Utopian Shire

[The Might]

So as to celebrate my recent return to the BW I decided to start an interesting thread here. The idea for the topic came to me while reading an essay on utopian societies, which immediately made me think of Hobbits.

Here is an excerpt of the essay:

The only real ideal that humanity should have is simply this: “Love your neighbor as your self”. Humanity’s known this maxim since time immemorial; since the first tribe discovered that the only way they could indeed stay together was through cooperation! And actually that’s all it really is – cooperation. Why is cooperation really that hard to achieve?

Well, what do we have to have in order to create cooperation? Firstly, cooperation is between people. Secondly, it’s between people who trust each other. “There be the rub”, as Shakespeare would say!

Trust is indeed a problem; we see the consequences of its loss all around us, everywhere we turn, in this, so called, “enlightened” society of ours. You see, when we say we trust someone, we expect that they in turn trust us, and visa versa; each person in this relationship expects something in return… namely,… you got it, … trust! But that old maxim that we spouted above, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, doesn’t say that you should love him because he loves you, or that you should expect anything at all in return! It just says “Love him or her” period! Of course “loving”, him or her, assumes giving, him or her, your trust and cooperation.

I find it beautifully written and with a lot of truth in it.

It was by reading this that I realised what makes Hobbits so special really - it is their trust and their desire to cooperate.

Now, of course there are examples against this, Hobbits fearful or mistrustful of others, but really deep down, in need they would all stand united against a common foe - take Lobelia's example of attacking a Ruffian with an umbrella.

All in all, Hobbits, were happy to help and to work together for the common good, and although they of course all had their personal interests and wanted to get something for themselves, they didn't neglect the needs of others.

Of course an example the true utopian Shire is the coming of Saruman and the ruffians - it showed that under threat Hobbits would side with aggressors and neglect their own kin, an argument this could of course be their actual lack of knowledge as far as attacks from the outside are concerned.

Ok, that's about all I had to say in the introductory post, what I wish to add at the end is that this thread is supposed to be about a utopian Shire in general and about the abstract values that helped create it not about what utopian system is best or something else.

Have fun posting, I'm looking forward to reading your replies!

[Bêthberry]

I think this aspect of utopia could be a good reason why Gandalf would never beat a hobbit.

[Rumil]

Hi Might,

the problem for me with the utopian vision of the Shire is that the Red Book etc were written by gentle-hobbits as you might say. Bilbo and Frodo were independently wealthy, Pippin and Merry were scions of the most poweful families of the Shire, only Sam really represents the ordinary hobbit.

Imagine a Victorian gentleman who lives in the countryside, he might describe his life in similar terms to those used in the Shire, all about family, community, good fellowship etc. Naturally he'd know there were worse places, the coal-mining towns, bleak mills and city rookeries, but he might overlook the poverty of the rural folk.

I think that any agricultural society requires the majority of people to work on the land, which was hard back-breaking work before machinery was available. Nowadays we see one guy with a combine harvester doing what would have taken hundreds of people to do in the old days. If the harvest failed people would starve, simple as that, (like the Fell Winter in the Shire), unless you had money or goods put by to see you through the hard times, only possible if you earned well! Hobbits seem good at helping each other out, but I doubt eveyone was as generous as the Bagginses (eg Sackville-Bagginses!)

The Gaffer comes to mind with his waistcoat, sack of spuds and a new spade. He's more of a typical hobbit, with 'local' ways and mistrust of outsiders, than Bilbo!

The 'outsider' hobbits always fascinated me. Were they adventurers or outcasts, perhaps a little of both!

So not utopia, just a sleepy rural land with, to be fair, more of the good things and fewer of the bad things, than a typical rural human community before the machine age.

[Morthoron]

Well, obviously the Shire is Tolkien's utopian vision of the England that was, the countryside of his youth -- agrarian and nonindustrial -- before the advent of Sandyman's dark, satanic mill. Sandyman's mill and the noveau-riche Sackville-Baggins' modern incursions presaged the more overt industrialism and totalitarianism of Sharkey and his Ruffians: clear-cutting forests, slipshod shanties in place of traditional Hobbitish farm and disintegration of the nuclear family (or at least the bonds within the extended Hobbit families).

Samwise 'Appleseed' Gamgee and his coterie of martial hobbits (Pippin and Merry) returned conservatism, restored the old folkways and reforested the scarred hills during a renaissance that I am sure was Tolkien's heartfelt and vengeful hope for the overthrow of industrialized England.

[Lalwendë]

What's that saying about the perfect society always being the one that was fifty years ago? That's the impression I get from what Tolkien was trying to paint for The Shire - it was the rural past of England that was just, but only just, out of his reach.

Of course we can find plenty of reasons why the Real World at that time might not have been so perfect, and we could probably find some reasons why The Shire was not so perfect. I mean, why did Bilbo have to teach Sam his 'letters'? Was there no schooling for working class Hobbit children? If I was to write a Marxist analysis of Tolkien's work then that would certainly figure highly...

But anyway, yes, The Shire approaches something Utopian in that there is a general air of happiness about the place and we do not see any obvious examples of suffering or oppression. There is no need for much 'policing' which suggests a lack of crime, and the classes (Sackville-Bagginses aside) seem to rub up nicely, certainly the upper crust Merry and Pippin treat Sam very well. Of course, I could just see The Shire that way as the world I lived in as a small child wasn't too different from The Shire, being rural and cosy and populated by Gaffer types.

There are plenty of readings of The Shire as being a bit 'anarcho-syndicalist' in that there are few 'rules' and little Authority yet people seem to work co-operatively and happily together. There have also been parallels drawn between The Shire (and Tolkien in general) with William Morris and his own idealised views of how the world ought to be. And still more, people have 'read' it as symbolising England in the age of Empire when people 'knew their place' and life was bountiful.

I suppose you can almost read whatever 'sort' of Utopia into it that you wish, really...and the biggest tragedy about what Saruman does is that he destroys this idyll and even though it can be 'repaired', the memory of it won't ever go, and it's very much Innocence Lost.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

What's that saying about the perfect society always being the one that was fifty years ago? That's the impression I get from what Tolkien was trying to paint for The Shire - it was the rural past of England that was just, but only just, out of his reach.

The basic trait of any conservatism is this: a longing for a past that never actually was but which they think there should have been. So conservatism is utopianism after all?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

The basic trait of any conservatism is this: a longing for a past that never actually was but which they think there should have been. So conservatism is utopianism after all?

I presume you mean classical conservatism, and not scary 'let's rip everything down and build business parks' neo-conservatism?

[Laurinquë]

Perhaps I'm just being an Alaskan, but I fail to see what is so great about a peaceful agrarian society. I would much rather live in a peaceful society that hasn't ripped the land to shreds, aka "tamed" it. For this reason I much prefer places like Lothlorien or Rivendell, where there is peaceful civilization, but also where the land has been left fairly undisturbed.

I do not think we should see a bygone era of pre-industrialization farming as a wonderful golden age of humanity, a time before the land was laid to waste or whatever, if the land has been farmed it has already been laid to waste, it's as simple as that.

Tolkien seems to have considered pre-industrialization England as the true England, when really he should have been looking back to a time before humans had ever laid eyes on the place.

For these reason, I cannot say that I would consider the Shire to be a utopia, or at least not one I would care to live in.