Sauron and collectivism

[Bergil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

As for Tolkien, he preferred monarchy to democracy, and distrusted any system that was even newer than democracy, including collectivism, because he didn't trust the will of the people to rise above the lowest common denominator.

That's going a bit too far. Tolkien wrote monarchys to be beleivable (possibly among other reasons), and made his monarchys free of the problem of real monarchys (royal parents not teaching their children about the responsibility they hold) so we could cheer for them, and no-one but a complete conformist would argue that this monarchy would be worse then the half-democraceis of today (my perfect government would be somthing unheard-of, a council of 23 randomly selected people changing every 10 years backed by a good constitution that clearly states that it cannot be changed, among other things, or failing that a democracy with no parties and a limit of 1 term in office, but that's beside the point). Collectivism isn't a philosophy written somewhere, like democracy or communism, but more of a mindset.

EDIT: I am not insulting you or saying that you are unarguably wrong. just clearing that up.