VBV

“So we perhaps begin to see that work is not something we must be freed from - indeed cannot be freed from unless we are freeed entirely from action - but something we must engage in in such way and at such level that it is revealing of our deepest nature. It must contribute to our spiritual life while serving our bodily needs.
The very opposite of this case with the industrial pattern of work which is part and parcel of a social ethos that continually holds out the promise of leisure as a reward for the time and effort put into work. But this escape to a state of freedom from work is not offered as something that will serve our spiritual needs. Far from it.”
― Brian Keeble, Art For Whom and For What?

“What has been made all but impossible by the industrial system is that men and women can attain a livelihood by doing what is both aesthetically and morally sound and economically and practically valid, by a means that allows them both intellectual and spiritual responsibility.”
― Brian Keeble, Art For Whom and For What?

“The tool produces according to human needs, the machine regardless of human needs.”
― Brian Keeble, Art For Whom and For What?

“If Tolkien has a message, it is simple. Modern life tends to blind us to the true value of things - call it enchantment, if you will. Fantasy is a way to 'clean our windows' so we can see things as they are, he said, 'freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity - from possessiveness'.”
― John Garth, The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: The Places That Inspired Middle-earth