The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

John Watkins · 19 Mar 2009, 19:47 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:47:28 -0400
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <20090319194031.GA5666 at broggs.org>
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	<20090319194031.GA5666 at broggs.org>
Message-ID: <93d4039f0903191247p3863e706mf47a5a83158ef574 at mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 3:40 PM, Jeffrey Brent McBeth <mcbeth at broggs.org>wrote:

> 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.
>

I'm sorry, that's just not true.  The Dwarves have Durin, a direct creation
of Aule who they believe to reincarnate every several generations.  Whether
or not it's true, it reflects a privileging and longing for divine authority
over at least the most significant branche of Dwarves.  Likewise the Elves
have a variety of government structures at different times, but the one that
Tolkien holds up as the ideal is the government of the Vanyar--indeed, Ingwe
is the High King of all the elves in theory if not in fact and he receives
his authority directly from the Valar.



>
> 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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>  -- Mark Twain
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