Is JRR Tolkien part of our libertarian tradition?
Jeff Riggenbach thinks so.
This week’s episode of the Libertarian Tradition podcast is about Tolkien the anarchist (“philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs”) and the great classical-liberal historian Lord Acton.
And while we’re on the subject of Lord “power corrupts” Acton, this is from The Economist (January 21, 2010, print edition):
Absolutely
Power corrupts, but it corrupts only those who think they deserve it
Reports of politicians who have extramarital affairs while complaining about the death of family values, or who use public funding for private gain despite condemning government waste, have become so common in recent years that they hardly seem surprising anymore. Anecdotally, at least, the connection between power and hypocrisy looks obvious.
Anecdote is not science, though. And, more subtly, even if anecdote is correct, it does not answer the question of whether power tends to corrupt, as Lord Acton’s dictum has it, or whether it merely attracts the corruptible. To investigate this question Joris Lammers at Tilburg University, in the Netherlands, and Adam Galinsky at Northwestern University, in Illinois, have conducted a series of experiments which attempted to elicit states of powerfulness and powerlessness in the minds of volunteers. Having done so, as they report in Psychological Science, they tested those volunteers’ moral pliability. Lord Acton, they found, was right.
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I have said this for years. I even got around to writing it down recently:
http://tocano.blogspot.com/2009/12/core-problem-with-collectivism.html
Interesting article. I love the headline to this blog post. I welcome the connection to Lord of the Rings because it is apt to equate DC to Mordor.
Lord Acton’s Axiom Is True If The Obsolete And Destructive State Exists.
We can assume that Lord Acton penned that axiom based on observation and based on his understanding of the subjective nature of human beings.
Well, observation is what it is. It can only be as good as the world around, that is, if that is the way the ‘world’ will be forever then that is an observation that will hold true. And the subjective nature of human beings is just that, it is subjective. If the ethics of the culture is different, then by definition, the subjective nature that is influenced by the ethics (ethics which form and transform as society transforms) takes on a different characteristic.
This same limitation applies to the study by Joris Lammers at Tilburg University, in the Netherlands, and Adam Galinsky at Northwestern University, in Illinois. I am not surprised by their findings. They do confirm the axiom of Lord Acton.
Consider the cultural condition of this period of study (including during the time of Lord Acton). Everyone consciously and unconsciously thinks that the State exists! That is the flaw that creates this deviant behavior stemming from pseudo-power. As long as the State exists Lord Acton’s axiom will hold true!
But the fact of the matter is: the State is a fraudulent institution, totally unnecessary and therefore, if we operate under the assumption that human civilization will continually advance there will come a time when this fraudulent institution will be recognized as both obsolete and destructive. For that reason it will be discarded.
Of course it will not be discarded in favor of a vacuum. It will be discarded for a better system. The foundation of that system will rest upon the principles of classical liberalism.
Consultation by individuals will be one of the magnificent tools used then to solve problems. Individuals who exhibit the most noble virtues will be elected to be on principal consultative bodies to handle the more complex problems. As individuals they will have not authority, only the consultative bodies will have authority and they will be composed of individuals chosen annually by secret ballot with no electioneering. Desiring to be elected is enough of a negative quality to disqualify such an individual in the eyes of the voters.
Apart from this existence of an institution that facilitates consultative decision-making, the rest of human life will simply operate peacefully, prosperously, and with justice according to the principles of classical liberalism. The rich diversity of these classical liberalism societies will be part of the beauty and magnificence of the worldwide classical liberalism civilization on our blessed planet.
And so scientifically the axiom of Lord Acton is true as long as there is a State.
Interesting article. This study tends to reiterate certain aspects of professor Zimbardo’s “Prison Experiment” on the abuse by authority that was conducted in the early 1970′s. In Zimbardo’s study, the experiment was role play that examined the relationship of power/authority in a mock prison environment. The population samples were undergraduate students that were divided into roles of guards or prisoners. The study had to be terminated as the mock guard’s demonstration of power became abusive. The interesting aspect is that intitially the prisoners rebelled, but later became humiliated and inhibited. Much like the State as it humiliates and inhibits its citizens, or should that be “prisoners”? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Tolkien’s Middle Earth writings boiled down to those who usurped the will of Eru (Morgoth on down to Gollum and Boromir) suffered and those who were faithful were quietly aided by Eru through the Valar. And that faithfulness was completely voluntary and uncoerced. The ring was Power, one of the final manifestations of Morgoth’s discordance with Eru’s music. Power is vanity, vanity of the self to IMPOSE on others, just as Morgoth wanted to impose his music in opposition to Eru.
Those who desired to do Good needed to know that they corrupted their own Good Works whenever they resorted to Force. Those who didn’t lost their way and suffered (Saruman) or the Elves trying to reclaim the Silmarils.
As an atheist I have a problem if such fantastic cosmologies are brought into the real world and brings about a stultifying effect, but it’s nice to see fiction such as this that attacks the root of the sources and uses of Force and the negative effects that result from its use.
“Is JRR Tolkien part of our libertarian tradition?”
A complete yes.
I just started rereading a few weeks ago The Lord of the Rings, which i last read 15 years ago.
I was just shocked about realizing how many libertarian implications are in there. The Shire(place where hobbits live) is practically a Utopian libertarian society, where the only government is one sheriff is, whose sole job is to deal sometimes with outsiders coming to the shire.
It contains a very through full description of homesteading by hobbits of unoccupied place, which now is regarded by all other hobbits as theirs.
But the most glaring evidence is the foreword by Tolkien from 1973, where he dismisses the notion, that his story is in any way an allegory for second world war. His words i think were something like this(i will check in the evening):
If the story should have ended as the second world war has ended, the ring would not have been destroyed. Instead someone would have claimed the ring for himself and fought Sauron to try to take his place. Whoever would have won that struggle, would have enslaved the hobbits and the shire.
With that he effectivly says, that those who won in WW2 used and were corrupted by the evil wielded by the Nazis and it made little difference who won.
I remember wondering 15 years ago, why he would claim, that the real result of WW2 was nearly as bad as the possible result of Hitler winning.
The explanation is now obvious for me, the evil in Tolkiens eyes was likely the abandonment of personal liberty, which the Nazis used to their end and which the Allied used as well to defeat the Nazis. And real liberty was gone after WW2 in Tolkiens eyes. Therefore if he had wanted to make his story allegorical of WW2, it would have contained leaders using the ring against Sauron and becoming in the process nearly as evil as Sauron, while the Shire and liberty would have been destroyed one way or another.
(I dont agree with with him, that the ally win was as bad as a axis win, but i understand why he dislikes the outcome of WW2 and would have altered his story so drastically, if he had wanted to make an allegory.)
Personally I find that the Stanford Prison Experiment far more relevant and insight into human behaviour than the alleged ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.
Tom Shippey analyses thist part of Tolkien idea of power and corruption in his book “The Road to Middle-earth” in a very decent way.
Tom Bombadil was the only figure of anarchy in LOTR. The rest were pitiless Shirists, Gondorist blow hards or nationalistic Rowanites. Don’t get me going on Saruman or the dwarves. The elves were complete cult of personality-ists.
one of my most favorite film
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