April 27, 2006

Now It's My Turn
Everett

Opalys, it seems I may need to take some lessons in expressing my thoughts clearly as well. I did not mean to imply that I thought you found my words and prayer somehow insufficient. Indeed, you asked for nothing more. I only meant to indicate that, given the opportunity, I would have liked to do more. My comments were in no way intended to reflect on what I was able to do or your appreciation of it.

Should Tolkien be used to teach values and courage in schools? Playing Devil's advocate, I would say not in the context of a school curriculum. There are certainly fine examples of virtue in the face of adversity in the book which could be used to illustrate a point in say a sermon or homily, but simply studying LotR for its moral lessons- which are certainly there- outside of its context as a work of literature reduces its moral appeal. In other words, the strength of the moral lessons of LotR follow from its strength as a story, not the other way around. I think it fits better into a regular literature course than into a specific course on virtue.

On a completely different note, I was browsing the debate archive, and I happened to notice that today (4/26) is the fourth anniversary of Annatar's first post. It was written in response to a post of mine from three days earlier concerning the role of the Eagles in LotR. The pieces can be found on the fourth page of the 2002 archive, with my response to him on the fifth page. Pages 13-16 contain our first religious/political spat (8/9/02-9/10/02). Man, those were the days. Some of the regulars included Brett C., Curious George, Razors, Lem, Beren, Danny, Greg H., and Fluidshaggy.

I'm starting to think part of the reason Tolkien doesn't come up much is we pounded so many Tolkien-related subjects into the ground. We probably don't need to resurrect the whole winged-Balrog debate again, for example.