Originally posted by Anonymouse Some wisdom for the ages. I'm sure some of us know that since Descartes introduction of the dualism of man and the seperation of mind and body we've been headed towards more materialization, and transcendence through the material world.
Bob Wallace wrote: "Naive science may say man is an animal, but every time man believes it, he has to turn himself into a god in order to deal with it."
Here are two comments from the wise (and nature loving) J. R. R. Tolkien on the subject:
As far as our western, European, world is concerned, this "sense of seperation" [between man and nature] has in fact been attacked and weakened in modern times not by fantasy but by scientific theory. Not by stories of centaurs or werewolves or enchanted bears, but by the hypotheses (or dogmatic guesses) of scientific writers who classed Man not only as "an animal" - that correct classification is ancient - but as "only an animal."
Nature is no doubt a life-study, or a study for eternity (for those so gifted); but there is a part of man which is not "Nature," and which therefore is not obliged to study it, and is, in fact, wholly unsatisfied by it.
As far as the value of individualism and free will, Tolkien paints it as one of the central themes. Indeed Lord of the Rings is a paean to the strength of the human spirit and its inescapable subtext is a repudiation of the leftist, collectivist movements that thrived in the 20th century and endures well into the 21st.
Bob Wallace wrote: "Naive science may say man is an animal, but every time man believes it, he has to turn himself into a god in order to deal with it."
Here are two comments from the wise (and nature loving) J. R. R. Tolkien on the subject:
As far as our western, European, world is concerned, this "sense of seperation" [between man and nature] has in fact been attacked and weakened in modern times not by fantasy but by scientific theory. Not by stories of centaurs or werewolves or enchanted bears, but by the hypotheses (or dogmatic guesses) of scientific writers who classed Man not only as "an animal" - that correct classification is ancient - but as "only an animal."
Nature is no doubt a life-study, or a study for eternity (for those so gifted); but there is a part of man which is not "Nature," and which therefore is not obliged to study it, and is, in fact, wholly unsatisfied by it.
As far as the value of individualism and free will, Tolkien paints it as one of the central themes. Indeed Lord of the Rings is a paean to the strength of the human spirit and its inescapable subtext is a repudiation of the leftist, collectivist movements that thrived in the 20th century and endures well into the 21st.
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