The West's Cultural Narcissism: An Examination of Tolkien's Orcs

[Lexicus]

No one thinks Russian people are irredeemable orcish,

I mean
I don't think this is true
But it's no more the central issue here than Allied "air piracy," area bombing of German cities, was the big moral issue in ww2

 

[Birdjaguar]

Reinterpreting old works of fiction to fit modern narratives like this thread doing, is not dis similar from the many reinterpretations of the bible we have seen over the centuries. there is usually an agenda to support some current cause and significant cherry picking of supporting passages and ignoring of those that don't support the reinterpretation. Fun times!

 

[Oerdin]

People compare Russia's barbaric actions to Tolkien's orcs because Russia acts so much like Tolkien's orcs. Don't like it? Stop behaving like orcs.

 

[Remorseless1]

Why would we be interested in either topic? I am all for proper discussion of material realities inside Russia but not to the extent of considering trivialities, and of course discussion of pertinent realities inside Russia is hampered by the fact that Russia is governed by a criminal dictatorship with no interest in transparency.


As I think others may have noted previously, Sauron hails from outside Ëa, the physical world, being an immortal divine spirit.




I certainly agree with this but it is intentional; Tolkien's works are meant to be in-universe primary documents. They are meant to reflect the perspectives of the "Western" characters in-universe.




Not to say this is a presumptively invalid interpretation of Tolkien's work, but Tolkien was a Semitophile (which is a problematic/racist view in its own way of course) and his Dwarves are meant to be analogues of the Jews.



Maybe we can start with the fact that Russian media and official communications evince an attitude which is at least as black-and-white, and reduces its perceived enemies to (in some cases literally) inhuman caricatures to at least as great an extent as anything we see out of Ukraine.

19th Century English guy writes a couple of fantasy books that are "problematic." Well, duh. Read Arthur Conan Doyle if you want to read naked racism and misogyny mixed in with grotesque cultural superiority.

 

[r16]

the reason this thread still exists is that certain people in DC want to keep it on for just "a little more" . Promising respectability , despite the declarations that was nothing to talk because the wrong people were Flat Earthers . Unfortunate this thread is , coming up at such a time ... The claims that the movies justify Gandalf's coup against Denethor by negative depiction of personalities or the justified genocide of anything Orc related might otherwise been an interesting discussion to read .

 

[REDY]

This reminds me:

The ring will not destroy socialism!
This is another attack against the socialist concept. The evil empire, from which ashes and smoke billow, is transparently placed in the East, the image of the working class, united in the sweat of its face to build heavy industry, is supposed to be hideous and evil orcs. Of course, the son of a bourgeois family cannot see anything beautiful and uplifting in hard work. The inhabitants of the stinking land of milk and cinders - elves (or aristocracy), men (bourgeoisie) and hobbits (landlords), on the contrary, live in well-being (without explaining where they get it from), and the only thing that worries them is the "threat" from the East. The "forces of good" here are a collection of the leaders of these reactionary circles whose hands have never touched a proper job. Their leader is Gandalf, the propagator of a backward-looking ideology, which he uses to keep the population ignorant and afraid of progress (...). It is no wonder then that Saruman, the champion of the oppressed and friend of progress, is declared a traitor and his mansion is destroyed by a war of fanatical reactionaries. When he spreads socialism in the Shire, he is caught and punished without trial by the hobbits, supported and paid for by the capitalist power Gondor. (...) But fortunately, socialism cannot be destroyed by throwing any of its relics, even the most sacred, into the fire. Hang on, Mordor, surrounded by hostile reactionary neighbours!

A review of The Lord of the Rings in Red Law, 1977

Spoiler :

(not realy, deepl translation of czech satire from 90s )

 

[r16]

first reply in Google search

Chomsky & Zinn discuss imperialist propaganda in LOTR "Two Towers" - Democratic Underground

Chomsky & Zinn discuss imperialist propaganda in LOTR "Two Towers"

www.democraticunderground.com

edit: if you read to the bottom , it will also turn out this piece was used against American Leftists to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003 .

 

[RobAnybody]

...his Dwarves are meant to be analogues of the Jews.

I lean more towards the idea that when someone reads about a fictional race such as Middle-Earth Dwarves or Harry Potter Goblins who are focused on wealth & are portrayed as greedy... & that person immediately associates that race with "the Jews" in our world, the problem can be more readily found in their bathroom mirror rather than the work of fiction.

 

[Zardnaar]

I lean more towards the idea that when someone reads about a fictional race such as Middle-Earth Dwarves or Harry Potter Goblins who are focused on wealth & are portrayed as greedy... & that person immediately associates that race with "the Jews" in our world, the problem can be more readily found in their bathroom mirror rather than the work of fiction.

Unless there's other things as well. Greed is represented in many myths and legends

 

[Gorbles]

I lean more towards the idea that when someone reads about a fictional race such as Middle-Earth Dwarves or Harry Potter Goblins who are focused on wealth & are portrayed as greedy... & that person immediately associates that race with "the Jews" in our world, the problem can be more readily found in their bathroom mirror rather than the work of fiction.

I lean more towards the idea that when someone has to shoehorn in a Harry Potter reference in a thread about Tolkien's Legendarium, that they're rather transparently fishing for something.

 

[Zardnaar]

I lean more towards the idea that when someone has to shoehorn in a Harry Potter reference in a thread about Tolkien's Legendarium, that they're rather transparently fishing for something.

For me its not about a single trope eg greed.

2 might be a coincidence 3 or more though hmmn.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I lean more towards the idea that when someone reads about a fictional race such as Middle-Earth Dwarves or Harry Potter Goblins who are focused on wealth & are portrayed as greedy... & that person immediately associates that race with "the Jews" in our world, the problem can be more readily found in their bathroom mirror rather than the work of fiction.

Dwarves in Middle-earth - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

J.R.R. Tolkien himself said that the Dwarves were influenced by the Jews and it's more than just the Dwarves being greedy. The Dwarves were forced to leave their homeland, having to find a new life with the other people of Middle-earth while not being completely accepted and keeping their own culture and language. The Dwarves are known for their talents with craftmanship. The beginning of the new year for the Dwarves is the autumn.

 

[Verbose]

The Eye of Sauron Over Moscow, or, Revenge of the Orcs

In honor of the final installment of the eighty-seven-part <em>Hobbit</em> film series, a Russian art group recently decided to crown the Moscow International Business Center with the All-Seeing Eye of Sauron.

www.huffpost.com

 

[Lexicus]

I lean more towards the idea that when someone reads about a fictional race such as Middle-Earth Dwarves or Harry Potter Goblins who are focused on wealth & are portrayed as greedy... & that person immediately associates that race with "the Jews" in our world, the problem can be more readily found in their bathroom mirror rather than the work of fiction.

I will leave aside JkR because I said nothing about her goblins, though I do believe they draw, perhaps unconsciously, on historical antisemitic tropes.

On the other hand, your ignorance of Tolkien is now showing. Tolkien himself said that his dwarves were like Jews. For example, from Wikipedia:

Tolkien also mentioned a connection with Jewish history and language.

.

And further:


Again, as I said, Tolkien was a "semitophile", he was not antisemitic but "semitophilia" was complicated and itself drew on antisemitic tropes such as the idea that Jewish people are good at handicrafts, which is racist in a similar way to saying all Asian people are good at math.

Anyway I've read quite about about Tolkien and his work, in addition to having Tolkien's works themselves many many times. I am a Tolkien fan. It does not detract from my fandom to note the problematic aspects of his work; the Jewish-Dwarf connection is, as far as these things go, quite tame.

I would reiterate that Tolkien was an Englishman born in the 19th century: it would be very surprising indeed if problematic parts of the culture in which he grew up did not show up in his work. I would finish by saying I do not agree with dismissals of Tolkien's work as fundamentally racist or otherwise "bad"; the work certainly has some issues with this stuff but imo its fundamental thrust is toward an antiracist understanding of the world.

 

[Evie]

I would add that another source of problematic aspects in Tolkien is his source materials: legends and mythology reflected a lot of medieval perceptions and tropes, not all of which were unproblematic, and because of his love for that material (which, fair) he did not subject them to a very critical look at their implications and the underlying world views, at least not until later in life (when you start seeing more mentions in his notes of resistance to Sauron in the east, and the Orcish morality debate becoming more prevalent in Tolkien's world view)

 

[r16]

once again talking about stuff ignoring the political landscape . Lacking context people are debating and whatever ; it would have been extremely racist and Tolkien had no problems watering it down , as the Allies gradually took the upper hand .

 

[RobAnybody]

On the other hand, your ignorance of Tolkien is now showing. Tolkien himself said that his dwarves were like Jews. For example, from Wikipedia:

I considered that may actually be a possibility & I simply hadn't read about it before when reading your reply, so I clicked on the links out of curiosity & it leads to (as you mentioned) a Wikipedia page where the only source for such a claim is from someone named John D. Rateliff, a self-proclaimed "Tolkien scholar". When following up on that (lone) source for the claim that "Dwarves=Jews" (all the 12's in that citation), his page cites no actual reason (i.e quotes from Tolkien himself) for believing that to be true. It turns out to be just one guy's opinion, as far as I can tell. So maybe his bathroom mirror holds the reason he thought that to be the case?

I'm certainly open to actual attributed quotes. But a Wikipedia page where the source is one guy's opinion isn't particularly persuasive on the topic IMO.

 

[Lexicus]

I considered that may actually be a possibility & I simply hadn't read about it before when reading your reply, so I clicked on the links out of curiosity & it leads to (as you mentioned) a Wikipedia page where the only source for such a claim is from someone named John D. Rateliff, a self-proclaimed "Tolkien scholar". When following up on that (lone) source for the claim that "Dwarves=Jews" (all the 12's in that citation), his page cites no actual reason (i.e quotes from Tolkien himself) for believing that to be true. It turns out to be just one guy's opinion, as far as I can tell. So maybe his bathroom mirror holds the reason he thought that to be the case?

I'm certainly open to actual attributed quotes. But a Wikipedia page where the source is one guy's opinion isn't particularly persuasive on the topic IMO.

That wiki article contains multiple quotes from Tolkien himself one of which is literally in the image in my post

 

[Gori the Grey]

Ran him on MLA bibliographic database. 20 articles or book chapters on Tolkein in peer-reviewed journals. He's can legitimately make that claim about himself.

 

[RobAnybody]

That wiki article contains multiple quotes from Tolkien himself one of which is literally in the image in my post

Can you cite the actual Tolkien quote? I'm not doubting you, just that I didn't see it, which I fully admit may be an oversight on my part. I read the Wiki article you linked, which only quoted "John D. Rateliff"'s opinion, but he didn't quote Tolkien himself in his opinion.

EDIT: I think I may have found it:

Tolkien spoke about the Jewish-dwarvish connection during a BBC interview. "I didn't intend it, but when you've got these people on your hands, you've got to make them different, haven't you?" said Tolkien during the 1971 interview. "The dwarves of course are quite obviously, wouldn't you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic."

So he said he didn't intend it, but that, 30+ years later when asked about it in hindsight... people's bathroom mirrors might suggest it?