NP "racist" Tolkien?

[Dave Monroe]

No, it's your argument now, 'cos you're the one who
keeps bickering about it ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> on 28/12/02 5:22 AM, Dave Monroe at
> davidmmonroe at yahoo.com wrote:
> 
> It's your argument. If _TLOTR_ is "racist",
> transmits "racist" values etc (whatever euphemistic
> phrasing you want to apply - I think Shapiro stated
> fairly baldly that it was "racist"), then I find the
> "but there's no need to worry about that" caveat
> quite odd. It's not one which Shapiro endorses, as
> far as I can make out.

So who are you arguing with, me or Shapiro?  I'm not
all too concerned about Shapiro here, and I'm an
actual Tolkien fan ...

> Is it at all conceivable to you that _TLOTR_ isn't
> "racist", doesn't reproduce (inscribe, represent,
> present ... whatever) "racisms".

Isn't "racist," does do the rest.  Not deliberately,
not consciously, not "insiduously," but ...

> Which has been my point all along in noticing,
> discussing and critiquing this contention.

 
> But I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on
> this, that the issue isn't so much what's in the
> text itself but a question of what constitutes
> "racism". In my opinion, attempting to reduce an
> understanding of "race(s?)" to some black v. white
> polarity leaves out over half the world's population
> in the first place anyway (talk about marginalising
> yr Other/s!) - and I'm not sure that it's Tolkien
> who is guilty of doing this. 

Well, no one's much yet made it a war of textual
details yet, but ... but neither a sin of commission
or omission here.  Of transmission.  And no small part
of the problem is indeed such binarization.  I think
that was mentioned ('cos i mentioned it) ...

> Further, colour symbolism isn't necessarily or
> always racist. Cf. Night/day. Light/darkness.
> Checkerboards. Chessmen. Yin yang. Etc. All not
> "racist" as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, well, then, if it's as far as YOU'RE concerned,
well ... no, but, as always, context context context. 
Here, we're talking about people, even if not
necessarily human people.  In a work of
twentieth-century British fiction, written and, esp.
published across, at a time of incresaing racial
tension and cosnciousness-raising, by a citizen of a
colonial empire raised in erhaps the most
racially-charged holding of that empire.  And I'm
STILL not calling Tolkien or his very wonderful books
indeed Racist ...

> > But don't stop reading.  Excise all
> > the racism 
> 
> OK. Censorship. So which parts of _TLOTR_, exactly,
> would you expurgate. Let us know ....

Willfully misrepresneting me here, as ...

> > and sexism and classism and homophobia and
> > xenophobia and ... and ... and, well, I don't know
> > what would even be left.  Face up to yr legacy. 
> > We should have learned that by now here.

... the rest of the passage here shows.  Clearly not 
advocating censorship ...  

> Again, the insinuation here (and at bottom) is that
> anyone who doesn't agree with you is ignorant
> (or "uncritical").

No, the assertion here is that simply dismissing such
questions as unworthy of serious consideration is
uncritical.  Typically, this is the move of the fan
who simply doesn't want to face that perhaps his/her
idol isn't entirely perfect, or the closet (or not so
closeted) case who might well agree with whatever
questionable sentiments might be in question, under
critique, garnering criticism.  In yr case, though,
apparently indifferent to Tolkien himself and, so far
as I know, not a racist of any stripe, I'm taking this
as yet another one of these weird alpha male displays
to someone obviously with no interest in them ...

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