[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

Orly?

... is a town and airport in France, as far as I know. No idea about it's political leanings.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

How does one define "left", anyway? What's "left" in one country might be considered rather conservative in another.

Yep, let alone different stages of history. Most conservative parties today would be considered pretty far left by the standards of the French Revolution (which is where "left" and "right" as political labels come from)... and conversely, the kind of social politics we've seen from our German Social Democrats in the last ten years sometimes looks like they're trying to regress beyond Bismarck.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Personally, I see the Shire as being rather a Libertarian paradise; no police or court system, with everyone just doing as they please under no central authority, and all.

Agreed - but is that right-libertarian or left-libertarian?

OK, to get back on topic and fill the words with some meaning: I suppose from the German context you refer to in your post, Miggy, that you're using "left-wing supporters" to mean people who would describe themselves roughly as e.g. supporting individual liberty and privacy versus state surveillance, minority rights and tolerance versus racism, solidarity and social justice versus neo-liberal capitalism, to name the main issues. I think you can find support for the first two in Tolkien (think of the threats of denunciation among the Mordor Orcs, the Drúedain and the friendship between Legolas and Gimli), but it's debatable whether those are exclusively or even predominantly leftist positions. The last one, which is more of a traditionally leftist concern, doesn't seem to be much of an issue in Tolkien as far as I can see - which may have to do with the fact that he's describing a pre-industrial society.

Other matters are even less clear-cut. Environmentalism, which I think was quite important to Tolkien, cuts across the spectrum - at heart, it's a conservative concern (or should be), its association with the Left is rather accidental.
Or take localism versus centralism. Looking at Aragorn's Reunited Kingdom with its autonomous regions of The Shire and Drúadan Forest compared to Sauron's regime in Mordor, it's rather obvious where the Prof's sympathies lay - but does that make him "right" or "left"?

Finally (this is where Legate's post-communist Tolkien fans come in), what about class struggle? Conspicuously absent. Dictatorship of the proletariat? Likewise (unless you're going to kid yourself and paint the Orcs as revolutionary masses, as some leftist critics have had the unbelievable stupidity to do). Nationalizing the means of production? I suppose it could be argued that Saruman tried that in the Shire (or not), but again, Middle-earth was pre-industrial, so Marxist theory doesn't really apply here.

To get back to your question, Miggy, my own experience with other Tolkien fans is very similar to yours - but this may say more about myself and my choice of friends than about Tolkien fandom, or even German Tolkien fandom, in general; and I've met some exceptions (I'm married to one - at least she likes the books, although she'd vividly protest against being called a 'fan').

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Tolkien wasn't an ideologue, so there's something in his work for every political point of view.

Some more, some less, but basically yes - it's the same thing that makes him appeal to people from all kinds of cultural and religious backgrounds. I think there are political lessons to be learned from Tolkien (the man and his writings), if you're inclined to look for them, but the first one is that things are rarely so simple as ideologues both left and right would like us to believe.