"Reason" Blog
Lord of the Rings -- Racist Warhawk Propaganda?
Gentlemen, start your comments:http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2003/12/12/and_the_most_controversial_topic_is.php
The purely evil Orcs are, in Tolkien's words, "squat, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant-eyes". The enemy is the Dark Lord and he lives in the Black Land. The heroic hobbits and elves are, by contrast, über-Aryan and ethnically pure. Ideals of "blood" and its purity are always sloshing around his narrative. For example, the Men of Gondor - "the high men" - are descendants of the Numenorians, the greatest of all warriors. Over the centuries, they have become "degraded" because of breeding with inferior races. When their bloodline is pure, as in Aragorn's descendants, the strength of the original Lords of the West is retained. […]
Some elements of the US and Israeli far-right have tried to use The Lord of the Rings to promote their "West vs The Rest" world-view. […]
Tolkien presents us with an absolute enemy who must simply be destroyed: purely evil and incapable of feeling. Of course, no such war can ever happen; it is a pernicious Tolkienian myth.
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