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?

  • JamesConeZone [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I'm not sure. I need to think a bit more. I'm not nearly as nerdy well-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.

    • KiaKaha [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      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.

      • Wertheimer [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        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)