LOTR - classist?

[Boromir88]

does the rise of Sam really fly in the face of a class structure?~tp

And that is a good question...I would still say he does.

You make a finely argued point that Sam does despite starting out as a servant, does display moments of 'superiority' which in time allows him to rise to a higher class. However, I would still say he did break 'social barriers.'

Because, at least in a caste system, it doesn't matter if you're superior to the 'ruling elite' or not, you stay in that classification for the rest of your life...and your children stay there as well. Members of the lowest caste are even forbidden to be seen in public around the 'upper classes' and other restrictions. So, the class barriers are very rigid and there is no room for mobility at all.

I agree that I think Sam's case was a rare occurence and it's just not something that happens all the time. As much as we would like to believe in the idea that anyone can improve their status. Reality is (even a system that isn't a caste system), the class you are born in is the class you stay in. Because those of the upper ruling class have better oppurtunity and more resources (money) to keep them at the top. While those on the bottom are faced with all sorts of 'barriers' to prevent them from rising up to the next class.

To look at it on a positive side, unlike the caste system, at least there is an oppurtunity to rise. As little as that chance may be, the oppurtunity is there for even the slightest bit of social, political, and economic ability. But last I heard in 2004 in the U.S only 4% moved out of their class (either upwards or downwards). I agree that mobility from one class to the next is a rare occurance (just like we see with Sam), but the oppurtunity is there.

[Holbytlass]

I know things are being discussed about what Tolkien thought about class but the story itself is based on a time when there was class and even sexism.
Not having benefit of the letters, what I've gleaned here was that Tolkien wanted his stories to be of a medeivalish history for England, right?

And even what Selmo brings up Tolkien's own timeframe of not being alot of women's rights and equalities (compared to today) that he had to go on.

I'm sorry but my thoughts are stuttering.

What I'm trying to say is that right or wrong to today's standard the story is based on a time when there was class and sexism. I'm glad to see that the story was not written "politically correct", that would make no sense to that time period. On the flip side I'm glad to see examples where classism and sexism policies were shattered in the examples of Sam and Eowyn otherwise it would be a rather sterile story of everyone in their place.

[the.landlord]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

But last I heard in 2004 in the U.S only 4% moved out of their class (either upwards or downwards). I agree that mobility from one class to the next is a rare occurance (just like we see with Sam), but the oppurtunity is there.

actually i do not think that 4% are that few... 4% in one year, makes 40% in 10 years, right?

[Beleg Cuthalion]

Who are we to be judgemental of the class values of Middle Earth? Aren't we being biased? Shouldn't we try to understand them and their traditional social structure?


~Beleg

[Mänwe]

“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to 'unconstitutional' Monarchy.” - (Letter #52)

His personal view seems very much against his portrayal of the races in Lord of the Rings, where each is ruled by Kings or Queens, in a monarchist fashion. However although the system he may believe is flawed those who are part of the system are not and determine whether the system is flawed. For he goes on to mention in the same letter the following;

“The mediævals were only too right in taking nolo efiscopari1 as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop.”- (Letter #52)

“Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And so on down the line.” - (Letter #52)

These two passages would immediately point me to Aragorn, who had concealed his identity as a Ranger from the north.

“But, of course, the fatal weakness of all that – after all only the fatal weakness of all good natural things in a bad corrupt unnatural world – is that it works and has worked only when all the world is messing along in the same good old inefficient human way.” - (Letter #52)

However we have characters such as Denethor which “upsets” this balance, someone who was less capable of leading. There will always be men who strive for control; we know Denethor renounced Aragorn’s authority vehemently.

Originally quoted by littlemanpoet

“According to Tolkien's letters and other sources, he believed in hierarchy. He would have preferred monarchy to any other form of government.”

So if not a monarchy, a dysfunctional monarchy, one that has no complete control over the entire kingdom, ruled by a character that did not look to take power. Which I would suggest is very much his belief in the real world.

Originally posted by Aiwendil

“Nor, I think, can one say that Tolkien was not interested in modern political theory and leave it at that.”

Here, here! Having read through the letters a few passages looked out at me more that others and interestingly enough were all from letter’s to his son.

“People in this land seem not even yet to realize that in the Germans we have enemies whose virtues (and they are virtues) of obedience and patriotism are greater than ours in the mass. Whose brave men are just about as brave as ours. Whose industry is about 10 times greater. And who are – under the curse of God – now led by a man inspired by a mad, whirlwind, devil: a typhoon, a passion: that makes the poor old Kaiser look like an old woman knitting. I have spent most of my life, since I was your age, studying Germanic matters (in the general sense that includes England and Scandinavia). There is a great deal more force (and truth) than ignorant people imagine in the 'Germanic' ideal. I was much attracted by it as an undergraduate (when Hitler was, I suppose, dabbling in paint, and had not heard of it),..” (Letter #45)

Tolkien to me seems to be distinguishing between different social groups here, two different races. Why would he do this if he were not interested, dammit he has a son who would have to live with the possible consequences of the ongoing events.

I think also it goes to support my claim that is the person he believed makes the system wrong. Hitler exploited the “virtues”.

The second again I believe is further evidence to suggest that he had an understanding and interest in the political developments of the era.

“We knew Hitler was a vulgar and ignorant little cad, in addition to any other defects (or the source of them); but there seem to be many v. and i. l. cads who don't speak German, and who given the same chance would show most of the other Hitlerian characteristics. There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?)” (Letter #81)

I can’t see fault with what he says here. [My bold]

Yet from understanding and taking an interest is quite different from practising what you preach. For me Tolkien goes further to dispel any “classist” attitude with the following extracts from a tale he was recounting again to his son.

“I stood the hot-air they let off as long as I could; but when I heard the Yank burbling about 'Feudalism' and its results on English class-distinctions and social behaviour, I opened a broadside.” (Letter #58)

I take this to be his stand against the idea that our (British) feudalistic past gave rise to distinct social classes. Whether he was right or not in what he continues on to say still shows however that he believed otherwise;

“I did however get a dim notion into his head that the 'Oxford Accent' (by which he politely told me he meant mine) was not 'forced' and 'put on', but a natural one learned in the nursery – and was moreover not feudal or aristocratic but a very middle-class bourgeois invention.” (Letter #58)

While he may have admitted there was a social divide he himself did not associate himself with being “classist”. His stating that it was “a very middle-class bourgeois invention” is likely proof that Tolkien is as Selmo has stated, a “romantic”, very much in support of the status quo. Technological and political developments were to be disliked.

Perhaps then we could give a certain standing of his political views Lalwendë?

“It was his rather absurd ambition to achieve the rare distinction of being 'head' of two families (he would probably then have called himself Baggins-Sackville-Baggins)” (Letter #214)

The scrabble for social standing by a family inept, I think this compliments Lalwendë’s point nicely.

Indeed Boromir’s point about the rise of Sam to mayor would be further evidence for Tolkien not being classist as he says.

Though I pick up on one point of yours Boromir88,

Originally posted by Boromir88

Because again if we look at Sam, he rises from a servant of Bilbo's and Frodo's to becoming the Mayor of the Shire.

Have I read this wrong, but surely this implies social mobility?

Perhaps then he has shown a progressively attracted nature to social mobility throughout the book. For elements of classism still remain or were present.

“Customs differed in cases where the 'head' died leaving no son. In the Took-family, since the headship was also connected with the title and (originally military) office of Thain, descent was strictly through the male line. In other great families the headship might pass through a daughter of the deceased to his eldest grandson (irrespective of the daughter's age).” - (Letter #214)

Only those born into position will get it, however the Hobbit example here does show “leniency” toward the females of the family. Sexism too is not part of Tolkien too then.

Jumping somewhat haphazardly again, I do think Lush highlights an interesting point about the ring threatening the “hierarchy”. If she is saying that the ring conferred a higher social standing upon Frodo, then I would have to disagree, importance yes but not a higher class. Though I doubt that is what she means, so I will continue by saying (having dispensed with Tolkien’s dislike for allegory) that it too reminds me slightly of the aristocracies’ fear of literate serfs!

Slightly amusing are these passages in the letters I came across, for your benefit Lush

“Even the unlucky little Samoyedes, I suspect, have tinned food and the village loudspeaker telling Stalin's bed-time stories about Democracy and the wicked Fascists who eat babies and steal sledge-dogs. There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as 'patriotism', may remain a habit! But it won't do any good, if it is not universal.” (Letter #52)

Good lord Tolkien, a terrorist, never!

The last sentence for me is a good summation of Tolkien, he is certainly aware of political developments (I know I’ve said that far too often), and is wise enough to know that only universal cooperation will lead to a better world.

the phantom, would not what you say depend upon what type of "system" being discussed?

[Neurion]

There are far too many learned thoughts in Manwe's post for me to address all at once, or perhaps even at all, but I have to take exception to this:

Originally Posted by Mänwe

However we have characters such as Denethor which “upsets” this balance, someone who was less capable of leading. There will always be men who strive for control; we know Denethor renounced Aragorn’s authority vehemently.

Others may agree with this, but I can't. I may be wrong but I really don't think the text supports Denethor's being a "less than capable" ruler.

[littlemanpoet]

What fun. Controversy. To think I sparked it with my off-the-cuff poor-memory post.

Since nobody has mentioned it, I'll remind us all of one of Tolkien's more enjoyable quips having to do with class:

Tipping your hat to the squire may be **** bad for the squire, but it's **** good for you.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mänwe

Slightly amusing are these passages in the letters I came across, for your benefit Lush

“Even the unlucky little Samoyedes, I suspect, have tinned food and the village loudspeaker telling Stalin's bed-time stories about Democracy and the wicked Fascists who eat babies and steal sledge-dogs. There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as 'patriotism', may remain a habit! But it won't do any good, if it is not universal.” (Letter #52)

Good lord Tolkien, a terrorist, never!

Actually, there is possibly a more historically precise term for Tolkien's position: Luddite or perhaps Eric Hobsbawm's social bandit. That is, if we take Tolkien's letter seriously and not simply as hyperbole.

[Boromir88]

Have I read this wrong, but surely this implies social mobility?~Manwe

I think I was a bit confusing...

You can still have a classist society and have social mobility. And that is the difference between class and caste.

A caste system is strictly hereditary (and that determines your social, political, and economic power). The caste you are born in, is the caste you stay in and your children stay in. I think at least within hobbit society there is no caste system (as I would use Sam as proof of this).

However, 'caste' is different from 'class.' With the class system, there is room for social mobility. The boundaries are more fluent and there is room to move up or down from one social class to another. Depending upon who you read (Marx or Weber) your class is defined by your economic standing, your power, and your prestige. Where a 'caste' is determined hereditarily and it is the caste you are born into that determines the amount of money, power, and prestige you have.

Therefor, at least in hobbit society, there it is a classist society. You have a hierarchy of 'power' from the top elites to the bottom of the social ladder. However, somebody can move from one 'level' to the level above or below them. As we see with Sam. If Hobbit society was based upon 'castes' than since Sam was born a gardener/servant, he would forever stay a gardener/servant...and his children would be gardeners/servants.

actually i do not think that 4% are that few... 4% in one year, makes 40% in 10 years, right?~thebastardlord

It's not an accumulating number from year to year like that. Meaning in 2004 at 4% it doesn't rise to 8% in 2005 and then 12% in 2006...and so on. It's not a growth of 4% a year, it was simply 4% per year.

The 2004 study was based upon people born in 1974 (so 30 years before). It took those who were born in 1974, the social class of their parents and saw what their social class was in 2004. Which the studies showed that only 4% changed social classes (up or down), meaning 96% stayed in the same social class as their parents.

Following this pattern, in 2005 (unless if something dramatically changed) those who were born in 1975...around 4% of them would have been in a different class than that of their parents. Hope that clears some things up. It's not a growth of 4% every year, it's 4% per year.

[Selmo]

Yes, Tolkien was aware of modern political systems and of alternative class structures to his own romanticised view of the English class structure - and he disliked them all.

Tolkien was a "classist" in that he recognised that class structures of some sort exist in all human societies greater than a single family unit. To make his created world believable, he had to include this fact.
However, it's clear from his works that he did not hold the view that different classes should not mix (Merry and Pippin are close friends of the socially inferior Frodo) and Sam's rise shows that Tolkien approved of some level of class mobility.

Sam's rapid rise up the class ladder was not limited to becoming Mayor of The Shire, it went much further. His daughter and son-in-law led the expansion westwards, becoming Wardens of the Westmarch, equal in status to the Master of Buckland. His daughter became Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, a position reserved for families of the highest rank. Sam himself was appointed a Councillor of the renewed Northern Kingdom, not just as an equal with the Thain and the Master but with Princes and Nobles of the Kingdom.
However, the thing that showes the attitude of hobbits to class movement most clearly occured when Sam was still a servant/gardener at Bag End. It was his relationship with Rosie Cotton. Rosie was the daughter of a prosperous and well-respected farmer, in status far above Sam who at that time had gained no reputation except as a gardener. That her family permited her to fall for, and later marry, Sam without, apparently, any comment, shows that class mobility among hobbits was normal.

Sam's rise isn't of the "poor widow's son makes good" sort. He genuinely grows during his year away from The Shire. When he returns, he is no longer Samwise (semi-wise, half-witted); he has grown in self-confidence, aware of his own worth and potential. Although he cannot throw off the habbit, or the desire, to call Frodo "Mr Frodo", he is no longer anyone's servant; he's his own man.

Tolkien himself experienced class mobility. His father was a bank clerk who rose to be posted to South Africa as a bank manager with a life of relative luxury (big house, servants, etc.). The family lived with poverty after the father's death but Tolkien won a scholarship to an elite school and then to Oxford University. He then became an Officer in the British Army and went on to become a respected academic as a philologist. His work was rewarded with a Professorship at Oxford, at that time perhaps the most socially prestigious University in the world. (Note for Americans: the role of "Professor" in a British University is a much more senior one than that of a Professor in USA).

Tolkien's rise up the class ladder was not as rapid as Sam's, nor did it reach as high but it ensured that his view of class was not as rigid as many of his contemporaries in the first half of the 20th Century.
.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Selmo

Tolkien's rise up the class ladder was not as rapid as Sam's, nor did it reach as high but it ensured that his view of class was not as ridged as many of his contemporaries in the first half of the 20th Century.
.

Tolkien rose from being lower Middle Class to being Upper middle class, in as far as we can 'escape' our origins. He was a higher level academic, one of the intelligentsia, and went as far as he could up the class ladder as to become Upper Class he'd have had to marry into the landed gentry.

Sam rose as far as he went from being Working Class to being Middle Middle Class (there are two 'Middles' as he would have fallen slap in the middle of the class, remaining without the formal h'education which would make him Upper Middle).

Although whether someone could 'fit into' their new place in the class structure would depend upon many subtle points, and Sam may have remained 'marked' as Working Class anyway (he may even have willingly marked himself that way, as a lot of us do). Tolkien I think may have fitted right in to his new class, as the accessories of the Upper Middle Class are reasonably easy to understand if you have been to University and pick up on the correct signals (though who knows, he may have possessed napkin rings? ). And as proof that class anxiety is still very much a driver in Britain today you only have to look at the books on our bestsellers' lists, tomes by Jamie Oliver telling us all how to cook properly (a key Middle Class skill, and written by a Middle Class icon) and Richard Dawkins' latest Atheist work (a must-have for all Upper Middles, as was A Brief History Of Time, books it's important to have on the shelf when colleagues call round for canapes, even if you never read more than one or two chapters ).

[the.landlord]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I
It's not an accumulating number from year to year like that. Meaning in 2004 at 4% it doesn't rise to 8% in 2005 and then 12% in 2006...and so on. It's not a growth of 4% a year, it was simply 4% per year.

The 2004 study was based upon people born in 1974 (so 30 years before). It took those who were born in 1974, the social class of their parents and saw what their social class was in 2004. Which the studies showed that only 4% changed social classes (up or down), meaning 96% stayed in the same social class as their parents.

Following this pattern, in 2005 (unless if something dramatically changed) those who were born in 1975...around 4% of them would have been in a different class than that of their parents. Hope that clears some things up. It's not a growth of 4% every year, it's 4% per year.

oh, i see! i thought, that in 2004 4% of people where in a different class than they had been in 2003. i got you wrong.

[Lalwendë]

It's hard (maybe impossible?) for someone to descend lower than the class of their parents as upbringing is so important, though their own children may one day be considered of the lower class, due to probably not being brought up in the same environment or having the same opportunities. Although Upper Class people don't tend to be as subject to this as other classes are.

WCs: 'toilet' is Middle Class and lower (definitely not Upper Middle), 'loo' or 'lavatory' is solid Middle, 'bogs', 'khazis' and 'traps' are Working though popular words with young men of all classes, 'heads' is Upper. 'Bathroom' will get you puzzled looks from everyone.
Gnomes: Working Class all the way, though those who've clawed into the Lower Middle (see Gerald in The Full Monty) might still have them. Other classes only have them as 'ironic statements'.
Napkin Rings: the downfall of many would-be social climbers, these are only used by Lower Middles who have climbed from Working and actively want to go higher, but alas, using them reveals their social status, as nobody in higher classes would ever use them. In fact, the whole business of having or attending a dinner party is best avoided entirely in Britain as it offers so much potential for committing social faux pas.

This is part of why I love the start of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings so much, as they are filled with cringeworthy moments and social awkwardness.