Hey all
Interesting short podcast I found here discussing JRR Tolkien's supposed quotes and writings regarding anarchism:
https://www.anarchochristian.com/tolkie ... job-ac005/
Tolkien had experienced WAR, and witnessed many friends and loved ones die as a cause, which for sure had a great affect on his thoughts about governments and monarchies.
Odd however to hear that he may have inclined to anarchistic views, considering that his Lord of the Rings series holds so much content of Kings and Queens...
Tolkien the Anarchist
Quotes:
"My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional’ monarchy . . .
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 to refer to people … 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 medievals 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 Vizier (or whatever you care 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 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."
"My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional’ monarchy . . .
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 to refer to people … 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 medievals 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 Vizier (or whatever you care 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 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."
https://www.quora.com/Was-J-R-R-Tolkien-an-anarchist
"...he was an anarchist in the strictly literal sense -- "without government," which I take to mean that he personally was without government, not that he thought the nation should have none. He just wasn't interested in politics or governmental systems. He didn't devote any part of his attention to it.
This is why the Shire has no government to speak of; it's a magic self-regulating world in which there is no crime and there are no problems that require community action."
"...he was an anarchist in the strictly literal sense -- "without government," which I take to mean that he personally was without government, not that he thought the nation should have none. He just wasn't interested in politics or governmental systems. He didn't devote any part of his attention to it.
This is why the Shire has no government to speak of; it's a magic self-regulating world in which there is no crime and there are no problems that require community action."
- evil-kungfool
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2017 7:38 pm
- Reputation: 124
I saw an episode of Corbett Report on this topic. It was good, but I wasn't fully convinced of Tolkien's Anarchist leanings.
Return to “The Grand Chessboard”
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 55 guests