Re: [Marxism] JRR Tolkien: Ecosystems of Middle Earth

[WSheasby <wsheasby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve Robinson on J.R.R. Tolkien and Michael Perelman on Arthur Tansley
raise issues of their far from revolutionary politics, and what is remarkable
is the way each stretched their ideologies in response to a deep commitment
to preserving the English countryside. This aristocratic romanticism has often
come into conflict with bourgeois values.

In early 1956 Tolkien wrote to the editor of the New Republic:
*I am not a 'socialist' in any sense - being averse to 'planning' (as must be
plain) most of all because the 'planners', when they acquire power become
so bad - but I wouild not say that we had to suffer the malice of Sharkey
[Saruman] and his Ruffians here. Though the spirit of 'Isengard', if not of
Mordor, is of course always cropping up. The present design of destroying
Oxford in order to accomodate motor-cars is a case. But our chief adversary
is a member of a 'Tory' Government. But you could apply it anywhere in
these days.*

William Morris had disparaged State Socialism when it was counterposed to
the revolutionism of the First International and the Paris Commune. At the
height of the Cold War few made such distictions, though I think it clear that
Tolkien would have welcomed the workshops of News from Nowhere. A great
deal is made of Tolkien's Catholicism, and there is little doubt he would have
blushed at the sexual freedom in pagan and communard utopias. But for many
readers, this is precisely what is to be found in the fellowship of the Lord of 
the
Rings.

As to Sir Arthur George Tansley, he seems to have fit well within the doctrine
of Social Imperialism, applying Ecology, or perhaps an Anti-Ecology, to the care
and feeding of the Empire's colonies. Perelman cites Tansley's early views, but
it was mainly in the last fifteen years of his life that he became a major 
figure
of conservationism.

I strongly doubt that the ecologists of today could celebrate the contribution 
of
Tolkien and Tansley without their predecessors, William Morris and E. Ray
Lankester, who turn the history of ideas to the more vexing Victorianism of
Marx and Darwin.

-----Original Message-----
Message: 7
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:23:17 +0000
From: srobin21@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Marxism] JRR Tolkien: Ecosystems of Middle Earth

        <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
It is interesting to see Tolkien's work from the perspective of a naturalist. My
understanding is that he was part of a school of writers in the 1920s known as 
"the
Oxford Christians" which included C.S. Lewis (much beloved by Christian 
fundamentalists)
and another one with the last name of Williams (whose first name I cannot now 
recall,
but who wrote "The Place of the Lion").  Where Tolkien's ecological 
understanding
fits in with his created mythos of titantic, and cyclic, conflicts between good
and evil is not clear to me, although one cannot deny the attention he pays to 
the
botanical world in his writings. Steve
------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 20:04:29 -0800
From: Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Marxism] JRR Tolkien: Ecosystems of Middle Earth

Anker, Peder. 2001. Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire,
1895-1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

79-80: In 1927, Tansley finally won a professorship at Oxford.  In his inaugural
lecture, he proposed that the ecologists should focus their attention on the 
colonies
because of the enormous job opportunities there.

80: According to Tansley, "It was urgent for the department to develop imperial
ecology:  most economic support would come from the colonies, and most future 
posts
in agriculture, forestry physiology, mycology, ecology, and pastoral science 
would
emerge in the colonial administration ....  The most common task for such 
ecological
entrepreneurs throughout the empire was to transform forests to farmland, 
deserts
to
grassland, thus creating environments fit for various colonial interest groups 
....
Ecology was an ideal science for such activity because its main concern was 
precisely
transformation or succession of landscapes.  Tansley also envisioned an academic
network that included forestry, agriculture, and zoology under the wings of 
ecology."

--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
***************************************


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