frandroid | podcast friday - tolkien the anarchist

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I have a confession to make. I have never read LOTR. Not read any Tolkien. Even F who doesn't read fantasy or SF has read LOTR or maybe The Hobbit. (In school for English lit., but still). I've watched the trilogy so I'm not a total ignoramus. Anyway the radical perspective I've heard about LOTR is that it's fundamentally Monarchist. And here while I was looking up Andrewism (which Aaron Bushnell was boosting) I found this podcast named Everyday Anarchism. It's hosted by a WASP dude who very much speaks in that WASPy voice that many such podcasts have. The first couple episodes was lacklustre, but I've enjoyed this third one on how LOTR and Tolkien were fundamentally anarchist. It would be interesting to hear a debate, though maybe if I had read the books... :P

https://pod.link/1585390166

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sabotabby

Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that. I also don't think a lot of fash who like Tolkien have read the books. Because yes, there's absolutely a glorification of ancient cultures but the entire point of it is that this is fading and modernity is inevitable, and we can be sad about it all we want but it's happening. That's something more or less lost in the film adaptations.

From:

ioplokon

I mean, Melloni definitely read them. And that inevitably dying culture vibe is also just Ossian, revisited. Eta: also, I kinda think the 'recover past glory' part of fascism is less a real drive or promise and more a means of inculcating a sense of moral injury? So it being irrecoverable is not a barrier...

I don't really have a whole thesis about what is happening here, but if I were still a long 18th century person, I'd probably have more to say (also, unfortunately the 18th C just keeps getting longer...)

Edited Date: 2024-04-13 06:16 pm (UTC)

From:

sabotabby

Hmm. I feel a little daft for not making the connection between "the things the right demands are impossible goals, which is the point because it means that the people are always unsettled, precarious, and aggrieved with someone to blame" with "RETVRN TO TRADITION is impossible and that's the point." But you raise a very good point.