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posted by [identity profile] keswindhover.livejournal.com at 07:22pm on 08/01/2004
We discussed this a bit last night, when I went off on a bit of a tangent, and said that I had my suspicions of the politics behind LoTR - which seemed pretty reactionary to me: for example the opposition is quite literally 'demonised' in the story, feudalism is portrayed in a positive light, kingship in itself confers some sort of 'sacredness', war is glorious etc etc.

On the topic of war, I wound up with John Stuart Mill - and here is the quote again:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. … A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice-is often the means of their regeneration.

On one of your more concrete points, I would just say that the National Health Service in Britain, for all its many faults, is a wonderful, and wonderfully socially progressive institution. Free Health Care for all, and a State old age pension have massively improved the lives of millions of people.

Oh - and back to the point a bit, I don't think people generally have lost their sense of ethics, even if they have lost some of their certainties, and it's all become a bit more malleable and relative, and pragmatic (if you can be all three things at once!).
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] revdorothyl.livejournal.com at 08:46pm on 08/01/2004
Oh, I concur with your questions and concerns about some of the underlying assumptions of the LOTR cosmology, but since my only knowledge of Middle Earth comes from the films (never having read the books) and since it's not a mythology that PARTICULARLY resonates with me or screams "sacred!" when I see it, I'm hesitant to criticize it too much -- first, because my observations may not be consistent with Tolkien's original work, and second, because I generally prefer to criticize from the INSIDE of a fandom, rather than the outside. That is, I have this sneaking feeling that I shouldn't criticize too harshly unless I also LOVE (just as I would prefer that only people who know and love me take it upon themselves to criticize ME -- fat chance of THAT happening!).

Just from what I've seen on the screen, Middle Earth is (unsurprisingly, considering the author and the culture in which he lived) pretty much focused on the male perspective, which may be why I find it hard to get too emotionally involved. Oh, well . . .
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