July 19, 2024 - 4:00pm
Of all the criticisms levelled at J.D. Vance, one of the hardest to take seriously is his reported love for The Lord of the Rings. Donald Trump’s running mate has named J.R.R. Tolkien as his favourite author, claiming that he influenced “a lot of my conservative worldview”. But this is a disturbing choice of reading for MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who yesterday claimed that “The Lord of the Rings is a favourite cosmos for naming things and cultural references for a lot of far-Right and alt-Right figures both in Europe and the United States.”
Her prime exhibit is Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor and Vance’s mentor. While many would dispute the idea that Thiel is far-Right, he’s certainly been inspired by Tolkien in naming his business ventures: Palantir Technologies, Valar Ventures and Mithril Capital, to name a few. When Vance started an investment firm of his own he called it Narya Capital, yet another name lifted from Middle Earth.
Maddow thinks she’s onto something here because she spells out the word for her viewers, saying that “you can remember [it] because it’s ‘Aryan’, but you move the ‘n’ to the front.” Needless to say, neither Vance’s company nor Tolkien’s literary invention has anything to do with racial ideology. When a Nazi-era German publisher wrote to the British author in 1938 enquiring whether he was “arisch”, he drafted a magnificent response, stating that “I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.”
But could there be some sort of point buried among Maddow’s non-sequiturs? Is it not the case that many conservatives and Right-wingers are absolutely nuts about Tolkien? Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, for instance?
There is something to this line of thinking, but Tolkien has devotees across the political spectrum. There’s Tony Blair, for example, Pope Francis and Stephen Colbert, before you get to the hundreds of millions of others who have cherished his books. In Hungary, his most prominent champion isn’t Viktor Orbán, but instead the late liberal dissident Árpád Göncz, who served as his country’s first post-communist president and the Hungarian translator of The Lord of the Rings.
There is, it must be admitted, a cottage industry of critics who condemn Tolkien and his works as sexist, racist and classist, but they’ve been gently corrected by the liberal former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Ultimately, any attempt to conjure up a hobbitty-reactionary complex collapses under the weight of its own ignorance. So whether or not you approve of Vance, a love for Middle Earth cannot be held against him. Indeed, if there is a criticism that can be made of him in this respect, it’s that his political positions are insufficiently Tolkienesque.
The most obvious lesson of The Lord of the Rings is that expansionist tyrants need to be stopped in their tracks — something that Vance may wish to ponder before abandoning Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. Then there’s his weakness on environmental protection. Tolkien was horrified by mankind’s destruction of nature and, unlike Vance in relation to climate change, he would have instinctively understood the threat posed to the created order.
Finally, there’s what The Lord of the Rings teaches us about the corrupting nature of power. As the likely next vice president of the United States, Vance will be at one remove from as much power as this world ever affords. Far from deploring his appreciation for the Tolkien cosmos, we should hope that it deepens.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeJust when you think political discourse couldn’t sink lower. Of interest to no one, I’ve tried reading Lord Of The Rings a few times and just couldn’t do it.
Don’t why you got a downvote there, Tolkien is not to everyone’s tastes. However, I’m a far-right fascist, so I thoroughly enjoy it.
Audiobook. It’s on Youtube if you want to be stingy.
Me too, sorry I too lol. It is so easy to get offside with Maddow and her ilk. I must give LOTR a go again. I’ve only tried thrice.My last attempt was about 20 years ago.
I think you have to read it before you’re about 20 and before real life has cynicised your outlook.
Don’t worry. Studies show that even people who never read Lord of the Rings can go on to lead normal, gratifying lives. Also, just owning a copy of The Hobbit is associated with a significant increase in ‘sense of belonging’ (58%) and ‘creative ideations’ (26%). In fact, some scientists posit that The Hobbit is the more operative text.
I suspect you need to read it for the first time when you’re young.
I actually responded by saying LotR isn’t for everyone, but the comment was eaten. If you’ve given that many tries, it’s probably better to find something more to your tastes.
My comment was likely eaten because I admitted to being a certain F word which is why I’m a huge Tolkien fan.
A wonderful link, thank you.
https://lithub.com/on-the-time-j-r-r-tolkien-refused-to-work-with-nazi-leaning-publishers/
“Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.”
If only there had been more of Tolkein’s ilk – in Germany as well as in the rest of Europe and in US – in 1938, the Nazi’s could not have got away with their horrors for so long.
Why does Unherd even pay any attention to these idiotic hot takes? Feels like lazy rage-bait to me.
This is a real problem and IDK how you solve it. I enjoy Unherd, but they are incentivized to stoke outrage and anger. I get why they are doing it. The bottom line matters. That’s why they platform people like Maddow, an unhinged ideologue who stokes anger for profit as well. You basically have a huge media circle jerk, with talking heads saying outrageous things, which is duly reported and mocked by talking heads on the other side.
I don’t know who Maddow is, and Unherd certainly baits it’s readership, but I wouldn’t put this article into that category – isn’t the kind of logic Maddow has used kind of common amongst many on the left? I.e. you like something that I’ve decided is bad because someone I do not approve of likes it, and you must therefore be the same as them.
Isn’t it at least worth knowing that if you casually mention you like The Hobbit to someone, they might be thinking you’re sexist, racist and classist as a result?
Some of us read this sort of thing for the humor.
Climate Change is not a “tyrant” Peter. I think the Marxists call that “Reification” when someone imposes human-like traits onto an object or a concept.
Have you ever considered that maybe some people don’t like your solutions to Ukraine and Climate Change. That your solutions actually produce a Cobra Effect making everything worse? It’s just something to consider especially since you’ve also written articles about the harms of Covid Lockdowns.
The tyrant he’s using as an example is Putin.
Ok. Why don’t you interpret the entire paragraph for me then and explain why he’s talking about stopping Putin and mitigating climate change in the same paragraph?
Then please explain how war reduces carbon emissions.
Saruman (good guy turned bad) lived in harmony with nature and turned his back on nature to embrace metal and modernity (which also involved ripping up a lot of trees), and lead to his downfall. Sauron is the ultimate bad guy in the story and he represents authoritarianism and conquering the world.
The good guys are pretty relaxed and let people do what they want to do and they allow others to make their own decisions. E.g. Gandalf doesn’t go off his nut when Theoden says that he won’t help Gondor. He gives him room to make his own decision.
The first sentence says the main theme in TLOTR is that tyranny must be stopped, and contrasts this to Vance’s attitude towards Ukraine (and therefore Putin). The second sentence is separate, and possibly should be a new paragraph like the final point is, and contrasts Tolkein’s disapproval of environmental destruction, which is another major theme in TLOTR, with Vance’s disregard for climate change.
But regardless of whether it should be a separate paragraph or not, he’s not suggesting climate change is a tyrant.
The concept of ‘anthropogenic climate change’ has elicited a tyrannical response from a large segment of the ruling castes, the only ones with time and energy for tyrannical fantasies, covering such demands as eating bugs, shivering thru the winters and broiling thru the summers, abandoning our cars, etc.
That’s close enough for me.
In the long run, war does reduce carbon emissions, because it reduces the number of humans who create carbon emissions.
I don’t know which is more stupid: Rachel Maddow or paying attention to Rachel Maddow. I’d go for the latter, as the former is a well established fact at this point.
Maddow’s producers know that the only way to get people to watch cable at this stage is to go for the most extreme clickbait and hire the most unhinged anchors.
Rachel Maddow is a menopausal hysteric. It’s a complete waste of time to dignify any of the bizarre claims that she makes with a response.
And your excuse?
Hey. What’s with the menopausal? Hysteric is sufficient.
Hey, what’s with the hysteriophobia?
Well said, oh! most worthy hobbit.
You can see the problem with The Lord of the Rings. Here we have all these hobbits, and all they want to do is live in peace in the Shire.
But whatabout Justice? Whatabout Activism? Whatabout Change?
The fact that Maddow & Co. don’t get Tolkien tells us a lot about them and their staggering ignorance of life, the universe, everything.
Doing normal”hobbit” things and persisting in nurturing the environment where they can happen. It’s a beautiful thing.
They seem to have a problem with open borders too – especially for orcs.
You mention “expansionists”…
Not a reference to NATO by any chance?
Wait a minute, must have dozed off: expansionists? NATO? I thought he meant Mordor. Or are they close – Von Der Leyen as a perma-permed Sauron ?
To take this to its logical conclusion – does one have to reject JRR Tolkien in order to qualify for “acceptable worldview”?
As the book (LOTR) was by some distance the bestselling fiction of the last hundred years, that creates a problem for an awful lot of people with now suddenly unacceptable worldviews. But then JRR was quite level-headed about those poor Elves ‘fighting the long defeat….’, and I guess we must join them now.
If Tolkien was ‘Far-Right’, then being ‘Far-Right’ is an honor and a privilege. I’m proud to be in such an exalted company.
Well it’s certainly better than being Far-Wrong.
Wait a minute. If liking Tolkien makes you far-right, where does that leave us poor Lovecraft aficionados?
Oh my God.
“Perilously placed upon a precipice” of course!
Literally, Tyrannosaurus rex Hitlers.
Fairly convinced that the new Energy minister has relatives in Innsmouth, New England
It just goes to show that in politics, there’s no shame in grasping at the flimsiest of straws when going for character assassination of political opponents.
These arguments are not in any case intended to withstand rational scrutiny. They are more like the sort of slanders used by political standup comedians who aren’t actually funny, they just insult the politics they oppose and the audience’s laughter is a reaction not of humour, but approval. In the same way, this nonsense is just preaching to the converted.
It is boring and tedious for those of us who think that the things people say ought to make sense, but since they are also usually self-parodying, it’s mostly harmless.
Hot take: in most any fight, Smaug would have smashed Durin’s Bane, and it wouldn’t have been close.
Hobbits are white, of course – is further proof needed !!
Good Lord, why do Ukraine and climate have to appear EVERYWHERE?
Indeed. You don’t have to be far right, but being far right may make liking it easier. It is true also that sometimes a fairy story is just that, a fairy story. As for the absence of Jewish people in Europe the matter has been contemplated by influential people in days much predating the rise of nazis. The English theologian John Owen and the German theologian and philosopher, among others, in 17th/18th centuries proposed just such a thing to be effected by their relocation to Palestine. That’s the beginning of zionism, an idea that was later adopted and pressed by Scottish Presbyterians, among other Christian sects, and many influential lay people like the Earl of Shaftesbury. Jewish zionists came to it much later. It may be noted that Balfour, no philosemite he, was a devout adherent of Presbyterianism. Truman, as it happens, was too. These two men have given the Palestinians much grief.