work out so well. this is not to say that Silicon Valley Communism is in any way preferable; it isn't either. we find ourselves caught in the middle accordingly.

the 'purpose' of Lothlorien is to *be Lothlorien.*