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Thread: "My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy..." - J.R.R. Tolkien (40th Anniversary)

  1. #1

    "My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy..." - J.R.R. Tolkien (40th Anniversary)

    Tomorrow, September 2, 2013, is the 40th anniversary of the death of J.R.R. Tolkien (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973). Here is the letter in which he stated:

    "My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)." - J.R.R. Tolkien
    ...

    For further reading on J.R.R. Tolkien's political views and the messages concerning political power present in his novel The Lord of the Rings, I recommend Alberto Mingardi's short article Tolkien v. Power. I also recommend Jeff Riggenbach's 17-minute podcast J.R.R. Tolkien as Libertarian.

    Please share Tolkien's letter on anarchy today and tomorrow so that more people can be introduced to libertarian views. Thanks!

    For this thread, one topic I'd be interested to discuss is Tolkien's skepticism of political authority revealed in his letter. Did anyone else notice it?
    "A consistent peace activist must be an anarchist." – Roderick T. Long, An Open Letter to the Peace Movement, https://peacemovement.wordpress.com/



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  3. #2
    I really should get around to reading some of his stuff. It seems like almost everyone who has read Tolkien's works has a very deep and long lasting admiration for them.
    "When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system's game. The establishment will irritate you - pull your beard, flick your face - to make you fight, because once they've got you violent then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don't know how to handle is non-violence and humor. "

    ---John Lennon


    "I EAT NEOCONS FOR BREAKFAST!!!"

    ---Me

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by BuddyRey View Post
    I really should get around to reading some of his stuff. It seems like almost everyone who has read Tolkien's works has a very deep and long lasting admiration for them.
    I've only read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and a few of his letters. But I loved them all.

    "A consistent peace activist must be an anarchist." – Roderick T. Long, An Open Letter to the Peace Movement, https://peacemovement.wordpress.com/

  5. #4
    One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.
    — J.R.R. Tolkien, forward to The Lord of the Rings

  6. #5
    eh well LOTR ended with a King being crowned. I haven't read much about Tolkien.

  7. #6
    Will spread. I have loved his characters, places and stories since I was a kid. +rep

  8. #7
    Thanks for the quote, Paulbot99.

    Quote Originally Posted by Root View Post
    Will spread. I have loved his characters, places and stories since I was a kid. +rep
    Thanks.

    Quote Originally Posted by fr33 View Post
    eh well LOTR ended with a King being crowned. I haven't read much about Tolkien.
    But not a "King" in the statist sense. He is more of a voluntary leader. The same is true of Theoden, King or Rohan. I don't get the sense that they force others to obey them. Rather, people voluntarily look to them for leadership. There is nothing wrong with this. The presence of good "kings" doesn't appear to be a good reason to dismiss the book's libertarian / anarchist / anti-authoritarian theme.

    And for the sake of argument, even if there something unjust about these "kings", the book can at least be said to have a strong theme of decentralization of power. Perhaps Tolkien never made it all the way to individualist anarchism, but he definitely was very skeptical of political authority and knew the dangers of concentrated power.
    "A consistent peace activist must be an anarchist." – Roderick T. Long, An Open Letter to the Peace Movement, https://peacemovement.wordpress.com/

  9. #8
    Last edited by PeaceRequiresAnarchy; 09-01-2013 at 09:03 PM.
    "A consistent peace activist must be an anarchist." – Roderick T. Long, An Open Letter to the Peace Movement, https://peacemovement.wordpress.com/



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  11. #9
    Today in history: September 2, 1973: J. R. R. Tolkien Dead at 81; Wrote 'The Lord of the Rings'
    "A consistent peace activist must be an anarchist." – Roderick T. Long, An Open Letter to the Peace Movement, https://peacemovement.wordpress.com/

  12. #10
    I wonder what masterpieces would be shelved beside his work had all the Inklings survived World War I.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by fr33 View Post
    eh well LOTR ended with a King being crowned. I haven't read much about Tolkien.
    Actually, it did NOT end that way.

    It ended with the hobbits returning to the Shire - an anarchic society nominally led by a "mayor" (whose chief responsibilities involved presiding over banquets and giving pleasantly agreeable speeches). Upon their return, they found it necessary to inspire and lead a revolt against encroaching humans who had imposed "government" (and "The Rules") on the locals. The Shire was much more representative of of Tolkien's sympathies and attitudes than the kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan - but even those political entities served Tolkien's profoundly moral narrative purpose.
    The Bastiat Collection · FREE PDF · FREE EPUB · PAPER
    Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850)

    • "When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law."
      -- The Law (p. 54)
    • "Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
      -- Government (p. 99)
    • "[W]ar is always begun in the interest of the few, and at the expense of the many."
      -- Economic Sophisms - Second Series (p. 312)
    • "There are two principles that can never be reconciled - Liberty and Constraint."
      -- Harmonies of Political Economy - Book One (p. 447)

    · tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito ·

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by fr33 View Post
    eh well LOTR ended with a King being crowned. I haven't read much about Tolkien.
    fantasy. a good king.
    rewritten history with armies of their crooks - invented memories, did burn all the books... Mark Knopfler

  15. #13
    J.R.R. Tolkien on Liberty, Religion, Localism and More (The Tom Woods Show): http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...alism-and-More

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by fr33 View Post
    eh well LOTR ended with a King being crowned. I haven't read much about Tolkien.
    Another aspect is that Aragorn is essentially Jesus Christ. He returns in Gondor's darkest hour, revitalizes the Tree of Gondor/Life, overthrows the forces of evil, and establishes a kingship that recognizes even the rights of the smallest, most inconsequential beings in it, signified by his bowing to the hobbits.

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by fr33 View Post
    eh well LOTR ended with a King being crowned. I haven't read much about Tolkien.
    If I'm interpreting correctly (and I may not be) there's supposed to be some parallel between Aragorn and Jesus, not so much Aragorn and a human tyrant. Not sure how much his story tells us about his views in and of itself.
    This post represents only the opinions of Christian Liberty and not the rest of the forum. Use discretion when reading

  18. #16
    Aragorn is NOT a Jesus figure any more than the One Ring was a stand-in for the "atomic bomb." Tolkien detested the use of such allegorical symbols.

    He was strongly critical of his good friend C.S. Lewis for the overt Christian symbolism Lewis employed in the Narnia Chronicles (where, among many other examples, Aslan = Jesus).
    Last edited by Occam's Banana; 11-26-2014 at 03:40 PM.



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by fr33 View Post
    eh well LOTR ended with a King being crowned.



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