#that it would be a piece of sheer and utter nonsense that I'd hate

[thephilosophersapprentice]

About a week ago I read the stupidest opinion piece I have ever seen from a philosophy professor who I will fortunately never have the displeasure of actually meeting due to me being 1) out of college and 2) living in the midwest rather than the east coast.

One of the points he made in his article was claiming that in the Lord of the Rings, industrialization is bad because it's industrialization.

No! Industrialization in the Lord of the Rings is bad because it damages the environment, it's following the same lines as real-world industrialization (aka exploited factory workers who often suffered horrifying injuries, the OSHA laws written in blood, the triangle shirtwaist factory fire!), the control factory owners chose to exercise over their workers being everything but legal enslavement, and it's making everyone miserable for all of those reasons!

I don't know how anyone could read the chapters on Mordor, Isengard, and the Scouring of the Shire without taking away that Tolkien's message was partly environmentalist, partly that people deserve to be happy, that industrialization is bad because it's hurting everyone, not just destroying their way of life but making people miserable and leaving them to starve!

Anyways. I bet the professor citing the lord of the rings has never actually read the books and probably not even seen the movies because he puts out the sort of navel-gazing drivel that makes it obvious he thinks "frivolities" like fantasy are below him.

It's a good thing that I will likely never meet this guy, because I would throw hands with him in a McDonalds parking lot.