NP? �"the formerly colonised coming back to haunt us"

[Dave Monroe]

Okay, finally getting caught up here, so ...

--- CyrusGeo at netscape.net wrote:
> 
> Agreed. But Dr. Shapiro seems to be "accusing"
> Tolkien of writing such an allegory deliberately.

Well, that Shapiro essay isn't exactly the finest
example of Tolkien criticism around, is it?  And given
where Tolkien scholarship tends to fall in the
spectrum of lit crit in general, well ... 

But, Shapiro aside, Tolkien, his texts, tend/s to
deploy ... unnuanced "Others" (Smeagol/Gollum being
perhaps--perhaps--the noteworthy excpetion here).  Not
excatly unlike the mythology/mythography JRRT
emulates, but ... well, as if that should necessarily
go unremarked, either ...

So fair game, at any rate, esp. in the case of one who
spent formative years in South Africa and was a
lifelong citizen of an Empire, alebit even as the sun
began to set on it, with a problematic at best
relationship with its Others ...

Racist?  Maybe not, maybe not overtly, I imagine
certainly not intentionally, but trading in 
 
> Again, agreed. Though I was talking about the
> themes, not the book.

But see previous caveats about how, why, in reference
to whom, in what situations and to what (possible,
actual) effects such binaries are deployed. 
Relentless repetition does not necessarily equal
universality (David Hume influence here?) ...

> Yes, the everlasting conflict between good and evil
> is such a universal and timeless theme, present in
> all human cultures throughout the ages. But why am I
> saying that? You know it.

But, again, what, who is "good" and what, who is
"evil" is niether "timeless" nor "universal," but
cultural and/or historical.  It's the binary itself
which persists, perhaps, or, rather, the dualsim, the
binarization ...

> Of course, as it still has today for many people. I
> agree, Dave. But "racist"...?

Say it ain't so, John Ronals Reuel ...

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