The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Jeffrey Brent McBeth · 19 Mar 2009, 19:40 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: mcbeth at broggs.org (Jeffrey Brent McBeth)
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:40:31 -0400
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <1f7617370903191227u7051c155r4ae48ab281d49baf at mail.gmail.com>
References: <8974.67.142.130.34.1237464256.squirrel at brunians.org>
	<957682.511.qm at web50706.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<93d4039f0903191220o1922c44ar4729c6dfdcfb23e3 at mail.gmail.com>
	<1f7617370903191227u7051c155r4ae48ab281d49baf at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20090319194031.GA5666 at broggs.org>

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 12:27:43PM -0700, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 12:20 PM, John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Agreed...but this is in the context of a discussion of Tolkien's work.
> > Tolkien veers between a benign anarchism (The Shire) and divinely-appointed
> > or at least divinely-sanctioned kings.? It seems then that "good government"
> > is holy or ideal government--government by the best (in the sense of "most
> > moral") people.
> 
> However, the point is made at least once (by Aragorn), and so Gene "I hate
> it when they repeat things" Wolfe is bound to have noticed, that the "benign
> anarchism" of the Shire is permitted to exist only because of the labors of
> the Rangers, i.e., the King and his followers. Tolkien doesn't really "veer,"
> he's definitely in the "divinely-appointed King" camp.

Of the three major races in Tolkien (Man, Elves, Dwarves), only the
Men have the semblance of a divinely-appointed king.

The elves appear to be a meritocracy, and only in, one occasion can I
think of, do the elvish choices coincide with those most liked by the
gods.

The dwarves claim to be hereditary from the original 7 dwarves, and
seem to be largely ignored by any except Aule, which seems to be the
god that the bad guys in LOTR come from (Saruman, Sauron)

Jeff

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