https://vegasharmon.com/works/one-tool-to-rule-them-all/ Recent content in One Tool to Rule Them All on Vegas Harmon Hugo en Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/magic-and-machine-tolkien-s-two-kinds-of-power/ Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/magic-and-machine-tolkien-s-two-kinds-of-power/ To ask this question is to answer it—at least for any attentive reader of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy classic The Lord of the Rings. Although set in a pre-technological mythical world of wizards and dragons, Tolkien’s trilogy is, more than anything else, a profound meditation upon technology. Nor should this surprise us; for as C.S. Lewis has argued, the modern enterprise of “technology” and the medieval pursuit of “magic” are two versions of the same quest: to manipulate the world through the discovery of hidden knowledge, the perfection of arcane techniques. https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/powerful-tools-wield-their-users-in-return/ Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://vegasharmon.com/commonplace/powerful-tools-wield-their-users-in-return/ Second, Tolkien understood that the more powerful the tool, the less likely that an ordinary user could use it effectively, rather than being shaped or controlled by it. Thus, when Pippin looks into the palantir of Orthanc, he is almost immediately captivated by it and wholly under the domination of Sauron’s will operating through it. Only Aragorn, the rightful possessor of the stone and a man hardened by battle and seasoned with wisdom, is able to “wrench the stone to his own will,” and that only through “a bitter struggle.