From: lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Lewchuk)
Subject: Re: Tolkien a Racist?
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 00:30:24 GMT

jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:
>	But it _does_ make a political statement--  in fact, it makes many! .
>Just because a work falls in into the category of "fantasy" doesn't mean that 
>it has no ideological underpinnings.  In the case of LOTR, I think these 

I find the statement "ideology = politics" rather "unnatural".  There is far
more to fantasy than the desire to make a statement, political or otherwise.
Fantasy can have its own life, and live by rules not "coherent" in our present
day.  For example, the fact that Tolkien wrote "Return of the King" does not
necessarily mean he values monarchy as a valuable political system.  He might,
but it doesn't mean he does.

One must watch how the line is drawn between morals of the story and
the environment in which the story is set.  Do "post-apocalyptic" novels
make the political statement "we should all go out and fight as barbarians"?

>Tolkien could have used.  He didn't _have_ to make race such a central concern 
>of LOTR, but he did--  and I think that's just as signficant as the fact that
>he could have made religion a fundamental part of LOTR, but didn't.  At the

However the "racism" you're implying cannot be considered fundamentally
cohesive with our view of reality.  Consider:
1.  4 of the races are non-humanoid, and these are the ones remarkably
    different from man.  They are the ones Tolkien uses to make his major
    points.
    Orcs - evil          Dwarves - semi-benevolent miners/artificers
    Hobbits - benevolent farmers   Elves - benevolent natural magic-users.
2.  Tolkien never makes any correlation between being dark-skinned and
    being "evil".  However he DOES make direct correlation between love
    or hatred of light and nature and good or evil.
3.  Most of the racial comparisons were ones of:
    1. Good was "fairer": more beautiful, generally.
    2. Philosophy: peaceful nature-loving societies vs. nature-hating
       warlike societies.
    The moral was that the greatest good was to harmonize with nature,
    not attempt to destroy it or wantonly plunder it.

Was he using racist analogy with the dark-skinned folk of the South?  Well,
only one group of Southerners that we know of were dark-skinned, and were
not portrayed as "evil", merely those who were coerced into allying with
evil rulers or forced into following their will.  Plus, one wonders if
the Southrons were chosen to be dark-skinned because they were to be allied
with evil, or because they lived in the south.  Geography matters, and
if Tolkien chose Mordor to be around south central Asia and the southern
lands to be around Africa, of course the Southrons would be dark-skinned.
The question is whether he chose them to be dark-skinned because they were
to be potrayed as "allied with evil".

By the way, when accusing Tolkien of racism because he uses the analogy
of light & dark, one must remember that this analogy is still used, very
effectively, even today.  Our pre-historic ancestors knew that light was
good, and that night was a time where you could not work.  Summer there
was much light and warmth, winter was cold and dark.  Is it not natural
for us to use these analogies?

The main "genteel racism" I think Tolkien could be accused of would be
that Blacks were generally tribal, primitive, and warlike.  However, this
I would say more from thinking about his era than reading his literature.
Remember, the Wild Men of the Wood were also primitive and warlike.
  
>	--  Jim C. <jchokey@leland.stanford.edu>

					Michael Lewchuk
					lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien