tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post2295893676186675370..comments2024-03-29T10:24:20.171+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: "Gandalf for President" - Tolkien and fandomBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-83677680530522753062018-05-10T09:04:56.873+01:002018-05-10T09:04:56.873+01:00Hehehe, Bible fans.
Pretending to be perfectly bi...Hehehe, Bible fans.<br /><br />Pretending to be perfectly biblical instead of finding real ways to apply the principles of the Bible to their lives, since the 4th century.<br /><br />P.S. I guess the Pentateuch fans have been around even longer...according to the Bible. Fandom may be an intrinsic part of human nature, though it must have been harder back in the earliest days of humankind.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-84211499800598627212018-05-09T07:56:23.533+01:002018-05-09T07:56:23.533+01:00Dexter - indeed. Some Christians built this trap b...Dexter - indeed. Some Christians built this trap by asserting that the Bible, read verse by verse, and understood literally (by light of the latest linguistic scholarship) was the bedrock of Christian faith... <br /><br />So if you can find a verse that can be argued to mean (or have-meant when it was written) some factoid, then this is assumed to be decisive. <br /><br />They were trying to make a 'system' that was immune to personal intention and would compel the truth upon the reader.Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-49126619269312230422018-05-08T23:58:39.663+01:002018-05-08T23:58:39.663+01:00"Instead of learning-from Tolkien; it is quit..."Instead of learning-from Tolkien; it is quite normal for fans to read-into Tolkien whatever happens to be the current nihilism, hedonism, materialism, atheism... somehow fans find in Tolkien exactly what they seek - or else try (in effect) to 'teach' Tolkien about feminism, socialism, radical sexuality."<br /><br />I am sure you have noticed self-described Christians quoting the Bible to support their favorite modern political cause (socialism, mass immigration, etc.) They are, in effect, "fans" of the Bible rather than real Christians. And as you say, this is with a subversive and evil purpose.Dexterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07748293799490877339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-9172126061091027772018-05-07T15:45:02.657+01:002018-05-07T15:45:02.657+01:00I think no one whose interest is serious would cha...I think no one whose interest is serious would characterize himself as a "fan." Have you ever heard of a Bible fan? A Plato fan? Even a Tolstoy fan?Wm Jas Tychonievichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-64029703237737394622018-05-07T11:07:34.278+01:002018-05-07T11:07:34.278+01:00I feel that Michael has a core point.
There is a ...I feel that Michael has a core point.<br /><br />There is a distinct qualitative difference between the kind of person who takes their enthusiasm for mythic stories in the direction of serious application and those for whom it remains a childish game.<br /><br />It is unfortunate that "serious" scholarship falls into the latter category due to the institutional corruption of the entire education system, which reached higher education relatively late only after throughly debasing primary education.<br /><br />Or rather, Micheal's point is the core of what I see as the meat of your post...that mythic stories do no good if we do not apply them in realistic ways to our lives rather than merely glut our imaginations on escapism from the existential despair produced by the pointlessness of a life that doesn't challenge the evil around us.<br /><br />There is indeed a fundamental difference between pretending to be strong, skilled, and courageous as the heroes in stories as opposed to actually trying to incorporate that virtue into our real life in some way.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-38524503704006451042018-05-07T07:17:00.943+01:002018-05-07T07:17:00.943+01:00@MD - I'm not interested in 'laughing'...@MD - I'm not interested in 'laughing' at nerdy fandom - far from it. That is the mainstream media/ leftist response; and spontaneous enjoyment is good in itself, so far as it goes. Plus I am prejudiced in favour of nerdy enthusiasms. <br /><br />But I'm instead pointing out that, from my very different persepctive, fandom of good things (or, of things that contain good) does not deliver the improvement that might have been hoped. <br /><br />And indeed, in this world (here and now) where essentially *every* institution has been incrementally infiltrated, subverted and inverted; fandom of any size rapidly becomes (if it was not always) just a part of the system of corruption. <br /><br />One might reasonably have hoped that the Harry Potter phenomenon might have been a social force for good - since the books have such a vast readership, and are rooted in Christian values and values such as love, courage, family... Yet that has not been so. <br /><br />Back in the 60s, when Tolkien fandom got started, there would have been hope that Tolkiens greater work, and greater goodness, might have had an even more powerful benefits among the hippie generation; but that was not so. <br /><br />Indeed, even among Tolkien scholars, there seems little perceptible benefit/ effect from the books - since most of the scholars are wholly-assimilated to majority, mainstream, politically correct leftism - as if Tolkien had never existed; and they simply get-out-of, or read-into, Tolkien whatever academic concerns are currently-fashionable. <br /><br />http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/infiltration-subversion-and-inversion.html<br /><br />The good done by the objects of fandom is at a personal - small minority - level; and the benefits do not get scaled-up into fandom. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-91772013695412044132018-05-06T20:21:39.305+01:002018-05-06T20:21:39.305+01:00There's a Catholic Youtuber that goes by the h...There's a Catholic Youtuber that goes by the handle of Missing The Mark that had an excellent explanation why LARPers are a laughing stock that I think is pertinent to your point.<br /><br />Most LARPers don't LARP hard enough. He'd grown up with friends who started playing the games and for them, it led to an interest in actual skills and more real interests like blacksmithing or craftsmanship. Most LARPers don't make that shift of growing up, the distinction CS Lewis made between a child fascinated by Greek mythology actually being spurred to learn Greek. Many kids who grew up reading sci-fi then became scientists and engineers, more than one police officer was a Batman TAS viewer growing up, and many soldiers grew up on Captain America.<br /><br />Fandom is like this. Their enjoyment is too surface. They don't develop courage from reading about courageous acts; just a taste for the reading. Michael Dyerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02424741388413201535noreply@blogger.com