Tolkien Counter-Culture Once Again

Once again, the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien has become counter-culture. Back in the days of hippies and yippies, Tolkien was accorded mythic status by certain elements within the counter-culture movement. After all, a barefoot hobbit smoking his pipe and out picking mushrooms in the forest had some things in common with a hippie living in a yurt in the forest outside of Santa Cruz. At least, that’s one perspective.

Now, however, decades after the hippies have gone grey and taken the reins of industry and politics, and years after Peter Jackson completed the ultimate mainstreaming of Tolkien, the venerable professor is undergoing a new revision. A recent analysis by an obscure British government bureaucracy called the Research Information and Communications Unit (RICU) has concluded that reading Tolkien can be an indication of right-wing extremism.

I myself would conclude that such analysis can be an indication of profound idiocy. But what do I do know? At any rate, the analysis seems to infer that belief in moral absolutes, in a worldview that acknowledges good and evil, is evidence of extremism. Right-wing extremism, mind you.

Tolkien is in Good Company

Of course, the genius report from the morons at RICU also called out C.S. Lewis, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and others as philosophically dangerous. I imagine they will go after J.K. Rowling next; though, to be fair, she’s already been targeted by elements of revisionist society.

The RICU report, as absurd as it is, takes place alongside the also recent kerfluffle involving the Puffin publishing giant–and not a big, friendly giant either–announcing their plan to edit the works of Roald Dahl in order to make his books more palatable to the thin-skinned readers of today. Dahl, as anyone who has read him knows, was fond of calling things as they actually were. If Augustus Gloop is fat, then Dahl would call him fat. If Aunt Spiker was a nasty, miserable wretch of a woman, then Dahl would point that out. Let the chips of reality fall where they may seemed to be his writing motto.

And all of us children understood accordingly and were not harmed in the reading. That is, until today. Apparently, the children of today are thin-shelled shrinking snails who recoil at even a few grains of brisk salt.

Modern Literary Criticism is the Wicked Witch

I’ve always detested the modern view of literary criticism that says the reader should bring his or her perspectives to a story and make that interpretation more important, more primary, than the author’s original intent. This is just a despicable manifestation of narcissism. Modern literary criticism is the witch holding out the poisoned apple.

A lot of people seem fine with the apple. As long as it is organic.

This inward focus is one of the same motivations fueling Puffin’s decision to sanitize Dahl for the modern reader. They are intent on remaking Dahl in their own image. It’s an absolutely outrageous decision and will contribute further to the overall dumbing down of society. When we decouple books and communication in general from the author’s original intent, we are separating ourselves from a proper understanding of history.

Oh, there are plenty of reasons why rejection of original intent is bad, but the loss of history is particularly troubling. If we forget history, we tend to then… well, you can fill in the rest of the sentence, unless you’ve forgotten your history.

Considering the intersection between RICU’s analysis of Tolkien and Puffin’s contempt of Dahl, I daresay it’s only a matter of time before someone suggest an edit of Tolkien for modern sensibilities.

And where do we go from there?

We cannot reshape reality into our own image. That applies equally to Roald Dahl, as well as the arrogance of the transhumanist movement in both its cyborg branch and its sad gender branch. Be content with making your bed when you consider reshaping reality.

I find it ironic that many of these revisionist nitwitteries going on–whether in academia, entertainment, business or government–are overseen by the aging post-hippies of the 60s and 70s, those admiring fans of Bilbo Baggins and his free-wheeling hobbit ways.

There and back again…

Fen Gawinn

I’ve been slowly writing a book that takes place after my Tormay trilogy. Several years after the end of The Wicked Day. Judging from how the plot is going and what the characters are demanding of me, I’d say I’m about 3/4 of the way done with the first draft.

The main character is Fen Gawinn, the adopted daughter of Owain and Sib Gawinn. She’s about seventeen in this story and, as luck would have it, she’s forced to leave the city of Hearne and deal with some rather dark characters. If you remember, there’s a certain individual towards the end of The Wicked Day who ends up… entranced, or perhaps frozen is the right word after picking up a very unusual book. That individual also figures in this story.

Anyway, here’s a concept art piece of Fen. Worried, unsure of herself, but determined. I’m going to do some more concept art for a few of the other characters in the story. Helps to wrap my mind around who they actually are.

ChatGPT

So now we have the AI-driven ChatGPT in our lives. Teenage students around the world are probably rejoicing, pausing in their perusal of TikTok to lift their hands in praise.

If you haven’t learned (or experienced) yet, ChatGPT is a chatbot that was officially released in November of last year. The chatbot is an artificial intelligence text-generator. Basically, you type in a question and ChatGPT responds with an answer. For example, you can ask it anything. Quite an example, yeah?

Okay, here’s a more specific example. You could type in a query such as “Explain black holes at a fourth grade level.” Which I just did. In about ten seconds, ChatGPT responded with this:

Black holes are like a big, invisible vacuum cleaner in space. They suck up anything that gets too close, even stars and planets! This happens because black holes have a super strong pull of gravity.

Light can’t escape from a black hole, which is why they look black and we can’t see what’s inside. Scientists study black holes by looking at how they affect things around them, like stars.

It’s important to remember that black holes are not a hole in space that you can fall into like a hole in the ground. They are just a place where the pull of gravity is so strong that nothing can escape.

As your brain is probably already realizing, this opens up a huge can of wriggly worms from an education perspective. What’s to stop a student from getting ChatGPT to write all of his or her essays? Nothing. Not a thing.

Sometimes, I wonder if there’s a secret cabal of little grey men meeting in some hidden location (perhaps a mountain retreat called The Meadows), conspiring and scheming to make children dumber. Stupider and more dull, with each passing year (which then begs the question: why?).

Cell phones are bad enough. Kids whip those things out to retrieve data which, in the past, might very well have been stored in their own brain. Mental math is a thing of the past. And don’t get me started on posture.

I’m sure there are plenty of beneficial reasons for the existence of ChatGPT and all the other AI equivalents. But, dulling the brains of the young and future generations yet unborn cancels out a considerable list of potential benefits.

Other possible harms exist. What’s to stop the use of the chatbot to write news articles? Frankly, its quality level is just as good, if not better, than many journalists these days. Or how about writing stories? ChatGPT doesn’t seem to successfully handle being prompted to write in specific styles–such as, write in the style of Conan Doyle, etc–but I imagine that tweak will come along soon enough. What’s important, and dangerous, is that it can write stories.

Brave new world, isn’t it? Though, I’m starting to suspect that our real-time foray into dystopia is proving more similar to CS Lewis’ That Hideous Strength rather than Huxley.

As the world progresses in technological advancement, it reduces in other areas. Reductionism? Kids’ memories stunt. Creativity shrivels in on itself like a salted snail. Mental math withers. Relationships diminish due to the poisonous interface of screens and social media.

What are we reducing ourselves toward? Perhaps the rough beast slouching toward its birth?

 

Make Your Bed

Pro Dad Tip of the Day: make your bed right after you get up.

If you make your bed right after you get up in the morning, you will have achieved something of worth for the day. This will be your mini success, even if the rest of the day crashes and burns.

I wonder if anyone has ever done an analysis of prison inmates and whether or not they consistently made their beds as children? That would be an illuminating study. I’d rather my tax money be spent on that than figuring out how cocaine affects beagles (see: Idiots in Congress).

Big things have small beginnings. Such as: Mary and Joseph off to Bethlehem, the future Duke of Wellington playing with his toy soldiers as a young boy, tiny Bach hearing a pianoforte for the first time.

In related news, cleverly foreshadowed by my earlier mention of the now infamous cocaine-addicted beagles line item in the 1.7 trillion dollar omnibus, I’m relatively certain that the vast majority of our electeds in Congress, of both parties, are either insane, criminals, both insane and criminal, animatronic puppets controlled by a secret criminal organization, or are of such reduced intelligence that they would make a rotten cucumber look like Albert Einstein. It’s true (because now you’ve read it on the internet).

A quick skim through the omnibus reveals a laundry list of insanity. The spending bill includes crazy amounts of money for the Department of Defense, even though recent audits of that department have revealed hundreds of millions of dollars that have simply vanished. Poof. Gone without a trace. If your teenage son couldn’t account for thousands of dollars that you had given him, would you give him more? You would if you were insane or the mental equivalent of a turnip.

The omnibus pours truckloads of money into the Department of Transportation’s TIGER (Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery) program. Tigers are so cute and cuddly and cool; obviously, let’s give the ferocious beast more money. The only problem is, TIGER has a well-proven track record of sluicing money here and there on behalf of well-connected applicants. Contractors who knew the right politician. Contractors who built bridges that collapsed (see: Florida International University). Contractors who built projects that came in at multiples of the original bid (see: City of Atlanta’s streetcar project).

The omnibus spouts money into the open hands of the National Science Foundation. That’s the same foundation known in the past for studies such as Teaching Monkeys to Gamble, Do Quail Become More Promiscuous After Taking Cocaine, and Observing Shrimp on Treadmills. This allocation begs the question as to who is more insane, Congress or the geniuses at the National Science Foundation?

The omnibus increases public school funding by 2.6 billion dollars. Interestingly enough, the more the USA has spent on public education over the decades, the worse the outcomes have become. We routinely graduate kids from high school that can’t even do basic math in their heads, let alone write a coherent essay or even a letter to Grandma thanking her for the $50 Amazon gift card she sent for Christmas.

I’m confident the net effect of that 2.6 billion infusion will result in high graduates unable to tie their own shoe laces. But who cares? Just buy self-aware, bluetooth enabled shoes on Amazon that slip themselves onto your feet and do the tightening for you! That leaves you more time to devote to Tiktok.

The word omnibus sounds like ominous bus. Where is the ominous bus going?

At any rate, just make your bed. And then move on to the next small thing that life has put in front of you. Look at that small thing, make sure you’re not hallucinating, and then do it well.

A Short History of Light

The Inflatable Hippies just released their newest album, A Short History of Light. Mellow electronica. I’ve belonged to the Inflatable Hippies for years. Can’t remember exactly how long.

I recommend belonging to a band if you don’t already. It’s kind of the musical equivalent of carrying snow chains in your car. Better to have them than not. You never know when it is going to snow.

Please encourage your friends, your Aunt Marge, other relatives, family-members, neighbors, bridge club, former associates in the mafia you once worked for, the local chapter of the Audubon Society, etc., to have a listen. Available on Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Pandora, etc.

The Inflatable Hippies are already hard at work on their next album, which is tentatively titled A Short History of Shadow. Point, counter-point, of course.

The album after that one will be largely inspired by Tolkien in order to counteract the pernicious effects of Amazon’s bizarrely deficient Rings of Power series. A whole lot of deprogramming will need to happen because of that series. Feel free to start that brave effort by handing out copies of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, Ursula K. LeGuin’s Wizard of Earthsea stories, Robin McKinley’s Blue Sword, Jim Butcher’s Aeronaut’s Windlass, George MacDonald’s Princess and the Goblin stories, and, of course, three humble little books: The Hawk and His Boy, The Shadow at the Gate, and The Wicked Day.

All of these stories fit into the history of light. In different configurations, angles, points of view, sub-categories, spectra. Just as do certain music, sculptures, paintings, architecture, the oak tree, giraffes, lemurs, Neptune, dahlias, gophers (sadly so), sunrises and sunsets. And a whole lot of other stuff, plus all the grains of sand on the every seashore on every landmass on planet Earth.

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