A question about class in Middle Earth

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Love the way that all the non-Brits are arguing about class but agreeing that we are obsessed about it

Ah, there's that legendary British understatement we've all come to know and love.

Actually, if you look carefully I believe only one poster linked Brits exclusively to class obsession (and everyone else disagreed to such exclusivity, be they Euros or Yanks); but I think that the American version of the class divide was more racial in tenor, or due to the point of national origin. My ancestors being Italian and Irish were certainly met with scorn by those WASP's (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) who could recall their descent in bardic cadence from the first settlers off the Mayflower or the veterans of the Revolutionary War. I have a Help Wanted sign dated to the 1850's that carries the disclaimer: No Irish Need Apply.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

I just think that the great social mobility of the last century provided a rich seam for drama and humour which many writers and film makers have exploited. And the social mobility is reflected in LOTR particularly of Tolkien's works. Think of Faramir talking about Gondor and Rohan and Sam rising to be Mayor and his daughter marrying the Thain's son.

Yes, Samwise, the gardener who made good; of course, it didin't hurt that he was a war hero (when the Hobbits finally learned there was indeed a war and other civilizations existing beyond their borders), and that his best friends were young scions of the 'great houses' of the Shire, and who eventually became Thain Peregrin and Meriadoc, Master of Buckland (not to mention having King Elessar's ear and a daughter serving as the Queen's Maid of Honor). Just your average Joe fortunate enough not to be the apprentice to Ted Sandyman's dear ol' dad.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

To get back to Tolkien, there is a clear hierachy between the kindred of the Elves, and with Men there is an even more refined hierachy - the purer Numenoreans being a cut above even within the superior realm of Gondor. With the Dwarves the line of Durin is top and even the Orcs make distinctions from the Uruk-hai down to the snufflers. It is clearly a very hierachical world from the Valar down... but that is hardly suprising for a mythology which concern generally the great and the good (and the great at being bad), the powers of the world not the "poor ****** infantry".

But how many epics, from Homer's Iliad to Malory's Mort d'Arthur to Tolstoy's War and Peace to Tolkien's LotR dealt with anyone but the high and mighty (or at least comfortably well off)? Grunts are wiped out at Gallipoli or the Somme or the day after Christmas in All's Quiet on the Western Front. They smell horrid, can't articulate well and come home to find disenchantment, unemployment and life on the dole. That's John Steinbeck or Hemingway, not Tolkien.

I think you're right about the Gondorion penchant to trace their lineage to Numenor (and the bluer the blood, the better), and I agree with your views on hierarchical stratification up to a point; however, the original question concerned a 'class divide' among different races, and although elements of that occurred in previous ages (as I mentioned previously, the vassalage of the Edain to the Noldor), my point was that such a divide from a racial standpoint is not readily discernible in the 3rd Age. There was far too much separation (or self-imposed segregation, if you prefer) for such a statement to be plausible.

[Mithalwen]

But Morthoron I never mentioned exclusivity And I did wonder if the Cabots were still only talking to God

I did state that mythology did tend to concern the great and the good so I am not sure why you are picking me up on that... :S

Yes it always helps to have friends in high places but in some cultures changing your station in life is just not possible. It was possible in the Shire.

However I certainly agree that there was too much separation for a racial class divide at the end of the third age. Even the men of Gondor have little contact with the Elves, the Rohirrim regard them with suspicion tinged with fear and hostility. Only the rangers have much to do with them and they are regarded as vagabonds by the "respectable" folk of Bree.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

I did state that mythology did tend to concern the great and the good so I am not sure why you are picking me up on that... :S

Actually, I wasn't picking on you, I was expanding on your comment regarding "the powers of the world not the "poor ****** infantry"; however, I sometimes sound argumentative even when being agreeable. It's that whole curmudgeon thing I've developed as I get older and more irascible.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

It's that whole curmudgeon thing I've developed as I get older and more irascible.

Ah... I am going for paranoia myself... as you may have noticed

[William Cloud Hicklin]

American indians were hunter-gatherers.

Not by any means universally true. While *some* Indians were as 'primitive' as the Kalahari Bushmen (the Shoshone, various California groups), there were also very highly-developed agrarian and civic societies, (the Pueblo and their ancestors, and the Mississippian culture); and many gradations in between (the Eastern Iroquoian and Algonkian groups were agriculturalists and hunters both; the Northwest Indians like the Tlingit were technically hunter-gatherers in their land of plenty but had very highly evfolved societies).

And then of course there was Mesoamerica, with high civilizations on a par with Egypt's Old Kingdom!

When the Europeans started to flux to America during the 16th century, they were mainly outlaws and protestants who were persecuted for their faith

.

Not really. Sure it applies to the Separatists of Plymouth Rock, but not at all to most of the rest of the colonies, which were founded by men seeking- what else? - wealth. Virginia was started as a money-making scheme by solid Anglicans, and produced its own upper class of planter-aristocrats, from which men like Washington and Jefferson came.

Calvinism - one of the major faiths of those immigrating to the Americas - says that those who are rich are approved by God and those who are poor are abhorred by Him.

Certainly Calvin never said anything of the sort. Say rather that certain rich men tried to justify themselves in pseudo-Calvinist terms.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

And then of course there was Mesoamerica, with high civilizations on a par with Egypt's Old Kingdom!

Actually it is quite interesting to discus the differences between the greater civilizations of America and to those of Euro-Asia, but I guess your main point was to point out that not everybody was hunters and not inviting to such a talk. . . . I shall just try to restrain my self then.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Not really. Sure it applies to the Separatists of Plymouth Rock, but not at all to most of the rest of the colonies, which were founded by men seeking- what else? - wealth. Virginia was started as a money-making scheme by solid Anglicans, and produced its own upper class of planter-aristocrats, from which men like Washington and Jefferson came.

This is still a subject of much debate.

Who was it that left their home lands for America. . . . Was it "the best" the inovative, the fortune seekers or was it "the worst", the outlaws and hunted?

I have heard many people argue for both points, but I am not yet won over by any of them.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Who was it that left their home lands for America. . . . Was it "the best" the inovative, the fortune seekers or was it "the worst", the outlaws and hunted?

I have heard many people argue for both points, but I am not yet won over by any of them.

The answer, I think, is "all of the above." Just like most mass emigrations.

On the low extreme, there were the transportees- convicted criminals sentenced to indentured servitude (however, they were never as significant in number as British myth would have it- America wasn't Australia!). At the other end, there were indeed members (usually younger) of noble families: West (Lord De la Warr), Calvert (Lord Baltimore), Fairfax; and others of high rank like the Byrd and Digges dynasties (the same families as the famous courtiers). The Washingtons were nowhere near as exalted but were still solid country gentry.

Nonetheless these were also quite small in number, even when we include those of gentle origin who never entered history in those (to us shockingly) recordless and anonymous days. One of my ancestors in his 1712 will bequeathed to his eldest son "my rapier and my gold seal ring which I am accustomed to wear:" the hallmarks of a gentleman, although we know nothing of his origins.

The principal attractant to the Colonies was land: and what land attracted was farmers. In agrarian England land was still the fount of wealth- but it was all spoken for, and rarely sold at the freehold level. Most rural English were tenants, a trend which accelerated throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries. Even the remaining independent yeomen were ill-disposed to divide their acreage, leaving younger sons out in the cold.

But, in America! The Crown was giving the stuff away free! Fifty acres per head, just for clearing and farming it! What a tremendous magnet for those willing to endure the hardships.

Religion was a much lesser motivator. There were certainly some religious 'refuges' after Plymouth, like Maryland and Pennsylvania: but Penn was wise enough to know he needed certain skilled trades, and happily recruited blacksmiths and coopers and whatnot without regard to faith: and at any rate, these religious-based communities were soon overwhelmed by ordinary land-seekers, Anglican and Presbyterian both.

Ah, the Presbyterians- the so-called 'Scotch-Irish' or 'Ulster Scots' (although two-thirds of them were of English origin). The legend persists (and was passed down in my family) that they fled religious persecution (in some versions by the Irish Catholics!!!!!!!)- but the principal reason was much more prosaic: in the early decades of the 18th century the original 99-year leases in the Ulster Plantation were expiring, and the landlords were jacking the rents up through the roof. Were those who therefore migrated to claim the available American lands (chiefly by then in the hardscrabble Appalachians) thus more or less 'worthy' or 'tough' or whatever compared to those Orangemen who stuck it out in Tyrone and Derry? Is chocolate or vanilla better?




In all of this though one thing was certainly the case: social mobility was far more rapid in the Colonies than it had been in the Mother County. A relative nobody like Robert "King" Carter could amass wealth on a baronial scale: 300,000 acres and 10,000 pounds cash. He was obviously the exception: what was however not the exception but normative was that the small farmer on his 100 or so acres was a landowner, nobody's tenant: and therefore also a voter, empowered to choos his Burgess and local magistrates in a manner unknown to most small English farmers. He tended therefore to regard himself 'as good a man' as the planter grandees, notwithstanding their wealth, luxury and slaves (a key element in making this all possible, of course.)


And thus began the American belief or myth that this is a 'classless' society. We aren't of course, and never have been: but the very belief is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the very condition of assuming that you (and everyone else) is "middle class" is an impetus toward making it so. Certainly Americans don't obsess over class in the British manner; if anything we tend to pretend it's not there even when it is. Or as somebody (Hayek?) once said: Americans don't have time to hate the rich because they're too busy trying to join them.


It's also worth pointing out that *birth* has never in itself been much of a factor over here. While there are obviously advantages to be had from growing up with money and opportunity, it's the money and opportunity that make the difference. This is a very different case from the old British system, when no mere merchant or tradesman, however loaded, was ever quite as good as a born aristocrat. (In Vanity Fair, the mercantile Osbornes are clearly much richer, but clearly move in lower circles, than the blueblood Crawleys).

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

solid Anglicans

I would point out that Anglicans are protestants albeit episcopalian protestants with an "I can't believe it's not Catholicism" High Church wing....

[Gwathagor]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

I have a Help Wanted sign dated to the 1850's that carries the disclaimer: No Irish Need Apply.

Hullo! That's uncalled for!