Vaguely interesting BBC Culture article

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

An unrepentant monarchist and hyper-Catholic

He does say that politically he leaned towards monarchy or anarchy, though, in Letter 52. Of course his version of anarchy is not the same as either the "whiskered men with bombs" he mocks in the same letter or its modern manifestations, but I think it's a point which is to a degree borne out in The Lord of the Rings and so it's another way I can understand why it appealed, however inaccurately, to the counter-culture movement.

Also what separates a "hyper-Catholic" from your common or garden variety Catholic? I suppose his resistance to the decisions of Vatican II for instance.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Even his anti-industrial agrarianism was a nostalgia for "a well-tilled countryside" not "back to the Pleistocene."

Nostalgia is an important point, because there's so much anti-nostalgia too. The Gwaith-i-Mírdain for instance are criticised (I would argue) for being "overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret." (Letter 154) He associates this with the Dúnedain's obsession with death and prolonging their lives. Denethor too was afflicted by a fatal nostalgia for the heyday of his stewardship. Personally I think Professor Tolkien's opinions were quite complex, which is something that interests me about him. He doesn't strike me as an ideological person who would adhere to an arbitrary set of other people's rules about a whole system of ideas but rather a man who made up his own mind on individual issues without fear that he was contradicting a (worldly) authority.