May 2, 2025 05:52 PM
(This post was last modified: May 2, 2025 06:12 PM by C C.)
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/...the-grain/
EXCERPTS: With over 150 million copies sold, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling prose narratives of the twentieth century and remains beloved by fans across the globe...
But if we judge Tolkien by those who claim his fellowship the loudest, we might grow concerned. Vice President JD Vance has said that not only is Tolkien his favorite author, but that “a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien growing up.” [...] The UK’s “Prevent” anti-terror program even recently characterized him (along with C.S. Lewis and George Orwell), somewhat preposterously, as a kind of gateway drug for potential radicalization.
[...] Since the founding of the tiny corner of academia known as science fiction studies in the 1970s, there has been a sense that science fiction is of the left, while fantasy is of the right.
Science fiction is about the future, about the utopias we might someday build, about science—while fantasy is about looking back toward an imaginary past of kings, empires, war, and magic (which is to say, nonsense). If science fiction is about revolution, fantasy is about restoration. Or so the Marxist critics who have championed science fiction and decried fantasy for the past half-century would have it.
The fantasy work of some authors [...] are considered exceptions to this general tendency, but even when leftist fantasy is recognized, Tolkien himself nearly always stands as the bad example.
What is it about Tolkien’s work that supports this reading? The Lord of the Rings seems immersed in racism (the superiority of the fair and noble elves, the inferiority of the brutish, mongrel orcs), colonialism and imperialism (the return of the king means the restoration of empire), and deeply retrograde sexism (with a core cast of characters that is overwhelmingly male)...
Despite all this, Tolkien has many left-wing fans. They can point to his celebration of working-class heroes like Sam Gamgee over the more well-heeled and gentlemanly Frodo, his call for an ethics of selflessness and self-sacrifice, his rejection of the desire for power and control in favor of humility and communal society, and his absolute contempt for tyrants of all stripes...
[...] For the leftist critic who seeks to explain their fondness for The Lord of the Rings, however, most justifications come with a caveat. Perhaps the books’ depiction of a wartime esprit de corps, bringing people of different backgrounds together to achieve a common goal, can be likened to the solidarity needed for the hard work of changing the world. But this camaraderie cannot sustain itself beyond times of deep crisis—and, in any event, it’s typically predicated on a logic of shared, unrelenting racial hatred for orcs.
[...] There is likewise a stirring ecological politics and love of nature in Tolkien. Gardeners of varying sorts turn out to be the ultimate key to human thriving. ... But Tolkien’s is a deeply tragic environmentalism...
Finally, there is some beautiful antiwar sentiment in Tolkien’s work, a rejection of war’s glories and a refusal to celebrate its violence—but this goes hand-in-hand with a compromised pacifism...
[...] It is the ultimate ambiguity and indecision of the text that explains not only why Tolkien has endured, but why so many on the left are still able to love him, despite all the many perfectly persuasive reasons why they shouldn’t. There is always another loose thread to pull on, another unexpected possibility to consider—alongside the dreaded possibility that Vance and his ilk are right about Tolkien, the possibility that Tally and I are, too. The book itself cannot choose; its own characters spend the next century trying to figure out just what the War of the Ring actually meant... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: With over 150 million copies sold, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling prose narratives of the twentieth century and remains beloved by fans across the globe...
But if we judge Tolkien by those who claim his fellowship the loudest, we might grow concerned. Vice President JD Vance has said that not only is Tolkien his favorite author, but that “a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien growing up.” [...] The UK’s “Prevent” anti-terror program even recently characterized him (along with C.S. Lewis and George Orwell), somewhat preposterously, as a kind of gateway drug for potential radicalization.
[...] Since the founding of the tiny corner of academia known as science fiction studies in the 1970s, there has been a sense that science fiction is of the left, while fantasy is of the right.
Science fiction is about the future, about the utopias we might someday build, about science—while fantasy is about looking back toward an imaginary past of kings, empires, war, and magic (which is to say, nonsense). If science fiction is about revolution, fantasy is about restoration. Or so the Marxist critics who have championed science fiction and decried fantasy for the past half-century would have it.
The fantasy work of some authors [...] are considered exceptions to this general tendency, but even when leftist fantasy is recognized, Tolkien himself nearly always stands as the bad example.
What is it about Tolkien’s work that supports this reading? The Lord of the Rings seems immersed in racism (the superiority of the fair and noble elves, the inferiority of the brutish, mongrel orcs), colonialism and imperialism (the return of the king means the restoration of empire), and deeply retrograde sexism (with a core cast of characters that is overwhelmingly male)...
Despite all this, Tolkien has many left-wing fans. They can point to his celebration of working-class heroes like Sam Gamgee over the more well-heeled and gentlemanly Frodo, his call for an ethics of selflessness and self-sacrifice, his rejection of the desire for power and control in favor of humility and communal society, and his absolute contempt for tyrants of all stripes...
[...] For the leftist critic who seeks to explain their fondness for The Lord of the Rings, however, most justifications come with a caveat. Perhaps the books’ depiction of a wartime esprit de corps, bringing people of different backgrounds together to achieve a common goal, can be likened to the solidarity needed for the hard work of changing the world. But this camaraderie cannot sustain itself beyond times of deep crisis—and, in any event, it’s typically predicated on a logic of shared, unrelenting racial hatred for orcs.
[...] There is likewise a stirring ecological politics and love of nature in Tolkien. Gardeners of varying sorts turn out to be the ultimate key to human thriving. ... But Tolkien’s is a deeply tragic environmentalism...
Finally, there is some beautiful antiwar sentiment in Tolkien’s work, a rejection of war’s glories and a refusal to celebrate its violence—but this goes hand-in-hand with a compromised pacifism...
[...] It is the ultimate ambiguity and indecision of the text that explains not only why Tolkien has endured, but why so many on the left are still able to love him, despite all the many perfectly persuasive reasons why they shouldn’t. There is always another loose thread to pull on, another unexpected possibility to consider—alongside the dreaded possibility that Vance and his ilk are right about Tolkien, the possibility that Tally and I are, too. The book itself cannot choose; its own characters spend the next century trying to figure out just what the War of the Ring actually meant... (MORE - missing details)
