When i read the books, back in the pre-movie days i was a kid, so i wouldn't have been able to pick up on what was reactionary or not. But i think the general feeling of that time was that the books were anti-war. And while they were about adventure and wars, they stood out by centering the hobbits who weren't warriors and prized simple, peaceful living.
The books reputation then was more about the feeling of histrory to the world that Tolkein built into it (i don't remember hearing the term world building back then, but that's what we'd say today). And then about the anti-war themes especially in the Hobbit and the parrells to WW1 and WW2 in LOTR
Right, I should make it clear that I don't feel like LotR or Tolkien more broadly have nothing good to be said about them, just that there are a bunch of reactionaries who see LotR's inherent fantasy lookism and binary semi-Christian morality as last bastions of their lame reactionary worldview.
At the end of the day it's (as always) a bunch of boring culture war fought within the medium of people's treats of choice in an economic environment that structurally divorces people in it from the consequences of their political reality.
I should make it clear that I don't feel like LotR or Tolkien more broadly have nothing good to be said about them,
For sure, i don't want to make it sound like their aren't problematic things or things that shouldn't be critiqued. I have a lot of problems with it, and i get that reactionaries see what they see in it
When i read the books, back in the pre-movie days i was a kid, so i wouldn't have been able to pick up on what was reactionary or not. But i think the general feeling of that time was that the books were anti-war. And while they were about adventure and wars, they stood out by centering the hobbits who weren't warriors and prized simple, peaceful living.
The books reputation then was more about the feeling of histrory to the world that Tolkein built into it (i don't remember hearing the term world building back then, but that's what we'd say today). And then about the anti-war themes especially in the Hobbit and the parrells to WW1 and WW2 in LOTR
Right, I should make it clear that I don't feel like LotR or Tolkien more broadly have nothing good to be said about them, just that there are a bunch of reactionaries who see LotR's inherent fantasy lookism and binary semi-Christian morality as last bastions of their lame reactionary worldview.
At the end of the day it's (as always) a bunch of boring culture war fought within the medium of people's treats of choice in an economic environment that structurally divorces people in it from the consequences of their political reality.
For sure, i don't want to make it sound like their aren't problematic things or things that shouldn't be critiqued. I have a lot of problems with it, and i get that reactionaries see what they see in it