Tolkien and the Right

Someone may have been smoking too much pipeweed.

Following the nomination of J D Vance as Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential choice there was a focus upon some of his literary favourites. The works of J.R.R. Tolkien and “The Lord of the Rings” were highlighted.

But in what seemed to be a bizarre leap of faith – for it cannot be logic – there is some suggestion that “The Lord of the Rings” is favoured by the Far Right.

This is an interesting suggestion because when “The Lord of the Rings” became popular on University campuses in the US in the later 1960’s, the interest was more from what could today be considered the Left – the hippie generation – who saw all sorts of hidden New Age messages in LOTR that were never intended by the author. Pipeweed came in for attention – a Shire soporific that clearly was the hobbit equivalent of cannabis sativa – the herb superb – or so they said.

Indeed Harvard Lampoon put out a brilliant parody entitled “Bored of the Rings” in which Sauron was renamed Sorehead and Tom Bombadil was a hippie archetype coming out with lines like:

“Toke a lid, smoke a lid, pop the mescalino!

 Stash the hash! Gonna crash! Make mine methedrino!..

Hop a hill! Pop a pill! For old Tim Benzedrino!

"Snorting, sporting! Speeding through the arbor,

Pushing till the folk you burn toss you in the harbor!

Screeching like a dying loon, zooming like the thrush!

Follow me and very soon, your mind will turn to mush!

Higher than the nowhere birds grooving in the air,

We'll open up a sandal shop where everyone will share!

Flower folk are springing up, wearing bead and boot,

And if you down me you can stick a flower up your snoot!

To Love and Peace and Brotherhood we all can snort a toast,

And if the heat is on again, we'll all split to the Coast!"

For a literary analysis and interpretation I have prepared an appendix to this piece which may explain the unusual verse.

The scene continues:

“Suddenly a brightly colored figure burst through the foliage, swathed in a long mantle of hair the consistency of much chewed Turkish taffy. It was something like a man, but not much; it stood six feet tall, but could not have weighed more than thirty-five pounds, dirt included. Standing with his long arms dangling almost to the ground, the singer's body was covered with a pattern of startling hues, ranging from schizoid red to psychopathique azure. Around his pipestem neck hung a dozen strands of beaded charms and from the center, an amulet imprinted with the elf-rune Kelvinator. Through the oily snaggles of hair stared two huge eyeballs that bulged from their sockets, so bloodshot that they appeared more like two baseballs of very lean bacon.”

But now, in a complete 180, LOTR has become the guiding light for the Right – at least according to some.

Rachel Maddow is a broadcaster for MSNBC. She fretted about Senator JD Vance being former President Donald Trump’s choice for vice president, and complained about how “The Lord of the Rings” is loved by the far right.

In a breathtaking piece of null-logic she observed

“‘Lord of the Rings’ is a sort of favorite cosmos for naming things and cultural references for a lot of far-right and alt-right figures, both in Europe and the United States. Peter Thiel names all these things after Tolkien figures in places like his company Palantir, for example”

She continued the stupidity by going on to say – in an exercise that can only be likened to digging a deeper hole –

“Like his mentor, like Peter Thiel, who had given him all his jobs in the world, Mr. Vance also, when he founded his own venture capital firm with help from Peter Thiel, named it after a ‘Lord of the Rings’ thing. He called it Narya, N-A-R-Y-A, which you can remember because it’s ‘Aryan,’ but you move the N to the front,” she continued. “Apparently that word has something to do with elves and rings from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ series, I don’t know.”

The last sentence says it all. Ms. Maddow displays her total ignorance of the text, speculating what Narya was (it was the Elven Ring of Fire and one of the Three Elven Rings – the others were Nenya and Vilya) and concludes with the word “I don’t know” and clearly she does not. It would for be better her to have avoided a subject about which she knows nothing.

The Three Rings -A Quick Primer

The Three Rings were magical artifacts, three of the Rings of Power. They were forged by Celebrimbor and granted the power to preserve the beauty of things by stopping change and warding off the decay of time and postponing the weariness of the world. They had the greatest power of the Rings of Power. The Three Rings were named Vilya, Narya, and Nenya after the principal elements of air, fire, and water (respectively).

The other Rings of Power (the Seven for the Dwarves and the Nine for Mortal Men) had powers, which were more directly derived from Sauron, like making their wearers invisible or making things from the invisible world visible for their wearers, but the Three Rings did not make their wearers invisible. Sauron did not assist in their making nor ever did he touch them, and his taint was not directly upon them, but, as they were partly created according to the craft taught by him, they were under the control of The One Ring. For that reasonthey had to remain hidden.

Nenya, the Ring of Adamant and the Ring of Water, was made of mithril with a stone of adamant; it was the chief of the Three, originally — and only ever — worn by Galadriel.

Narya, the Ring of Fire and the Red Ring, set with a ruby, originally worn by Círdan the Shipwright who gave it to Gandalf.

Vilya, the Ring of Sapphire, Blue Ring, and the Ring of Air, and mightiest of the Three, a ring of gold with a sapphire stone, originally worn by Gil-galad but given to Elrond.

The names of the Three are in the Elvish tongue so to suggest that Narya can become an anagram for Aryan is abject stupidity and clearly contrary to the author’s intention.

How Mr Vance Was Influenced by The Lord of the Rings

But there is more. Adam Wren, writing in Politico has an article entitled “How Lord of the Rings Shaped JD Vance’s Politics” A lead quotation in the article attributed to Vance is “A lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien.” An interesting comment about an author whose book “The Lord of the Rings” was essentially a tale about Good versus Evil and the tension between freedom and enslavement.

Vance is described as

“geeky …about Lord of the Rings. The trilogy of novels has been a longstanding nerd favorite for decades, but it became the center of culture during Vance’s high school years thanks to Peter Jackson’s movies.”

My comment about that is that I have read and loved the Lord of the Rings for the last 66 years (I first read it aged 11). In 1981 when I did Mastermind with LOTR as my specialist subject I had read the trilogy 31 times. I have lost count since then. I am amused that I might be described as “geeky” or that because of my enjoyment derived from the reading of the Trilogy I may be considered a “nerd” but I guess if the shoe fits…..

What is interesting is the interpretation that Mr Vance places upon the trilogy. In 2021 he was asked to name his favourite author. Vance replied:

“I would have to say Tolkien. I’m a big Lord of the Rings guy, and I think, not realizing it at the time, but a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien growing up.”

Vance then went on to add CS Lewis to the list.

“Big fan of C.S. Lewis — really sort of like that era of English writers. I think they were really interesting. They were grappling, in part because of World War II, with just very big problems.”

Lewis is better known for his “Narnia” series and his works on Christianity such as “The Screwtape Letters” and “Mere Christianity” rather than for any Right Wing ideology.

Wren draws the association that Vance had with Peter Thiel who is also a Tolkien fan.

Vance founded a venture capital firm in 2019 named Narya, named after one of those other rings that Gandalf wears. Vance’s mentor Peter Thiel similarly named his company Palantir after the far-seeing stone used by Saruman in Lord of the Rings. Vance has also invested in the defense startup Anduril, named after Aragorn’s sword presumably through his venture capital firm.

Wren goes on to observe

“It’s not too surprising that Lord of the Rings made a strong impression on Vance. The three films, released between 2001 and 2003 while he was in high school, grossed $2.9 billion at the box office and earned 28 Academy Award nominations and 17 wins. Luke Burgis, author of a book about René Girard (another of Vance’s intellectual heroes) and Catholic University of America professor, said he suspects “Vance’s appreciation of Tolkien is not unrelated to his conversion to Catholicism in 2019. Of the many ways that Tolkien’s work exemplifies the Catholic imagination, one is the relationship between the visible and the invisible. I think it’s fair to say that Vance believes there is real spiritual evil in this world, and it can become embodied in rites and rituals.” (At a closed-door speech in September 2021, Vance said, “I believe the devil is real and that he works terrible things in our society.)”

So now we seem to have shifted from Tolkien as a Far Right adherent to elements of Catholicism that appear in his books. Certainly in LOTR evil is personified in the image of Sauron who is without form, having been and having returned to a purely spiritual form after loss of the Ring to Isildur. As an aside it should be noted that Tolkien grieved that he was unable to bring the agnostic C. S. Lewis into the Catholic faith for Lewis subscribed to the Anglican denomination.

Wren tends to erode his argument by suggesting

“The books are, in many ways, anti-isolationist. Frodo wants to ignore the ill tidings and stay home but eventually realizes that the Shire isn’t untouched by troubles elsewhere (like, say, NATO being pulled into defending Ukraine from Sauron Putin). In the end, Rohan, Gondor, the elves, ents and dwarves, all must band together and end their petty nationalist squabbles. Their lives are, they realize, interconnected.”

But then Wren goes on to point out that Vance is not the only conservative to enjoy and have been influenced by LOTR.

“Vance’s love of Lord of the Rings is of a piece with rightward nationalists abroad. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni used to cosplay as a hobbit. “I think that Tolkien could say better than us what conservatives believe in,” she has said, though unlike Vance she has supported aid to Ukraine.”

It may be that Tolkien espouses a message that conservatives have picked up on but in essence, as I have said, the themes of the trilogy are those of good vs evil and in addition redemption of those, like Theoden and Boromir, who have fallen into error but arise out of dark to a new days dawning and recover what they have lost, although both died at the point of redemption. Tolkien’s justice was a bit severe.

Rick Santorum is also a fan but he sums up the message correctly.

“I’m a huge Tolkien fan…I’m also someone who believes that the message of Tolkien is that evil must be confronted. And so the idea is that well, we can wait until it comes to the Shire, but that is not a very good game plan. You gotta go to Mordor.”

No problem with that assessment. The realisation of going to Mordor is expressed by Frodo when, at the Council of Elrond, he says “I will take the Ring although I do not know the way.”

The Factual Background

Let us look at some facts rather than making speculative assumptions about Tolkien as a guru of the Far Right.

Tolkien was a conservative Catholic and a British patriot who fought in the First World War and witnessed the rise of fascism and communism in Europe. He was also a scholar of languages, mythology, and literature, especially of the medieval and Nordic traditions.

He created his own fictional world of Middle-earth, based on his extensive knowledge and imagination, and populated it with various races, cultures, and histories. He claimed that his work was not an allegory of any specific historical or political events, but rather a sub-creation that reflected his own moral and aesthetic values. He also stated that he disliked allegory and preferred applicability, meaning that his readers could find their own relevance and meaning in his stories, according to their own context and perspective.

The Lord of the Rings was published in the 1950’s after Second World War and the during the early stages of the Cold War. It resonated with many readers who saw parallels between the conflict in Middle-earth and the real-world threats of totalitarianism and nuclear war, despite the fact that Tolkien clearly stated that the work was not allegorical. The book also became popular among the counterculture and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s, who embraced its themes of environmentalism, anti-industrialism, and resistance to tyranny. The book also appealed to many religious and spiritual seekers, who found inspiration in its depiction of faith, hope, and providence. The Lord of the Rings also spawned a genre of fantasy literature and media, which expanded and diversified the scope and audience of the imaginary world.

Tolkien’s Themes in The Lord of the Rings

I have dealt with these issues more extensively in my book “The Song of Middle-earth: J R R Tolkien’s Themes Symbols and Myths” and the following is a very brief summary.

One of the ideological and aesthetic elements behind Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is his concept of eucatastrophe, which he defined as "the sudden joyous turn" in a story that leads to a happy ending. Tolkien believed that eucatastrophe was a reflection of the Christian doctrine of grace and the Incarnation, and that it could evoke a powerful emotional response in the reader, similar to a glimpse of joy and glory beyond the mundane world.

He also argued that eucatastrophe was not a cheap or unrealistic device, but rather a legitimate and realistic expression of hope and consolation in the face of evil and suffering. He applied this concept to his own work, especially in the climax of The Return of the King, when Frodo fails to destroy the Ring, but is saved by the intervention of Gollum and the eagles.

Another ideological and aesthetic element behind Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is his appreciation and preservation of the beauty and diversity of languages and cultures. Tolkien was a philologist and a linguist, who invented several languages for his fictional races, such as Quenya and Sindarin for the elves, Khuzdul for the dwarves, and the Black Speech for the orcs. He also created different scripts, alphabets, and calendars for his languages, and incorporated poems, songs, and riddles in various tongues throughout his narrative. He also drew on his knowledge of various mythologies and folklores, especially from the Celtic, Germanic, and Scandinavian traditions, to create rich and complex histories, legends, and customs for his peoples.

He showed respect and admiration for the different cultures of Middle-earth, and celebrated their unique contributions and achievements. He also warned against the dangers of control by fear, as exemplified by the dark lord Sauron and his desire to dominate all life.

Tolkien and the Far Right?

"The Lord of the Rings" was not written with far-right ideologies in mind, but elements of Tolkien’s work have been co-opted by some far-right groups as indeed they were and are co-opted by other groups such as those of the 1960’s counter-culture. This appropriation by both ends of the spectrum involves a selective reading of the text that aligns with their own beliefs and goals, often ignoring the broader and more inclusive themes present in Tolkien's writing.

For example, the depiction of different races in Middle-earth, often with distinct and unchanging characteristics, has been misinterpreted by some as an endorsement of racial purity and segregation. This is despite Tolkien's explicit rejection of such ideologies in his letters and other writings.

Tolkien was known to oppose totalitarianism and racism. He explicitly denounced Nazi ideology and anti-Semitism. His works contain themes of unity and cooperation among different races and cultures, as seen in the Fellowship of the Ring.

The appeal of a fantasy world where clear moral distinctions exist and where traditional roles and values are often upheld can be attractive to individuals seeking escape from the complexities of modern, multicultural societies. This is not the sole preserve of the Far Right.

Rejecting Power

Perhaps the most compelling theme in LOTR is how the characters deal with and in the main reject the temptation of power enabled by the Ring. Considering the political context suggested by Wren and Maddow, the pursuit of power is what political organisations are all about – Right or Left. Yet throughout LOTR characters are given the opportunity for the unlimited power offered by the Ring and reject it.

Some like Gandalf who will not even touch the Ring in the early chapters of the Fellowship realises that he may be tempted to do good using the Ring but that he and his works would be corrupted for it was forged by and for evil.

When Galadriel has her meeting with Frodo at the Mirror of Galadriel, she speculates on what she could do with the Ring. “All would love me and despair”, she says, but ultimately chooses to reject the Ring and face the fate of the Elves.

The contrast between the brothers Faramir and Boromir highlights the problem. Boromir is tempted throughout to use the Ring to save Gondor and has the chance to take it from Frodo on the slopes of Amon Hen. The lapse is momentary and he is filled with remorse and dies heroically trying to save the hobbits.

On the other hand is brother Faramir stumbles across Frodo, the ring bearer, and his companion, Sam. Faramir realizes that he can take the ring and claim it as his own. His response is key to grasping Tolkien’s ethos:

“I would not take this thing if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.”

Rather than reveling in the acquisition and exercise of power, LOTR celebrates its renunciation, insisting that the domination of others is always morally wrong.

Here’s where Tolkien’s Christian faith is most evident. We are to reject the will to power because our triumph does not depend on our strength. This shines through in a notable passage in the trilogy. At a dark moment, when Frodo and Sam are struggling through Mordor in their quest to destroy the ring, Sam looks up and perceives a great truth:

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: There was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

To become the shadow to defeat the shadow only extends the shadow’s reach and its reign. Thus the rejection of power as a theme differentiates LOTR from any form of political manouevering in which the acquisition of power is the goal.

Concluding

We do know that Mr Vance, Mr Thiel and Ms Meloni are fans of LOTR. But does this mean that Tolkien was a Far Right icon? I doubt it not only for the reasons I have given but because Mr Vance came to LOTR before he became a political figure.

All this means is that “The Lord of the Rings” has a universality of audience. Those who read and enjoy the books come from all shades of the political spectrum. What is important is that Tolkien’s themes are not opaque. There is little room for compromise. There are no shades of gray between Good and Evil. There is little room for relativism and not a lot of tolerance for nuance.

And more than anything else, The Lord of the Rings is a tale well told, carefully constructed, brilliantly written and which has inspired many including Peter Jackson whose adaptation – even without Tom Bombadil – was brilliant. But it required a story telling genius to start with and that is what Tolkien was.

But then I am a geeky nerd so what would I know.

Appendix

A close literary and vocabulary analysis, which tackles a few terms from the counter-culture

Toke-a-lid! Smoke-a-lid! Pop the mescalino!

Toke = inhaling a puff of marijuana. Lid = an ounce (or less) of marijuana. Smoke = how one usually imbibes marijuana. Pop = inhale or take a drug in pill form. Mescalino = nonsense-rhyme form of Mescaline, a natural psychedelic drug found in the peyote cactus.

Stash the hash! Gonna crash! Make mine methedrino!

Stash = to hide a small personal supply of drugs. Hash – Hashish, a processed form of the marijuana plant’s resin. Crash = come down from a drug high into a stupor. Make mine = “I’ll have some”, but usually applied to a choice of cocktail. Methedrino = nonsense-rhyme form of Methedrine, a trade name for amphetamine, a stimulant drug.

Hop a hill! Pop a pill! For Old Tim Benzedrino!"

Hop = presumably just used for the rhyme with the following phrase and an evocation of Tom Bombadil’s lyrics, but also suggestive of being “hopped up” or high on drugs. Benzedrino = nonsense-rhyme form of Benzedrine, trade name for an inhalant form of amphetamine (see Methedrine, above). Also echoes Tom Bombadil’s rhyming name for himself, Bombadillo.

"Snorting, sporting! Speeding through the arbor,

Snorting = inhaling a powdered drug through the nose. Sporting = rhymes with snorting, but also has implications of free sex. Speeding = running fast, but also getting high on speed, a nickname for the stimulant class of drugs (see Methedrine, above). Arbor = grove of trees, a reference to the woods they are in but also providing a good rhyme for harbor.

Pushing till the folk you burn toss you in the harbor!

Pushing = aggressively selling drugs to less experienced customers. Burn = selling low-quality, substitute, fake, or even dangerous drugs to gullible customers. Toss you in the harbor = funny version of what usually happens to lying pushers, like getting shot.

Screeching like a dying loon, zooming like the thrush!

Dying loon = The loon, a waterfowl with a hauntingly loud call, presumably is more haunting when dying. Fatalistic term recognizing the downward spiral that heavy drug use implies. Zooming = variation on speeding: moving fast but also being high on speed. Thrush = bird that doesn’t particularly fly fast, but does rhyme well with mush.

Follow me and very soon, your mind will turn to mush!

Follow me = Do what I do, i.e. take a lot of drugs. Has an evangelistic overtone, see “I’m Free” by The Who (1969). Turn to mush = Heavy drug use is not good for your mental acuity and memory function. See “This is your brain – and this is your brain on drugs” ad campaign (1987).

Higher than the nowhere birds grooving in the air,

Higher = High refers to the elevated sensibility felt when on drugs. Nowhere birds = nonsense, perhaps with a not really relevant reference to the Beatles’ song “Nowhere man” (1965). Grooving = Feeling groovy together. Groovy is 1960s counterculture slang for “excellent” or “amazing”; deriving from “in the groove”, 1930s jazz terminology for achieving a transcendent sense of shared rhythm between instrumentalists. Also see Simon and Garfunkel’s “59^th Street Bridge Song”

We'll open up a sandal shop where everyone will share!

Sandal shop = clichéd image of the kind of low-volume commerce hippies engaged in for financial support, selling handmade sandals and other craft clothing items. Everyone will share = reflects the hippies’ lovely but impractical ideas of utopian cooperative socialism or communism and a money-less economy.

Flower folk are springing up, wearing bead and boot,

Flower folk = the flower children, a popular name for the pacific variety of hippies, who loved flower imagery for its connotations of pure beauty. See decals on VW buses, and hippie putting roses in National Guard rifle muzzles (1967). Springing up = flower imagery of hippies rising out of nowhere across an entire social landscape. Bead = beads were popular clothing adornments, drawing on Native American and other low-tech, pre-modern cultures. Boot = Ankle boots worn by girls with their mini-skirts; and combat or hiking boots worn by boys who tried to walk places instead of drive.

And if you down me you can stick a flower up your snoot!

Down me = put me down, denigrate me. Stick a flower = comic twist on the non-aggressive attitude hippies tried to maintain. Up your snoot = up your snout/nose, a dated (and therefore comic) expression even then.

To Love and Peace and Brotherhood we all can snort a toast,

Love and Peace and Brotherhood = ideals of the hippie counterculture. Later satirized by George Carlin as “Peace, Love, Dove”. Snort a toast = Snorting a drug (see above) instead of hoisting a drink as a toast to these sentiments.

And if the heat is on again, we'll all split to the Coast!"

The heat is on = increased investigative activity by the narcotics police. Split = depart, leave. Coast = West Coast, specifically San Francisco’s Haight-Asbury hippie district or Berkeley’s radical campus.

With thanks to Squire on TheOneRing.net