Journal Jeremiah Cornelius's Journal: What Can We Learn from LoTR About the Surveillance State? 2
Slate has an article: The Eye of Sauron Is the Modern Surveillance State. Although the insights provided are not necessarily unique, and echo the observations of some like Bruce Schneier, Glenn Greenwald and Chris Hedges, they do illustrate them nicely, through an unexpected allegorical reading of Tolkien's familiar epic. The gist is that unlike most dystopian fantasy - especially the explicitly political variety - Tolkien understood that the minions of absolute power were untrusted by that power, itself. It's also worth reading for the defense of the fantasy-epic genre, which offered Tolkien the opportunity to explore themes like the "distinction between omnipotence and omniscience," that were under-examined in modern idioms, but relevant to Tolkien from a theological interest and connected to the experience under tyranny.
+1, Interesting (Score:2)
I don't often bother with Slate anymore, but this was well worth the read. Cheers.
Re: (Score:2)
We please to aim... :-)
Looks like the slashmods didn't think it firehosed well enough for a front-page.