pic above is near Wolverhamption in the 1930s and is generally thought to be the inspiration for Mordor. LOTR has a fairly good class analysis that is largely missed in the cultural imagination
good tweet thread here which i've summed up below
people seriously misunderstand Tolkien when they make as if the orcs are some racist caricature when they’re rather an unkind but not unfair classist portrayal of a toiling industrial working class press ganged into labor and war coaxed by their hatreds and desire for consumption
culturally, orcs are bogans. the crude ill-educated ruffians spiteful and jealous of the bounty and sophistication of the kingdoms of me , dwarves, and elves living in fear and hatred under the cruel whips of their masters
throughout LOTR you have the average orcs, basically industrial labourers and peasants pushed into war units, chafing under their petty bosses ready to cut their throats and go their own way but for the fear of Nazgul overlords basically acting like Pinkertons
this is hardly a deep reading, it’s all within the text , Shagrat and Gorbag complain about “the Big Bosses” and the Nazgul being used as terror and enforcement of the orc workforce, they even have their own dreams of leaving Mordor and living free with “no big bosses” !!
when Tolkien shows us the inner workings of Mordor industrialisation and militarisation and the conflict between Uruk Hai arriving and displacing the local orc workforce has brought the society to the brink of collapse, this is how Sam rescues Frodo from Cirith Ungol
Mordor is not a unified front, it is a totalitarian society dominated by Sauron’s control of the industrial machines that the orcs are pushed into running through fear, intimidation, and a drive to let out frustration on the other races but within are rebel factions resisting
it’s hard not to read The Lord of the Rings through a class lens when right off the bat you open on chapters and chapters of a playful tweaking of rural parochialism and the cultural tensions between the working peasantry working the fields and mills and the gentry who live above. Bilbo lives in the grandest hill atop Hobbiton idly pursuing learned pursuits of Elvish and history secure in his rare richness above the mass of Hobbit peasants and workers whose labour he benefits from, Frodo and Gandalf call him Bilbo but everyone else calls him “Mr. Baggins.” Tolkien puts you in the beer hall of the Ivy Bush Tavern where the yokels like Ted Sandyman are complaining and suspicious of the idle rich "Mr. Baggins" who’s defended by his itinerate gardener Gaffer Gamgee who yet worries about Sam “learning him his letters” from Mr. Baggins. class division is a fundamental aspect of LOTR, basically everything you get with Bilbo in the opening of Fellowship could almost out of a PG Wodehouse book tweaking the peculiarities of the idly rich folk of English country estates
over the course of the trilogy Hobbiton goes from a society of self sufficient peasants trading with artisans and doing cooperative work under a benevolent feudal system of the Old Took and his family and the new money Baggins to exploited labor industrialising under Saruman
thoughts from our resident tolkien heads?
Maybe, but I'm not all that convinced. I feel like trying to find metaphors and allegory in something Tolkien wrote is wrong in that the author himself was adamantly against people reading that into his texts. "I despise allegory in all forms", and all that. The man was trying to create a mythology. That said, of course Tolkien was influenced by the world around him. Hobbits, for example, seem like Little Englanders that Tolkien seems to be exhausted with. I wouldn't be surprised if the industrial workers around him served as some sort of inspiration without being metaphor.
Edit: expanding on my point about the Hobbits... in the movies, they're generally portrayed as these cherub-like, happy creatures. And that's there in the books, certainly for specific Hobbits like Frodo or Sam. But in general, Tolkien portrays them as small-minded, gossipy, and self-interested. They don't care about Bilbo, they come to the party pretty much just for the food and drinks. They assume Bilbo is rich and will shower them with gifts (hobbits give gifts on their b-day). So when he just disappears, the Hobbits are at first a little pissed. The next day things are smoothed over a bit by Frodo handing out a lot of Bilbo's possessions. So reading all that, you can just visualize the kind of people that influenced Tolkien's description of the hobbits. HOWEVER, I think it's a bridge too far to say he's trying to make a social commentary about the middle classes in England at the time. So even less so about orcs, who get far, far less ink used on them to describe who they are and what their motivations might be.
Yeah theres a lot you can comment on and critique with Tolkien but it starts to become a bit of a reach when people start talking about how The Shire is Tolkiens ecofascist wet dream and ideal society.
also they horny posted on main with shelob for no fucking reason lmao
Honestly, 80% of the Silmarillion is the Elves being racist, sociopathic shitheads.
i'm not sure its much better if the proletariat are the hated villains & slaughtered in droves by ancien regime aristocrats
orcs and goblins can't live in the sun, are treated as vermin & hunted down by the 'free people'. they have no capability to live outside the caves and industrial wastes and are never shown to be able to redeemed. just killed. it's not great message whether you're taking them as race or class allegory
also reading their hate for authority positively might be a leftist stretch, everyone and thing that rebels against the rightful authority of God in that universe is evil, the Big Bad is just a punk who wanted to go off-script in a jam session
In this way it's a similar text to the time machine which for all it's criticism of the cruelty of the industrial revolution portrays the working class as being brutish, hateful and lower than their aristocratic counterparts even when those aristocrats become dumber than sheep and essentiality a herd animal.
Still, in the time machine it portrays this as a result of unchecked exploitation rather than a failing of the working class themselves, it seems to rail much more against a system that steals so much of the dignity of the working class that they have had to live in the mines / underground factories (I can't really remember the exact details) in order to survive for so long that they now get blinded and burnt by the sunlight and literally have to eat the rich to survive. Though to be fair, the book is shot through with an undercurrent of classism.
Yes it's critical of capitalism but it's critical in a resolutely and unavoidably aristocratic manner and at one point the protagonist who is very much intended to be sympathetic describes active hate on the morlocks who are explicitly a flanderised version of the industrial working class implying that the current working class are worthy of a lesser version of that active contempt. The author was a Fabian and they are notably classist for socialists
yeah, that's fair, but I mean it's not a 1:1 allegory. within the larger structure of exploitation of orcs and goblins which you've pointed out--among them being literally tainted elves tortured to create compliance and ruthlessness--there are interesting aspects of power and labour that i hadn't pegged before like, e.g., the mention of big bosses and dreams of peace.
the mention of big bosses and dreams of peace
they want to go be unaffiliated raiders in the hills, their own Big Bosses. Tolkein's rebels are eternally perfidious and craven who defy the literally god-ordained natural order. he might've been lusty for parochial village life but make no mistake if the Gamgees & other poors had ever taken from the rich folk by their own power they'd be just as bad as the goblins
but make no mistake if the Gamgees & other poors had ever taken from the rich folk by their own power they’d be just as bad as the goblins
See: The "Evil Men" in places like Bree-land or Dunland
spoiler
E: Dunland I think is a great example now that I think about it. Remember after reading this, these guys are "evil."
Ancestors of the Dunlendings inhabited the forested regions of Middle-earth on either side of the Gwathló in the early Second Age; thus the early Númenóreans called them Gwaithuirim. They spoke a language related to that of the Second House of Men, the Haladin, rather than the vastly different Bëorian-Marachian tongue which stood at the base of Adûnaic, and this lack of mutual understanding led to outright hostility. The Númenóreans greedily harvested Gwaithuirim forests for timber, and after much war and bloodshed, the Gwaithuirim from south of the Gwathló fled east to the Hithaeglir while others scattered to the cape of Eryn Vorn and the White Mountains.
When Gondor decided to give the depopulated province of Calenardhon to the numerous people of Éothéod in TA 2510, the Hillfolk of the Hithaeglir felt threatened by these Forgoil "Strawheads" (a demeaning reference to the blonde hair of the Northmen). The Hillfolk had slowly colonised Calenardhon during the dwindling of the Dúnedain and were driven out by the new arrivals. War did not break out again until the reign of Helm Hammerhand (TA 2741 - TA 2759) when Freca, a lord of the West-March, tried to obtain the throne of Rohan for himself by petitioning for the marriage of his son Wulf to the daughter of Helm. Freca was killed and Wulf led the Dunlendings into open war with Rohan. They unsuccessfully besieged the Hornburg during the Long Winter of TA 2758 - TA 2759. Wulf did take Edoras and killed Haleth, the son of Helm, in front of the golden hall of Meduseld. Helm and his younger son Háma both perished in the Siege of the Hornburg. But Helm's nephew Fréaláf Hildeson held out against the Dunlendings in the refuge of Dunharrow. As the snows melted and aid arrived from Gondor, Fréaláf recaptured Edoras at the end of the Long Winter and killed Wulf personally. The Dunlendings were driven out of Rohan, and Fréalaf succeeded the deceased Helm Hammerhand as king.
Following his corruption by Sauron, however, Saruman used the Dunlendings historical hostility against Rohan to tempt them into supporting him during the War of the Ring. Following his army's defeat at the Battle of the Hornburg, the Rohirrim allowed the surviving Dunlendings to return to their homes, requiring that all hostilities cease and that the Dunlendings again retreat behind the Isen. During the Fourth Age Dunland became part of the Reunited Kingdom.
That's more or less just the history of Wales and England with the names switched aound
Pretty on the nose for the most part, it's well understood (I think) that LotR is less "Political" as we understand it and more about critically reflecting the horrors of the industrializing world. Though I think it's important to note that Tolkien at the same time was not based.
The solution to this class conflict described is to ensure that the pre-ordained "good" Feudal Hierarchy is reinstated (the line of the old Numenorean kings) and is still chauvinistic (See even the humblest of "Free Peoples" of the west vs. the "Swarthy" Easterlings and their depraved tribalism / witchcraft.) In the end, the hobbits return to the shire to find that Sharkey/Saruman is in the process of industrializing the shire in a colonial project, and there isn't really a whole lot that's done here. The bad guy is killed, and Frodo goes to elf heaven. Also there isn't really anything to separate the Numenoreans as the "Good" hierarchy except hand-waived divine right and the implication that they are the anti-indutrialist social force which isn't a great take. Textually, the numenoreans are just as shit-fisted when it comes to subjugation of other peoples' as Mordor, which is what allows the existence of "Evil" Numenorean rump-states like Umbar; slavers and pirates who perhaps ironically have the strongest claim to the Numenorean throne.
All in all though, LotR is good and Tolkien is on my "Problematic faves" shortlist with Herbert.
we live in a racist society that doesn't make it ok to be racist
I love these utterly unproductive, nitpicky struggle sessions. Even though they invariably teach me absolutely nothing worth knowing, they're still interesting and I quite like the back and forth they start.
Lord of the Rings has some pretty racist caricatures, but the orcs aren't one of them
The dwarves are more or less Tolkien's depiction of European Jews.
Then there's the "swarthy" Easterlings, and the men of Far Harad (ersatz sub-saharan Africa), who Tolkien describes as being half-beast, and a whole bunch of other human cultures that are depicted as being racially less pure and moral than the Dúnedain.
While on the subject of Tolkien and class. what does everyone make of Michael Moorcock's essay "Epic Pooh"? Is Moorcock right? Wrong? Contrarian? Professional jealousy, bitter about Tolkien's success? The legitimate complaints of an actual anarchist angry with a Catholic monarchist?
(PDF LINK)https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/en361fantastika/bibliography/2.7moorcock_m.1978epic_pooh.pdf
I look forward to reading this shortly, but I also need to show everyone this section in John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War where he says Melkor anticipates "the Russian Revolution... Lenin became a template for Hitler, Stalin, Mao... "
I buy it. Does that make the One Ring a metaphor for state power?
Is LotR an anarchist text?
I buy it. Does that make the One Ring a metaphor for state power?
Interestingly, it serves as an excellent metaphor for modern international Capital (abstract force of domination that rulers subject themselves to for power only to be consumed by it) though I doubt that's what Tolkien had in mind specifically.
Is LotR an anarchist text?
Very much not so, Tolkien's position is the world would be better if the Good Kings (TM) were returned to the throne. Most uncharitably it's a standard Monarchist position, generously could be interpreted as the liberal "more gay war criminals" position.
Very much not so, Tolkien’s position is the world would be better if the Good Kings ™ were returned to the throne.
That's my read too. Because Tolkien was critiquing industrialisation and the modern ruling class, he almost dove too deep into a medieval fantasy land where monarchy had divine right but For Real. I don't see that its anarchist in the sense of decentralised rule--more like loving patrons who provide for the peasants under Good Kings who serve the Good Gods--but in the sense that trade doesn't involve currency, I could see that particular aspect.
Would you say the treatment of the class structure in the Shire is positive?
I guess feudalism is the productive base of monarchism.
I'm not sure. I need to think a bit more. I'm not nearly as
nerdywell-read on Tolkien or theory as most people here, so I'm still wandering in the dark trying to put 2 and 2 together.BTW, there are legitimate arguments that the shire is an agro anarchist commune. Check out Yannick Imbert, "Tolkien's Shire: The Ideal of a Conservative-Anarchist Distributist Governance."
Tolkien also wrote in 1943 to Christopher:
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.
Like we noted above, he thinks that Good Kings should rule and have divine right but For Real, but he also thinks that they should fuck off
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 mediævals were only too right in taking nolo efiscopari 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.
so yeah, there's maybe some "anarchism" in a sense but I wouldn't think its in the sense that most people use the term--it may also be him projecting his own ideal without being able to let go of his Catholic hierarchy, IDK.
Interesting fellow. Rather than a benevolent king, he wants a thoroughly disinterested one.
I guess that’s a way to reconcile anarchistic tendencies with the existing social structures.
Rather than a benevolent king, he wants a thoroughly disinterested one.
This is similar to governance in accordance with Daoist principles.
The best-known use of the term wuwei is found in the Daodejing, a philosophical and spiritual text written about 300 bce and featuring naturalistic and quasi-mystical overtones. The Daodejing characterizes nonaction as both the manner in which the Way constantly generates the cosmos and the method through which the sage-king, or ideal ruler, most effectively governs. It states, “The Way does nothing, and yet nothing remains unaccomplished” (wuwei er wu buwei). So too the sage-king rules by cultivating within himself a constant awareness of and responsiveness to this natural Way. By taking no unnatural action, he actualizes the Way within his own life; he also influences his subjects toward natural action and promotes a flourishing rather than a stagnant kingdom. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/wuwei-Chinese-philosophy)
