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[personal profile] kortirion_among_the_trees
With regret, I have to report that the culture wars have reached the hitherto docile and apolitical realm of the Tolkien Society. As we speak, there are people plotting to disrupt their proposed seminar on diversity. This is because some right-wing idiot (and UKIP candidate) called Sargon of Akkad (I kid you not) posted a whiny YouTube video about 'those leftist woke Tolkien Society people' (for context, the chairman of the TS is a Tory council leader in some part of England I never knew existed).

It was of course only a matter of time, because the narrative of 'cultural Marxism' and 'those damn woke people' needs constant feeding with further examples to agitate the online anti-intellectual gammons with, to constantly feed their victim complexes about being on the losing end of a titanic struggle. It would be ridiculous (and untrue) to say that diversity has a central place in either Tolkien scholarship or the Tolkien society, yet the narrative decrees that 'the woke are taking over' and 'we have to fight them' because we are up against a conspiracy theory that sees imaginary 'SJW' enemies everywhere it looks.

Tolkien's works are the sort that appeal to all - from left-wing hippies to blood and soil nationalists. This is why he is so popular and loved. His books teach basic human values that speak to all and are almost totally apolitical. But that sort of truce is unacceptable to the new disruptive force, because it does not recognise truces. To it, anything that has alignment with/inclusion of the Left must be controlled by the Left. It is of course a staple part of how conspiracy theories work - if you think a shadowy group (here, 'the Left') is behind everything, then unless they are visibly excluded you will keep thinking it.

For the record, I think many of the talks are ridiculous, applying theories in a way that just does not work, however none of that excuses the sort of 'gate-keeping' and attempted 'cancelling' of the whole TS that seems to be mooted.

Date: 2021-06-16 08:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] suzy.livejournal.com
Вспомнила что уже встречала упоминане этого персонажа, и погуглила. После фразы "In March 2018, North London Antifa protesters broke into a scheduled discussion between Benjamin and Yaron Brook by King's College London's Libertarian Society at the school. Masked protestors attacked security guards, set off smoke bombs, broke windows and set off a fire alarm. The event organisers called the police, cancelled the event and evacuated the building. The organiser reported that two security guards were hospitalised" в вики, убедилась, что "раввин и капуцин одинаково воняют" (с)

Date: 2021-06-17 12:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] arda-unmarred.livejournal.com
Естественно мордобоя я не поддерживаю ни в какой форме, но мне кажется разница тут в том что Антифа и другие ультра левые организации не твердят все время про абсолютную свободу слова. Они скорее придерживаются линии Карла Поппера высказанную в его знаменитом парадоксе толератности: чтобы выжить, толерантному обществу нельзя давать свободу слова экстремистам. (Я не хочу долго обсуждать кто экстремист а кто нет: тут идет речь про их понятие экстремизма а не наше).

Народ типа Бенджамина все время твердит про гораздо более сильную форму свободы слова. Правительство давит на университеты чтобы они ее предоставили — даже для псевдоисториков типа Дейвида Ирвинга. Но на деле Бенджамин так же не готов предоставлять свободу слова оппонентам как и Антифа.

Date: 2021-06-17 08:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] suzy.livejournal.com
Не, ну если мы про данного персонажа, так он на всю голову болен, и даже большинство правых согласится, что он экстремист.
Но с другой стороны, может я просто не в курсе, я не слышала давно примеров, где правые запретили левых.

Date: 2021-06-16 11:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] arda-unmarred.livejournal.com
While I obviously agree in general terms, you need to add some nuance. The TS may have been apolitical (I can only assume, never having been a member), but wider Tolkien fandom, Tolkien's reception by the general public and Tolkien himself never were. Tolkien's own politics are well-studied and their presence in his work is self-evident; as you yourself point out, political appropriations of Tolkien by people on both wings of the political spectrum have been around since the beginning — the infamous Italian fascist groups are well known to you; and Tolkien has been invoked again and again by the media, by politicians, etc. to justify various broadly right-wing causes, from the war in Iraq to Brexit. So in and of itself, there's absolutely nothing new in this particular iteration of right-wingers jumping on the bandwagon. What is new (and here I agree with you) is that their advent has taken the form of: 'let's rescue Tolkien from the left, who are trying to corrupt our precious conservative icon with their nasty wokeness'. So instead of being content simply to use Tolkien as a flag for their cause, i.e. declaring 'Tolkien is ours' as all their predecessors had done and leaving it at that, they cast their interpretation as a battle against an enemy interpretation, and this oppositional quality is the primary characteristic of their engagement. Now this is a direct reflection of the way the modern culture war works, and of the narrative of combative victimhood that has been the best weapon in the rightwing arsenal since probably the 90s.

There have always been crazy interpretations of Tolkien and people have always grumbled about them, but no one in the 80s would have suggested that those Freudian critics who think Shelob's lair is a vagina are a political enemy whose meetings must be disrupted. There's no inherent reason why e.g. transgender interpretations should be considered more provoking than some of the crazy stuff that's been around for the last half-century. The obvious explanation is that in previous generations this kind of thing remained confined to the narrow world of literary criticism, and no one else was aware of it. Now, thanks to social media, everything can be weaponised and drawn into the wider culture wars.

Date: 2021-06-17 12:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] arda-unmarred.livejournal.com
Yes, of course, even though the works themselves aren't political, there have been plenty of political interpretations. I still remember those Italians who came to speak with us in 2004, who clearly wanted to utilise Tolkien to promote right-wing parties in Italy. I wish I could remember their names (they are somewhere in my email, but finding them will be tricky).

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