re: fascist hobbits

["Mike Friedman" <mikedf@xxxxxxxx>]

Nonsense. I'm an avid fan of the Sword and Sorcery genre, as sheer escapist
literature and the desire to fantasize about things which are, frankly,
impossible (turn Bush into a hedgehog, for example, or swing a sword at
Ashcroft). Some has literary value (Jordan's Wheel of Time, for example, or
Tolkien's works) and some doesn't. Some embodies baldly reactionary themes
(Howard's Conan books) and some doesn't. That doesn't mean in political
practice I buy into a "strong-man" political philosophy, nor do many of the
folks who read Tolkien. It was a popular read for many among 60s
counterculturalists with all of their (in many cases superficial)
questioning of authority. Another subscriber to this list pointed out, if I
am paraphrasing correctly, that just because folks partake of a particular
literary form doesn't mean their worldview is determined by it. And (Lou,
correct me if I'm wrong), Trotsky defended the dissemination of the most
reactionary bourgeois literature and culture, such as Wagner's works (which
did inspire fascism), based a) on their aesthetic value, b) the need for
working people to have access to ALL forms of culture, in part so they could
develop their own critique and literary forms, and c) the fact that
practice, the political and economic reality, and NOT literature, determine
a class's worldview. The same subscriber I alluded to before also made this
point.

Mike

> I would not classify it as fascist per se, because, as has been alluded to
> by others, the story is just too sophisticated for your average fascist.
> Precisely because it is seen as whimsical, it has an enormous impact on
> popular culture, serving to legitimize conservatism and to provide benign
> cover for the more dangerous fascist currents, which tend to draw on
> similar themes in their own crude way.
>


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