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Old 07-05-2006, 11:03 AM   #7
The Squatter of Amon Rûdh
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Pipe Shirepolitik

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What is the identity of 'England'? Its just a bit of Britain seemingly, without any identity of its own, especially now Wales, Scotland and NI have their own assemblies. In that respect, 'England' has no mind. It also has no rights as we are not citizens, we are subjects, and servants of the Queen. We have no Bill of Rights.
I don't think that's quite what Tolkien meant here. I think that he was trying to say that the realm of England, unlike the English state (or the German state for that matter), is something that is inferior to the individuals who inhabit it. The State, as referred to in the gutter press, is a thing which is supposedly virtually omniscient, can claim arbitrary and sweeping authority and controls some mysterious nexus of genius that renders it practically infallible. Tolkien wouldn't be the first person to find that a disturbing entity to have in existence. England, on the other hand, is the proper noun for a country of North-Western Europe, bordered by Scotland to the north, Wales and the Irish Sea to the west and the English Channel and North Sea to the South and East. Nothing particularly threatening about that.

Tolkien did not agree with the personification of the State as a being with rights, thoughts and opinions. I regard such an entity as a useful thing for people to hide behind when doing distasteful things that they wouldn't want to appear in their biographies, and that's the biggest danger of that way of thinking. Both classical Anarchy and absolute monarchy, by on the one hand removing the apparatus of government altogether and on the other placing all of the responsibility in the hands of one specific person, allow no latitude to act in the name of an entity without a face. In a modern democracy it's possible to make nobody actually responsible for anything, yet still concentrate power into the hands of a few people. I'm not saying that Tolkien was right, but I can understand why he might have held his views. In any case, his ways are no more or less right than those to which we adhere, but political science, philosophy, and finally and inevitably madness lie in that direction.
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Last edited by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh; 07-05-2006 at 11:06 AM. Reason: Typos
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