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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28319 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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Essential oils woo moms are the same thing. But, uh, bodybuilder bro lore is also the same thing.

I've been waiting for the perfect prompt for my erotica-trained LLM. Thank you, sir.

Just to even the scales a little, there is a conservative female coded astrology stand in: Lord of The Rings.

I was never a fan of either the books or the movies, but it's comes up all over the place (there are now like 5 different VC backed companies named after minor elements / characters --- Anduril, Palantir, etc.) As I understand it, Tolkien did intend for it to be a Christian allegory, but didn't want to make it as thinly veiled as things like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

That extent to which that is true or not doesn't matter. Conservative women get their fill of woo-woo, but in the context of being a princess / queen in a holy war against Satanic forces. They might join you in rolling their eyes at astrology, but will have strong thoughts about Galadriel.

Tolkien vehemently denied that he was writing any sort of allegory in the preface of LOTR, though I guess stating things plainly is the best way to be interpreted to have meant the opposite.

I offer no argument here. Like I said, I was never really a fan.

Let's say Tolkien didn't want to be an allegory. I surrender. My point was wrong. Please forgive my fundamental stupidity.

But people still treat it as a Christian Allegory. And some of those people woo it up.

I apologize if my counter came off as needlessly pedantic.I do enjoy both books and most of the films and feel a certain misplaced responsibility. Your wider point is of course evident.

I mean to what extent is being fans of a fictional world whose themes appeal to them comparable to astrology? LotR doesn't come with some woo-woo belief system attached.

The woo-woo belief system of astrology isn't a genuinely held belief system by 90% of astrology "practitioners." Elsewhere in the thread someone pointed out that the women who have astrology apps or know all of their moon signs don't truly believe that random musing on the constellations have causal validity. It's sort of a fun pastime paired with a "good vibes" aesthetic.

I'd say that's what LoTR is to many of its fans. It's not a cohesive belief system beyond being a re-telling of a Christian narrative. Nobody actually thinks they're fighting that bad guy spooky ghosts thingies (wraiths? Nazgul?). But it's fun to dig into the guts of the aesthetic.

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