From: mcconnel@Nimitz.mcs.kent.edu (Mike McConnell)
Subject: Re: Technology and Morality in LOTR
Organization: Kent State University
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 15:13:33 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.084944.6785@leland.Stanford.EDU>, (James Alexander Chokey):
> . . . .	
>What I think is intriguing is your bringing up of the categories
>of "mechanical" and "organic" and then rejecting them.  It seems to me that 
>the distinction of organic/mechanical might actually be a very telling way of 
>looking at "technology" in LOTR.  The examples that leap to mind most quickly
>are the description of the Dwarven halls in the Lonely Mountain and in 
>Moria.  Gloin tells Frodo that the arches under the Mountain are "carved
>like trees."  One of the halls of Moria is lined with pillars "carved like
>boles of mighty trees whose boughs upheld the roof with a branching tracery
>of stone."  Similarly, Gimli compares the Glittering caves to "groves of
>blossoming trees" and then calls them "glades of flowering stone."  The
>beauty of stone and of Dwarvish stonecraft, one might say, is at its greatest 
>when it takes an organic, tree-like form.
>	This might stand in contrast to the craft of Saruman, who seems to
>do his best to make Isengard and the surrounding area as unorganic and un-
>treeish as possible.  He has cut down all of the flowering trees that used
>to grow inside of the Vale and replaced them with vents, shafts, wheels, and
>machines.  Along the road leading to Isengard "instead of trees there marched 
>long lines of pillars, some of marble, some of copper and of iron, joined by 
>heavy chains." Saruman's craft thus seems to be the aesthetic opposite of that
>of the Dwarves. Instead of imitating trees, he destroys them or and erects 
>metal and mechanical mockeries of them.  I think that it's hardly a 
>coincidence that his downfall is directly brought about by trees (i.e. Ents 
>and Huorns)--  it really seems to be a punishment that fits the crimes.
>
> . . . . 

This is a good point, and I think that we can find some background for it in both
the 'fall' of Melkor and in the creation of the Dwarves.  Melkor's pride and 
ambition led him to challenge Eru because he wanted to create things on his own,
things that were entirely his own.  He could not.  Instead, he could only corrupt
things that Eru had made, such as Orcs and Trolls, or he could destroy things that
Eru had made.  In this way, those who follow him, such as Sauron and later 
Saruman (who follows him in spirit at least) also destroy and corrupt.  Their
'sin', perhaps, is in trying to create things that are their own, rather than to 
work with Eru and his creations.

Where do the Dwarves then fit into this.  I think it was Aule who created the 
Dwarves, and his did this in imitation and in honor of Eru's creation.  He was not
creating merely out of pride.  Therefore, while those things whose creation might
truely be attributed to Melkor, that is machines, have no life, the Dwarves did
have life.  And, as they were created in imitation and honor of Eru's work, it is
logical that the greatest of their works would be in imitation and honor of Eru's
work, i.e. nature.

Mike McConnell                 | After all, we algebraists know more than 
Dept. of Mathematics           | a little about rings.  
Kent State University          |