Why are Tolkien fans usually left-wing?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Seeing that Tolkien was named "Catholic Author of the Century", and is revered in Catholic circles, I fail to see the leftist interests. Catholics as a group in the U.S. are a fairly conservative lot.

Just for the sake of it, an addendum to what Form and Mith have already said: "Catholic" and "left-wing" (or even "VERY left-wing") were and still are going pretty well synonymous in many places, for instance, in South America. Or catholicism in politics around where I live (if it plays any role in politics at all, but at least when I look at the Christian Democrat party, which is effectively Catholic) often means "center" (which, by US standards, would correspond more to the Democrats). But the main point to this, I believe, lies indeed in what Mith had said about that Tolkien wasn't an American Catholic anyway, and not a contemporary one in any case.

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

I suppose from the German context you refer to in your post, Miggy, that you're using "left-wing supporters" to mean people who would describe themselves roughly as e.g. supporting individual liberty and privacy versus state surveillance, minority rights and tolerance versus racism, solidarity and social justice versus neo-liberal capitalism, to name the main issues

I think it is worthy to remark this, since it well illustrates the problem again: "supporting individual liberty and privacy vs. state surveillance" is totally a right-wing thing around here (actually that's one of the main "boogiemen" the right-wing supporters use against the left-wing), and we are just across the border! I mean - everybody thinks: "state surveillance = communist totality", "after the end of 80's = free market (right-wing) society and individual freedom" (and when one looks at our political parties, the ones focusing on minority rights and tolerance the most are actually the "center", which technically means Greens and Christian Democrats)... stopping here, but you get the point: once again, so much for "universal" definition of "left-wing".

Anyway, as for the issues mentioned, and going on from what Pitch had said: I think that by any "political analysis", the main point of the societies in Middle-Earth is that they are utopian. In an almost platonic or aristotelic way: in all the good realms, and especially in the best ones (all the "golden era" Elven realms, Númenor, early Gondor, Elessar's rule etc.) you have a good, wise king, who rules well exactly because he is good and wise. It's a monarchy with enough personal space for everyone, it seems, even though e.g. the class borders seem to be more or less set, but everybody is content: there is never a hint of any class struggle or anything, because the good and wise king makes it so that everybody is happy, and not in any sense that the poor people would be brainwashed, but simply because it is that way and everybody is genuinely happy. Likewise, in Mordor etc. the people are brainwashed and everyone is genuinely unhappy, because the ruler is a jerk, but the inhabitants are not much better (and likewise no class struggle can happen anyway, since even Gorbag and Shagrat are so uncapable of cooperating that Engels and Marx would shed a tear over them). Any potential revolts in good realms are evil (logically), unless they come from a legitimate heir to the throne, like the resistance of the Faithful at Númenor (the most ambiguous thing that ever happens in history is the kin-strife in Gondor, if I am not mistaken). Potential revolts in Mordor etc. cannot happen - there is nobody good enough to lead them, and the Easterlings, Southrons etc., being incapable to bring freedom to themselves, have to be liberated by the Western powers.

All in all, the questions of social justice etc. therefore have the answer in "The Return of the King", and that is not defined by any "left" or "right" classification, and the reader can basically imagine the "good rule" containing everything he can think of reached, and the "goals on the way" are omitted and we are left to imagine them, but each can do so on his own (to make up an example: "will there be a need for forming labour unions once the King has returned?" Maybe not, because the King will manage to oversee it all by himself. Maybe yes, because the representatives can go to the King and tell him about the injustice they are subject to and the King will make the justice happen. Both alternatives are equally imaginable in the Legendarium, I'd say, if you imagine the first, it could be written as a summary at the end of some description of Elessar's rule, and the second could be described as a scene of some folks coming to the King, sort of illustrating it).

The ideal of the "good and wise King" leaves the society in Middle-Earth (any society in there) conservative - in the true sense of the word: unchanging, because change is not needed, at most to bring it back to the proper state from which it has fallen.* But conservative does not obviously equal "right-wing" in this case (even if we pass the ambiguity of that term, as mentioned by many above) - as we can see even by Miggy's account that there are also many left-wing supporters among his readers, and that's why I think Tolkien is a bit above these things. After all, if you ask "left or right?", you can immediately be asked "and left or right from what point?"

(*By the way, speaking of this: one thing I can recall, most interesting thing I've ever encountered in the whole legendarium, is the Lake-Town, which apparently had democracy (! which was rotten, though, with the greedy mayor) until Bard the Bowman brought the kingdom back - the mayor, however, had been using the tradition of democracy ("electing wise men") as an argument against Bard's rule.)