• 0 Posts
  • 71 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 6th, 2023

help-circle









  • I didn’t learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn’t a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It’s also a source of hope. It means we don’t have to continue this way if we don’t like it.

    Kurt Vonnegut








  • s_s@lemmy.onetoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlWhat is Tom Bombadil?
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    47
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Tom represents the incomplete knowledge of mankind and our pre-modern inability to firmly grasp the natural world we live in (and to some extent our continued struggle).

    The fantasy world of Middle-Earth is in most ways supernatural to our own. So how much more incomplete would our understanding and knowledge of it been?

    Tolkien was a professor of language and mythology and steeped in the ancient epics of the Anglo-saxons and Norse cultures. His career was putting together what these people knew and how they saw the world, but also what they couldn’t understand and how they explained their ignorance.

    Others here are hinting at what Tom is, but not why he is. He’s a manifestation of ignorance. That’s why pinning him down is so tricky. It’s like pointing at a shadow with a flashlight.