Now on honeymoon so that comes first, but making posts as I'm able. I won't be back on track until at least 11/25.
I will edit this post to add links as I usually have later - right now I just want to get this out there.
This week's portion is actually from last week (10.28) but I'm behind because I just got married and am now on my honemoon. Life comes first. That's not just for me - that's an ethical lesson for you, too, why not? Put your life first when possible, especially when the competition is a blog.
This time we're discussing "In the House of Tom Bombadil." Tom's a strange character we met before and have discussed in the past. This time we're going to look at the meaning behind some of his word choices:
"Tom's words laid bare the hearts of trees and their thoughts, which were often dark and strange,
and filled with a hatred of things that go free upon the earth, gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking,
burning: destroyers and usurpers. It was not called the Old Forst without reason, for it was indeed
ancient, a survivor of vast forgotten woods, and in it there lived yet, ageing no quicker than the
hills, the fathers of the fathers of trees, remembering times whern they were lords. The countless
years had filled them with pride and rooted wisdom, and with malice.
"Why does the Creative Wizard not just say "destroyers and usurpers"? Why specify how?"
"We may also ask, why do they specify destroyers and usurpers? Are not the descriptions of actions enough to garner sympathy?"
"I am not sympathetic! You and I gnaw and bite and break and hack and burn, and though we may call these things progress, the earth must surely resent it."
"I, too, will admit to the above. I reject I am a destroyer and usurper. It is not the correct conclusion to draw. It is as one who calls a toddler a terror. Surely children act reckless and out of control, but a to call one a terror says more about the speaker than the child."
"Words should be used to reveal the speaker, even if unintentionally. The trees cannot see the benefit of progress, and perhaps that is because they do not experience it."
"To them, the free peoples have destroyed what was working and have usurped their domain."
"Usurped is a particularly strong word. Gnawing, biting, etc are all actions one can regret or wish to avoid. But usurp necessarily breeds grievance. The dethroned wishes to retake their crown"
"The trees not only lament their loss of power, but desire to reclaim it."
"Oppose this with the Elves, who see their time as ending and, more-or-less, embrace it. The time for Men has come."
"Not only will Sauron resist that age. So will the trees of an age past."
"Which brings us to the final sentence, of rooted wisdom."
"This wisdom has been twisted. See, it appears between pride and malice."
"Rooted in it, perhaps. But roots are good, and wisdom is good. How can these two things, together, make something bad?"
"Roots are good because they make one sturdy, and create a path back to the solid ground. Without roots, one is unsteady - perhaps seen as unreliable. Not disloyal, but without loyalty at all. Roots are dependability. "
"Wisdom is good because, err, well how to describe?"
"Wisdom is to knowledge what a blog is to words."
"What??"
"Knowledge is an accumulation. A library."
"Another metaphor??"
"And wisdom is the catalogue. No, not quite."
"Getting lost in the stacks? A catalogue is just another accumulation."
"But organized."
"But this imaginary library isn't organized? Just books randomly placed? Words, too, are organized letters. Neihd isn't a word."
"It could be."
"But it isn't. Wisdom isn't a catalogue. Let's move along."
"Knowledge is knowing things - wisdom is knowing how to use those things."
"You could have said that to start."
"What happened to 'Let's move along'? This is obviously good because if you know lots of things you need to know how and when to apply that knowledge. That's why info-dumping can be offputting to some people, because it isn't useful right then."
"So roots give you something to depend on and wisdom helps you use what you know."
"So far so good - but rooted wisdom inhibits wisdom. You begin to depend on what you know, and you - one may say - catalog what you've done. And soon your wisdom becomes second-nature and soon that becomes routine. Y happens, you do X. That's no longer wisdom then, that's knowledge."
"What is an example of wisdom becoming knowledge?"
"Calendars used to be monumentally complicated and had to be reoriented often to remain correct. The Gregorian calendar fixed a lot of those issues - now we reorient once every 4 years with an extra day. It isn't a perfect system, which we know, but for the most part figuring out the date is exceedingly simple, such that it can be hard to explain that people used to live not with merely a different calendar but essentially with none whatsoever. Like comparing roman numerals to a calculator. Both use numbers, but aren't compatible with each other."
"So rooted wisdom takes wisdom that has become knowledge and refuses to update it."
"Yes - it continues to claim its insights are still insights, rather than using the evolution of wisdom to knowledge as an opportunity to gather new wisdom."
"However, the world continues to move onward. Progress is inevitable. If you hold on like that, pride in your old ways and malice toward the new is inevitable. You will feel usurped, but really you will be left behind."
"What should be done with those who feel left behind?"
"They must be brought with us - or better: invited. Even if it means changing the arc of progress to include them. Otherwise, they will use their agency to undermine progress. We must help them see not that the new world is destroyers: merely gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning. We are gnawing away at old problems, rather than seeing them as unbeatable. We are biting into new challenges, pushing human limits. We are breaking traditions that stifle to include more people. We are hacking away at old restrictions. We are burning the old ways not for spite, but to forge something new. Some will resist till the end, but most people want a community and aren't as picky as we think about where it comes from. If we reach out to them, if we invite them in, we'll have less old forests in our world to worry about, and less need to hope for eucatastrophe to overcome them."
"We may also ask, why do they specify destroyers and usurpers? Are not the descriptions of actions enough to garner sympathy?"
"I am not sympathetic! You and I gnaw and bite and break and hack and burn, and though we may call these things progress, the earth must surely resent it."
"I, too, will admit to the above. I reject I am a destroyer and usurper. It is not the correct conclusion to draw. It is as one who calls a toddler a terror. Surely children act reckless and out of control, but a to call one a terror says more about the speaker than the child."
"Words should be used to reveal the speaker, even if unintentionally. The trees cannot see the benefit of progress, and perhaps that is because they do not experience it."
"To them, the free peoples have destroyed what was working and have usurped their domain."
"Usurped is a particularly strong word. Gnawing, biting, etc are all actions one can regret or wish to avoid. But usurp necessarily breeds grievance. The dethroned wishes to retake their crown"
"The trees not only lament their loss of power, but desire to reclaim it."
"Oppose this with the Elves, who see their time as ending and, more-or-less, embrace it. The time for Men has come."
"Not only will Sauron resist that age. So will the trees of an age past."
"Which brings us to the final sentence, of rooted wisdom."
"This wisdom has been twisted. See, it appears between pride and malice."
"Rooted in it, perhaps. But roots are good, and wisdom is good. How can these two things, together, make something bad?"
"Roots are good because they make one sturdy, and create a path back to the solid ground. Without roots, one is unsteady - perhaps seen as unreliable. Not disloyal, but without loyalty at all. Roots are dependability. "
"Wisdom is good because, err, well how to describe?"
"Wisdom is to knowledge what a blog is to words."
"What??"
"Knowledge is an accumulation. A library."
"Another metaphor??"
"And wisdom is the catalogue. No, not quite."
"Getting lost in the stacks? A catalogue is just another accumulation."
"But organized."
"But this imaginary library isn't organized? Just books randomly placed? Words, too, are organized letters. Neihd isn't a word."
"It could be."
"But it isn't. Wisdom isn't a catalogue. Let's move along."
"Knowledge is knowing things - wisdom is knowing how to use those things."
"You could have said that to start."
"What happened to 'Let's move along'? This is obviously good because if you know lots of things you need to know how and when to apply that knowledge. That's why info-dumping can be offputting to some people, because it isn't useful right then."
"So roots give you something to depend on and wisdom helps you use what you know."
"So far so good - but rooted wisdom inhibits wisdom. You begin to depend on what you know, and you - one may say - catalog what you've done. And soon your wisdom becomes second-nature and soon that becomes routine. Y happens, you do X. That's no longer wisdom then, that's knowledge."
"What is an example of wisdom becoming knowledge?"
"Calendars used to be monumentally complicated and had to be reoriented often to remain correct. The Gregorian calendar fixed a lot of those issues - now we reorient once every 4 years with an extra day. It isn't a perfect system, which we know, but for the most part figuring out the date is exceedingly simple, such that it can be hard to explain that people used to live not with merely a different calendar but essentially with none whatsoever. Like comparing roman numerals to a calculator. Both use numbers, but aren't compatible with each other."
"So rooted wisdom takes wisdom that has become knowledge and refuses to update it."
"Yes - it continues to claim its insights are still insights, rather than using the evolution of wisdom to knowledge as an opportunity to gather new wisdom."
"However, the world continues to move onward. Progress is inevitable. If you hold on like that, pride in your old ways and malice toward the new is inevitable. You will feel usurped, but really you will be left behind."
"What should be done with those who feel left behind?"
"They must be brought with us - or better: invited. Even if it means changing the arc of progress to include them. Otherwise, they will use their agency to undermine progress. We must help them see not that the new world is destroyers: merely gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning. We are gnawing away at old problems, rather than seeing them as unbeatable. We are biting into new challenges, pushing human limits. We are breaking traditions that stifle to include more people. We are hacking away at old restrictions. We are burning the old ways not for spite, but to forge something new. Some will resist till the end, but most people want a community and aren't as picky as we think about where it comes from. If we reach out to them, if we invite them in, we'll have less old forests in our world to worry about, and less need to hope for eucatastrophe to overcome them."
This had been a patreon-supported project, but that proved too annoying to maintain. If you would like to financially support this project, drop $1.11 (or any amount, I suppose) into my Venmo!
ChatGPT contributed about 0% to this post's final version.
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