Tolkien & Craftsmanship

Overview

The Lord of the Rings is, at one level, a book about people making things — and about the consequences of how they make them. Tolkien was not subtle about this. Most of the book's moral weight sits on decisions that are, recognizably, craftsmanship decisions: what do you make, why do you make it, for whom, and to what standard.

The Races as Builder Archetypes

RACE	CRAFT TRAIT	LESSON
Elves	Long-view, preserving	Build for centuries, not sprints. Some things deserve that horizon.
Dwarves	Deep specialization	Mastery is real. So is the cost of overconfidence (see: Moria).
Men	Ambition, mixed results	The same power that builds Númenor sinks Númenor.
Hobbits	Everyday, small-scale	Not every build is epic. Most of life is the comfortable kitchen.
Sauron	All of the above, misused	Skill without ethics is Sauron. See: The One Ring.

Applicable Rules

1. Make for a reason other than to make. Art for art's sake is a luxury; craft for the thing's sake is a virtue.
2. Beware tools you can't put down. (See: The Ring, Redux. See also: certain JavaScript frameworks.)
3. The Fellowship is the unit, not the hero. See: The Fellowship.
4. The Shire is the point. You do not save the world to celebrate in Mordor. You do it to get home.

"I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." — Gandalf, on shipping a difficult feature