Mouth of Sauron wrote:
Quote:
|
You could go on for ever . It's all crap and the book is brilliant - end of story .
|
I agree that LotR is not racist. But I think that your summary dismissal of all such criticisms is unfair.
Certainly, the examples like "anti-semitism because circumcision isn't mentioned" are absurd. But criticisms such as the anti-republican point deserve serious consideration.
I think that the correct way to argue against racism in LotR is not to say "that's stupid". There
are after all different races in the book, with different natures, and some are presented as 'good' and others as 'evil'.
Rather, the correct way to argue against racism is to provide positive counter-arguments. In fact, on the whole, LotR has always struck me as being quite anti-racist in showing beings from many different cultures (Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, Dunedain, Rohirrim) working together as allies for the common good. One could go further and provide more positive arguments - for example the excellent passage where Sam sees a dead Easterling (or is it a Southron?) in Ithilien and feels sympathy for him.