Yeah, that’s how I feel about Tolkien, Mateusz. I take the good bits, the parts I love, and recognize that I would never vote for him in an election. His observations are beautiful, and his solutions are terrible.
There is poetry in the way he describes the natural world, and human relationships, that deeply touches things in me and helps me see the world in a better light. He points out criticisms of human nature in respect to technology that do in fact highlight patterns of weakness in our psychology.
That he is wrong to be anti-progress, and wrong to be pro-feudalism class structure, doesn’t invalidate the good he highlights.
I, personally, find it quite compatible to be an progress-loving transhumanist extropian who is excited by the grand changes humanity might experience and the new forms of intelligence we might invent… and yet still love the way Tolkien writes about trees.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/u8GMcpEN9Z6aQiCvp/rule-thinkers-in-not-out
Yeah, that’s how I feel about Tolkien, Mateusz. I take the good bits, the parts I love, and recognize that I would never vote for him in an election. His observations are beautiful, and his solutions are terrible.
There is poetry in the way he describes the natural world, and human relationships, that deeply touches things in me and helps me see the world in a better light. He points out criticisms of human nature in respect to technology that do in fact highlight patterns of weakness in our psychology.
That he is wrong to be anti-progress, and wrong to be pro-feudalism class structure, doesn’t invalidate the good he highlights.
I, personally, find it quite compatible to be an progress-loving transhumanist extropian who is excited by the grand changes humanity might experience and the new forms of intelligence we might invent… and yet still love the way Tolkien writes about trees.