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Old 07-13-2016, 07:43 AM   #1
Faramir Jones
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
 
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Lonely Isle
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Sting Tolkien's political views

Marwhini, I've taken the liberty of moving the debate on Tolkien's political views to a new thread. You said in the previous thread:

If you go up to the post I made where I linked to two YouTube videos, the second of which is just an audio-interview of Tolkien, and listen to the second one....

In it, Tolkien is asked directly about his Political Views, Monarchy, and Feudalism.

He is VERY CLEAR in that he considers Democracy to be a bad way to run a country, or government, and that Kings present the rightful means of "doing business" (with government).

This is an aspect of Tolkien that most people today have a hard time accepting, as it is a Reactionary Conservative view that is totally at odds with Modernity (as was Tolkien - He rejects the Enlightenment as well).

I even struggle with accepting that view. But in as far as I love Middle-earth, I wish to understand its creator (or, as Tolkien would say "Subcreator" - look more deeply into what he means by that, and you might find some pretty disturbing things out about Tolkien), and thus I need to understand both what he believes and why, as they are manifested in his works.

I even need to find those things I disagree with (although currently I am beginning to suspect he may be correct about Democracy, as much as it pains me to think that).


I'm sure that you and others are familiar with a similar view he put down on paper, in a letter to his son Christopher of 29th November 1943, published as Letter 52 of the published Letters:

My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) - or to 'unconstitutional' Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. If people were in the habit of referring to 'King George's council, Winston [Churchill] and his gang', it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy.

Anyway, the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. And at least it is done only to a small group of men who know who their master is. The mediaevals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizir (or whatever you dare to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And so on down the line. 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. The quarrelsome, conceited Greeks managed to pull it off against Xerxes; but the abominable chemists and engineers have put such a power into Xerxes' hands, and all ant-communities, that decent folks don't seem to have a chance.


To show Tolkien's views of two contemporary politicians, we can look at Letter 52 in the same collection, again to Christopher, and dated 9th December 1943. He was discussing the recent Tehran Conference, held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, to discuss wartime strategy against Nazi Germany.

Unlike others at the time, Tolkien had no illusions about Stalin, calling him a 'bloodthirsty old murderer'; but while he and Churchill might have agreed on this, he had no time for the latter, saying that 'our little cherub W. S. C. actually looked the biggest ruffian present'.

While not agreeing with his views on hereditary monarchy, I can understand why Tolkien held them, and how he came to hold them.

It does not appear, from the letters I've quoted and the video Marwhini linked to, that Tolkien was a monarchist out of love for that system of government. He seems, like Winston Churchill said about democracy, to have thought that it was the least worst system available.

As we can see, Tolkien distrusted political power and 'government' of all sorts, believing that very few people were qualified to rule, and those who desired to do so he regarded as extremely suspect. Indeed, he was prepared to admit to anarchist sympathies as a result. As already mentioned, he believed that hereditary monarchy, with monarchs brought up to rule, was the least worst form of government.

If we look at what he wrote about Númenor, as well as later Arnor and Gondor, we can see that he was prepared to show that bad monarchs existed whose bad behaviour had significant consequences for their realms. He appears to show, however, that things go well under a good monarch, such as King Elessar. That king does not want to impose a system of royal absolutism on his subjects. Indeed, he lets many of them carry on much as before. It seems to be that as long as his supremacy is acknowledged, people obey the law and stay out of trouble, and pay their taxes (those who have to), he leaves them alone. The Shire and Bree are particular examples of this.
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