A report published by the British government’s anti-terrorism unit declared reading C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien can lead to right-wing radicalization, causing a dangerous threat to the government. Various Christian and conservative outlets have cried foul, even calling for dismissals and public condemnation of those involved, pointing to the widespread popularity, acceptance, and love for both authors across political and religious backgrounds.
However, and this is rare, I agree with the government! While I believe “right-wing” does not fully apply, Tolkien particularly is a clear threat to the modern authoritarian state.
Tolkien is often credited with popularizing anarcho-monarchism, a mix of anarchist and libertarian forms of kingship. Fewer realize he was adapting and representing Anglo-Saxon and medieval kingship! But nonetheless, he brought it back into the political discussion, and his converts are abundant. I have interacted with many myself.
I dedicated my book Missing Monarchy (where I argue in favor of Medieval kingship and against the modern state and democracy) to J.R.R. Tolkien, who absolutely influenced my political opinions. Further, in reaching out to an audience who might be interested in my book, I have encountered bloggers, historians, podcast hosts, libertarians, anarchists, monarchists, and more who have also been affected by him in the same manner.
Speaking of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien wrote, “The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against Kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion.” Due at least in part to Tolkien, many now reject the modern state and forced government coercion, instead seeking a voluntary society.
Tolkien’s work is inspiring people to revolt and seek a more just, self-governing system. As a result, his followers pose a threat to those who wish to maintain the state’s current authoritarianism, where force is imposed on citizens regardless of their own desires. As professor and political philosopher Jason Brennan wrote, “In a Democracy, we are not volunteers, we are conscripts, we cannot opt-out, we are forced into it…governments do not merely advise us to follow their rules…they enforce their laws and rules with violence or threats of violence.”
In another work, I look in-depth at Tolkien’s political opinions and how he incorporated them into Middle-earth. The free people model Medieval kingship, a form of anarcho-monarchism Tolkien described himself as subscribing to, while those under the shadow, such as Sauron and Saruman, represent modern totalitarian governments (including western democracies) based on centralized power, authority, control, and obedience. Let’s take a quick look at some of the contrasting themes.
A Threat to Centralized Power
In Tolkien’s works, he depicts tyrants like Saruman and Sauron as power-hungry and ruling over totalitarian regimes. Their societies are highly centralized, all the power, economy, and people, geared toward production to benefit those in power. These tyrants seek the One Ring, the mighty creation providing its wearer power to dominate the world. Both tyrants want to control everything, the whole world under their grasp, centralized to the extreme. Both seek to extend their power over all the free people of Middle-earth to enforce One Government to rule them all.
Liberty did not exist in either Mordor, ruled by the tyrant/demon Sauron, or Isengard, Saruman’s realm. Instead, these all-powerful dictators’ centralized governments completely controlled the minions. Peace, liberty, consent, self-determination, and self-governance were not to be found. They operated using a centralized power and control driving the peoples, who had no laws nor ancient customs in place to protect them, by fear.
Sauron and Saruman were the sole law in their lands. Their dictates, desires, and declarations each day, became new law. With no other law and no liberty, the subjects were only tools: means to an end, everything directed for the benefit the rulers. They assumed they had the right to rule over others against their will – the height of arrogance and pride. They either “were wiser than everyone,” as the evil wizard Saruman felt, or they despised others wishing to enslave them, as Sauron did.
In contrast, Tolkien’s model of kingship, practiced among the free peoples of Middle-earth and centered on consent and unchanging law, resembles feudalistic Europe. Rulers do not lord it over their people, coerce them, or burden them with taxes and regulations. Within the free peoples’ realms, there is no state enacting legislation to control the people. The lords allow maximum free will and liberty to those living in their realm. Like a feudal king, they are all under the tradition and just laws preceding them and without their consent the Kings could not expand their authority in any way.
Modern centralized states legislate to force their citizens to be alike and conform to the will of the majority. Therefore, all diversity, and the views and opinions of the minority, are suppressed – the objective, “one majority to rule them all.” Not so with Tolkien, who, through decentralization, allows true diversity to thrive across the kingdom among the many different free peoples’ domains.
Dwarves, elves, hobbits, and men are allowed to maintain their own cultures without the need or desire to control any other. Treebeard says to Celeborn, the lord of Lórien, whose lands border Fangorn Forest, “I know mine, and you know yours. Let neither side molest what is the other’s.” Even when various groups live in the same areas, they respect and practice self-governance.
For example, in what is described as an excellent situation in Bree, hobbits, men, dwarves, and elves all pass through or live together in peace. Men are the most numerous and govern Bree, yet the hobbits who also dwell there do so, “minding their own affairs in their own ways.” And Bree itself is entirely autonomous; the men of Bree are described as “independent; they belonged to nobody but themselves.”
In and around Laketown, Dale, Erebor, and the Woodland Realms of Tolkien, dwarves, men, and elves (unlike today’s Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians) live in peace, alliance, and friendship.
But this harmonious relationship between these diverse cultures was maintained not by having everyone vote to determine a majority opinion to be imposed to control and force conformity, but the opposite. All were allowed to live as they wished, and thus there was no cause for strife. There was a live-and-let-live attitude – an attitude of tolerance. No one was upset or offended because another group chose to live according to their own customs. No one desired to force others to abide by their customs. They were perfectly content to accept the diversity allowing themselves and others to live happily. And if any were not, there was no government machinery they could use to impose their own beliefs and purposes.
The tyranny of the majority, or of a distant more powerful government, did not infiltrate the free peoples’ realms.
A Threat to Politicians
Concerning the modern power seekers (politicians) and authoritarian and centralized governments of his day, Tolkien stated had the events of the Third Age occurred today, the Ring wouldn’t have been destroyed but used. After publishing, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien said of the modern world, “I see that Saruman has many descendants.”
Our modern system is built upon elections enabling people who desire power to gain it! We place the political Ring of power into the hands of those who desire it; we are giving the Sarumans and Saurons of our age what they crave. Our competitive campaign system ensures only those who will fight the hardest, those willing to cut deals, bend to the wishes of powerful interest groups, lie, and worse, will have greater success in attaining the centralized power and money our federal government offers to hand them.
Our system gives power only to those who lust for it – the last kind of people you want in power. Tolkien wrote, “The supremely bad motive [is] domination of others’ free wills.” And further he wrote, “The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”
Tolkien makes a noticeable distinction between those who desire power through control of others’ wills, and those who oppose that control. His evil tyrants, such as Sauron and Saruman, are seeking precisely such power – it is the power the famous One Ring confers to its wielder – the power to control and force the wills of others into compliance. The professor clearly represents this act as evil.
Tolkien’s free people do not gain power because they seek it, or due to their ability to manipulate voters, gain financial backers, and so on. Instead, they inherit thrones and lordships due to bloodlines. They are appointed to perform a duty to their people, thus hereditary inheritance is an excellent system for preventing those who desire power from getting it. Conversely, democracy ensures only those who want power the most get it – and all of them are spawned from the unholy, filthy matrimony of political parties and elections. As Thomas Aquinas taught, those who desire power would make the worst sort of rulers.
Conversely, democracy ensures only those who want power the most get it – and all of them are spawned from the unholy, filthy matrimony of political parties and elections. As Thomas Aquinas taught, those who desire power would make the worst sort of rulers.
Frodo Baggins’s written history of The War of the Ring is titled “The Downfall Of The Lord Of The Rings And The Return Of The King.” It records the events and happenings and tells the story of the annihilation of the power-seeking Lord of the Rings, the demon Sauron, with a rightful king who rules due to his bloodline- Aragorn. The world is restored and made better by removing power from the Dark Lord and the evil wizard Saruman and restoring genuine leadership.
A Danger to Democracy?
[Under Democracy], a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two (Lysander Spooner).
As Spooner reveals, Democracy indulges the worst part of human nature: the desire to rule others. It brings out the Saruman and Sauron within us as we seek to use the One Ring—or, in our case, government power—to coerce others to do our bidding. Tolkien’s heroes in his writings were the free peoples—those who chose not to coerce but allowed free will.
As we saw earlier, Tolkien’s free people did not vote, thus imposing majority control on a minority. Because one side has more numbers, Tolkien tells us, does not justify domination. Instead, they held a “live and let live” attitude under an anarcho-monarchism. He tells us we might desire to use a ring of power to enforce our own will, but this is the work of the enemy. His free people reject the use of this type of control and fight to prevent it. Thus, they achieve what Aquinas called a “united whole” devoid of internal stress, hatred, anger, civil war, political infighting, etc.
It is only in places like Tolkien’s Mordor and Isengard where various differing tribes are forced under the same centralized system (think Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, etc.), learning and leading to ingrained hatred, constant fighting, and ongoing killing. Hatred arose among the various groups due to loss of freedom in living and opportunity for self-fulfillment, through being enmeshed with other contrary groups because all of them were forced into the same system in order to benefit the most powerful tyrants.
The free peoples’ realms have little in the way of government. They are devoid of professional politics and legislatures who can pass laws, manipulate society, and so on. There is no government education controlling thought or bureaucracies regulating people’s property and lives.
The kings, lords, queens, wizards, elves, men, hobbits, and dwarves are all under the laws predating them – and all resist rulers who attempt to become tyrannical or extend their powers. The free people are free from the operation of the majority and a professional class of politicians and government.
Conclusion
Tolkien presents us with an alternative to the modern top-down governance we endure today: a world of people and places free of the great evil derived from the arrogance and pride making some men think they are better than their fellow citizens and ought to rule them—not as the citizens might wish but as the domineering prefer.
He offers us a world of volunteerism and liberty, where people are free to live under the customs they desire – free of the threats inherent in rule by an official state, politicians, and majorities. It is only under the shadow we see forced obedience to a central authoritarian power instituted—the very image of our modernity. Thus, Tolkien is indeed a threat —a clear antithesis—to our established state government of today.
Featured: Wickedness, drawing by J.R.R. Tolkien (ca. 1912).
