A Disturbing Development

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

The reply to the German publishers that Mithadan pointed out (Letter #30) takes a flawlessly ironic swipe at the entire concept of Aryanism.

Rütten and Loening required of Tolkien a written statement to the effect that he was of 'arisch' origin. Tolkien was annoyed by the demand, but decided to give Allen and Unwin the opportunity to strike a deal with the Germans, since he was aware of the money that they stood to lose. He wrote at least two drafts of the required Bestätigung, but in a form that made it clear that he regarded the entire process as distasteful, dangerous and idiotic. He chose to assume that by 'Aryan' the German company meant 'Indo-Iranian' (the linguistic meaning of the word), then expressed his regret at his own lack of Jewish blood and his admiration for the Jewish people, saying

I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy or any related dialect. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

Tolkien speculated that his German name had something to do with the impertinent demand for such genealogical assurances (I think it far more likely that publishers were legally required to request this sort of declaration of all their authors, which was another possibility that he considered), mentioning the pride that he felt in his German surname; but he also issued the chilling warning:

I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war... I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant enquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Tolkien's opinion of Hitler remained consistently poor. In a letter to his son Michael he describes him as "that ruddy little ignoramus", and in another, to Christopher Tolkien, he calls him "a vulgar and ignorant little cad"; but this is only to be expected given that he made these comments during a war between Britain and Germany. Tolkien also claimed to hold a personal grudge against the German dictator for "Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making forever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light" (Letter #46)

Perhaps in that comment we can see the source of the connection with extreme right-wing groups: some of the ideas of Nazism are derived from one of the springs that drove Tolkien's writings, albeit with a great deal less sincerity and understanding. This can even be seen from Tolkien's writings, which contain certain races of men who are superior or inferior. Like the Aryans of Nazi mythology, the Númenóreans are a superior people both mentally and physically, whose blood is thinned by mingling with lesser races. In the story of Helm in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, Freca, the traitor whom he kills has Dunlending blood, and the implication is that no true Man of Rohan would have behaved as he did. Whilst Tolkien's thinking was probably more along dynastic than racial lines (one's antecedents count for a lot in the medieval world, particularly if they happen to be gods), it seems hardly surprising to me that one sufficiently ignorant of history, genetics and anthropology to subscribe to the theory of white supremacy might take this feature as a justification of their position. Anyone who still regards Mein Kampf as a serious and workable political text is liable to believe any crackpot notion.

From other commments in his letters, Tolkien comes across as a man whose opinions on race were on the liberal side of moderate. He may seem somewhat racist from our perspective, but I'm sure that for his times he was reasonably enlightened. The only people whom he criticises en masse often enough for it to be memorable are the Americans, but this falls rather under the heading 'xenophobia', and given his concern that Europe would soon be swallowed by 'non-Europe', it is perhaps not so very surprising. His greatest worry was that the world would lose its regional diversity after the war, and he says in Letter #76]

when it is all over, will ordinary people have any freedom left (or right) or will they have to fight for it, or will they be too tired to resist? The last rather seems the idea of some of the Big Folk. Who have for the most part viewed this war from the vantage point of large motor-cars. Too many are childless. But I suppose the one certain result of it all is a further growth of the great standardised amalgamations, with their mass-produced notions and emotions.

That's the bottom line on this issue, though: Tolkien regarded theories of racial supremacy as risible and without justification. He knew that such theories had no grounding in science, and his own inclination seems to have been to regard all races as equal; and clearly he was a lover of diversity (he once declared of language O felix peccatum Babel!). He was hardly going to be the acceptable face of modern political correctness, since that movement didn't get started until he was dead, and his own views were somewhat reactionary in any case. I don't doubt, though, that some of the material that disturbs over-sensitive modern audiences would have been tackled differently had Tolkien been born a couple of decades later. We can't expect an Edwardian to have Elizabethan opinions after all. To be quite honest, the amount of space that Tolkien devoted to the subject of race in his published letters is so small as not to merit the length of this post: the fracas over his declaration of Aryanism seems to have been his only contact with a genuine racial issue, and in that he acquitted himself much as a modern fan might hope.

A more complete exploration of Tolkien on race may be found here

<EDIT>The link originally pointed to http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermai...15/022334.html. Since that no longer works, my link now points at a brief article by Michael Drout.