# Industrialization in LOTR



## Espio (Mar 1, 2004)

I was watching the extended edition of two towers with commentary from peter jackson, and he claimed that tolkien was demonizing industrialization with the orcs destroying fangorn forest.

I haven't read all the books, but does anyone else think tolkien is demonizing industry? Without industrialization, the population would continue to raise which would cause more use of the environment. When a society industrializes, the population starts to go down. I'm saying that its good for the environment in the long run.

Also, how is it the orcs overpopulate the other races by so much? If they are industrialized they should have less population. And look at their land, they can't farm food there, how can they support so many orcs? By trade? Who are they trading with if they are trying to "destroy the world of men"?


----------



## Confusticated (Mar 1, 2004)

Hi Espio, and welcome to the forum.

I am not sure what you have in mind... Industrialization lowers which population how?

I wouldn't speak for Tolkien but LotR leaves me the impression that it was not viewed as a good thing. hehe... not by a stretch. Note the Scouring of the Shire too. The use of the Shire for industrialization was presented as being a horrible thing. I'd say to think about what the hobbits are and think of how they lived and bear in mind they did not go in for complicated machinery. My own idea is that the following message can be read into LotR: You want to be an elf? Too bad! You can not live for centuries, but maybe you could try being more like a hobbit instead. They are the happiest of people.


----------



## Arthur_Vandelay (Mar 2, 2004)

Espio said:


> I was watching the extended edition of two towers with commentary from peter jackson, and he claimed that tolkien was demonizing industrialization with the orcs destroying fangorn forest.
> 
> I haven't read all the books, but does anyone else think tolkien is demonizing industry? Without industrialization, the population would continue to raise which would cause more use of the environment. When a society industrializes, the population starts to go down. I'm saying that its good for the environment in the long run.



Bear in mind that we're having this discussion in 2004, after the rise of environmentalism, innovations in environmental science, the development of clean energy, etc. In Tolkien's time, champions of industrialisation rarely would have mentioned its environmental benefits--they would more likely have talked of improved efficiency, economic prosperity and national pride. _Lord of the Rings_, and "Scouring of the Shire" in particular, challenges this logic by depicting industrialisation as a malevolent and irrational force--its only guiding principle the transformation of the Shire into a desert. Bear in mind also that _Lord of the Rings_ presents not a scientific environmentalism, but a (Romantic?) valorisation of "Nature" more in terms of its aesthetic and spiritual qualities.


----------



## HLGStrider (Mar 2, 2004)

I think it is more of Tolkien's personal tastes than a tirade against something. 

Tolkien disliked machines like the internal combustion engine (though he was rumored to be a menace behind the wheel of his own car. . .at least as far as his wife was concerned). He liked trees. These likes and dislikes show up in his works. I don't think he was trying to use his work to preach to us against industrialism. There are lectures in his letters about it, I do believe, but in the main portion of Tolkien you just get a feeling about what Tolkien liked and didn't. He didn't like noises and smells and clear cuts. . .in fact few of us do.
It's natural to make what is ugly what is evil.


----------



## Espio (Mar 2, 2004)

Nóm said:


> I am not sure what you have in mind... Industrialization lowers which population how?



Well its also education that helps bring the pop growth down. I don't know the "how" reason for it, but its a statistical fact when you compare population growth in industrial countries to 3rd world countries.

Ok so you guys don't think he was demonizing industry, but what about the other question. How did the orcs appear to outbreed humans so much? Was this only in the films to make it more scary? Cause you don't see any farms or any way to support them in mordor or isengard.


----------



## Confusticated (Mar 2, 2004)

Well the orcs in the Third Age...

Some lived in mountains for long amounts of time pulling raids on settlements of men, and warring with dwarves and such... and these could get food that way. They could also kill and eat just about anything that lived. They were not above cannibolism. I suppose they would eat anything.

The orcs of Mordor were probably provided with food from the fertile area in the south of Mordor, or maybe other imports from the South or East of Middle-earth. Saruman's orcs too were probably provided with some foods by Saruman who did have things imported... though I wouldn't be surpised to learn he fed them primarily orc meat?

I think they must have reproduced often, and perhaps had litters? Though I don't recall anything in the text which proves this... it is only an opinion. I can imagine all the females orcs in a constant state of being knocked up. But infanticide was probably common too... another source of food.


----------



## Sôval Phârë (Mar 2, 2004)

Nóm said:


> The orcs of Mordor were probably provided with food from the fertile area in the south of Mordor, or maybe other imports from the South or East of Middle-earth.



The book specifically mentions slave labor on lands around the Sea of Nurnen. Does anyone have their book available, to give the exact quote? I believe it's somewhere in the second half of The Return of the King.


----------



## Elessar II (Mar 3, 2004)

> though he was rumored to be a menace behind the wheel of his own car. . .at least as far as his wife was concerned



Are you sure? Cuz' I heard that Tolkien refused to even learn how to drive a vehicle.


----------



## Gil-Galad (Mar 3, 2004)

Well,I do believe that Tolkien disliked industrialization.New inventions and things which were changing the world everyday.
He survived the horror of World War I and saw the horror of World War II.And progress can be blamed for the suffer in these wars.Due to the new "inventions"the wars became so horrible.

As a whole I believe that Tolkien did not like the progress,because he realized that there would always be people who would use it for their own purposes which would be bad for the people and the world.


----------



## grendel (Mar 3, 2004)

Orcs were not, to my mind, "natural" creatures, and so were not bound by natural laws, in terms of population growth following food supply, etc. I think they were driven to breed by Sauron's will, because he wanted the largest possible army, with which to dominate Middle-Earth. Then he took land and food and fuel and everything else to support that army; not the other way around.


----------



## HLGStrider (Mar 3, 2004)

> Are you sure? Cuz' I heard that Tolkien refused to even learn how to drive a vehicle.


Quite. There is even a story that his kid's story "Mr. Bliss" involving a man who is a terror with his big yellow car, was based on his own driving, or his wife's reaction to it. That's according to Carpenter. Another biographer, and his son John, both state that the car was purchased long after Mr. Bliss was started.


----------



## Lantarion (Mar 4, 2004)

Yes I feel that 'LotR' can be sen as a powerful anti-industrialistic commentary; and there is no real allegory involved at all, Tolkien simply states his own hate of industrialization and loss of respect for naturalism through the events and actions of characters within the story. Isengard, the Scouring, Tom Bombadil, Rohan and Fangorn are all prime examples of this theme.
It is the belief of many, it seems, that the 'Lord of the Rings' holds absolutely no deeper meaning than its own legendary appeal; I believe that as Tolkien was a professor of English, an extremely descriptive writer and even a poet, his works do include more than just historically prosaic accounts. I obviously do not challenge his own words, that the 'LotR' is not to be sen as an allegorical work in any way; but, like Thomas Hardy, it is my strong belief that Tolkien did use subtle metaphor or other technical tools to bring certain universal points across. 

Actually this very same "industrialization vs naturalism" problem has arisen in my English class, because we are reading "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" rather closely; and I find myself constantly bringing up this very, very similar theme in the LotR.


----------

