Q: Why was J.R.R. Tolkien against industrialization?
https://www.quora.com/Why-was-J-R-R-Tolkien-against-industrialization/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-2
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Studied Latin (language) at Lund University
- Jun 2nd, 2025
- Take a look at the video How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet[1] — or take a look at a car accident.
Cars had been one of the products of industrialism Tolkien enjoyed most in his youth. Then he thought about it, and one thing that came to his mind was a hit and run ending in a death in Paris, which he had witnessed. It also hit him how much land was sacrificed to parking places and to roads in asphalt.
Back then, there was lead in car fuel. So, every mile ridden in a car contributed to poison the air somewhat. Fortunately, this is now forbidden.
His friend C. S. Lewis never used zips. For trousers, he had buttoned ones, because a button can be sewn back to its place fairly easily by hand. Sewing a whole new zipper is wastful, since the whole thing is discarded for just one tooth out of place, and hard unless you know how to sew them on by sewing machines. Which CSL didn’t, and, though I’ve seen it done, I don’t know either.
Canned food is obviously less pleasant than freshly cooked, unless you are good at seasoning. Farmers in a pre-industrial society tend to be majority population and well off and easy going compared to farmers in an industrial society, indebted, menaced if small, always in a hurry to make ends meet.
So, if you like farmers to be many and happy, if you prefer no car hits and (back then) no lead in the atmosphere, if you prefer buttons over zips, cooking from raw ingredients over cans, what would make you love industrialism?
Footnotes
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC2eSujzrUY
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