EXTRA: JD Vance and Lord of the Rings
My most recent column at RNS
[By Peter J. Yost - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98351026]
Here is the beginning of my latest column for RNS, out today:
(RNS) — The ethos of every modern generation might be defined by its literary movements. The Scriblerus Club of early 18th-century Britain was characterized by wit and satirical bite. The Romantics of the next century embraced free love and radicalism. The Modernists were distant and erudite. The Beat Generation was nothing if not roving, free-spirited and hedonistic.
Now we are seeing the rise of the Fantasy Generation. This is the generation that came of age in the early 2000s amid the “Lord of the Rings” film franchise based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien. As a result of the fan culture made possible by the parallel rise of the internet, Tolkien’s epic story in all its forms and deliveries — print, e-book, audio book, cable, streaming and endless memes — is omnipresent. Tolkien is now considered the “father of fantasy,” and his imitators — good, poor and in between — are infinite.
The official ascent of the Fantasy Generation may well be marked by the nomination of JD Vance for vice president of the United States.
Read the rest here.
Karen, I am technically one of the Fantasy Generation, being in my late teens when the films were released. I found the film posters very intriguing but I never saw them in theatre, and did not read the books right away - I knew 'The Hobbit' from my pre-program childhood but not LOTR. I was still half in the thrall of that cultic homeschool program, and felt guilty about indulging in any kind of fantasy - even C. S. Lewis had been frowned upon. It took a long time to rid myself of the sense of guilt - but I eventually found the LOTR slightly disappointing, as I had envisioned a different world from those posters and my knowledge of the Hobbit, than the film or books conveyed.
That program definitely preached the "do great things for God" motto. We were told our generation would change the world for the better. When I read summations of the character of the Millennial generation, critics often said that it was being told we were exceptional and got participation trophies that made us into the seemingly dysfunctional generation that we were for a time regarded as being. It is ironic that a program, which claimed to be giving parents a different approach than the world's to child-rearing, gave the same message of exceptionalism to those children, but from sinister, manipulative motives.