NP "racist" Tolkien?

[Dave Monroe]

I persist only because you insist, so ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> on 28/12/02 4:09 PM, Dave Monroe at
> 
> So, the reading which sees hobbits and orcs as
> mythical, invented creatures, is "inferior" to the
> one which sees them as analagous to human "races",
> in your view. I see.

Well, I'm reading those hobbits 'n' orcs 'n' "Dark
Men" (oh, my!) as invented (though not, of course,
mythical, we're talking a twentieth century fantasy
novel here, not mythology), indeed, but their
invention is indeed tainted with certain infelicitous
elements.  Not maliciously so, unthinkingly so, but
...
 
> In other words, whatever you say goes. I see.

Another one of your badly drawn caricatures here ...

> Point is, _TLOTR_ isn't "racist", doesn't "represent
> racisms" (use "racial coding", whatever - all that
> euphemism and semantic subtefuge notwithstanding)

Note the self-referential nature of the parenthetical
comment above ...

> no matter how much you want to keep carrying on
> like a pork chop about it.

Now THERE'S a new one for me.  Apparently, an
Australian idiom, e.g., ...

http://old.smh.com.au/news/0201/15/national/national18.html

First hit, honest.  No, if anyone's a-shakin' and
a-bakin' here, it's you, Roberto.  Bob.  Whatever ... 


> Rubbish. This "racist encoding" is yours, not the
> text's. 

Well, it's apparently Michael Moorcock's and David
Brin's and that Shapiro guy's and ...

http://www.multiverse.org/sport/qa-print-solo.jsp?printme=2219

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index.html

http://www.davidbrin.com/tolkienarticle1.html

http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=1486&grp=1

http://old.smh.com.au/news/0112/13/opinion/opinion3.html
... as well.  For starters.  But see also ...

http://greenbooks.theonering.net/quickbeam/files/040101.html

No, Tolkien was not a racist, but he nonetheless
unthinkingly, inadvertantly, unmaliciously, whatever,
racisms in his texts.  Apologetics.  See also
discussion at ...

http://www.sf-fandom.com/xoa/white_council/archive_13/

Tht "White Council," by the way, for those of you
playing along at home, is a Tolkien reference, we're
not talking the D&D-playing wing of the KKK ...

> You really don't seem to have much of a concept of
> what "racism" actually is, or does, or how it
> should be countered.

Oh, do PLEASE enlighten us, sir ...

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