The Corner

Tolkien and The Left

Tolkien was of course a deeply conservative man–and LOTR is full of conservative themes. But by one interpretation, the book also celebrates the technophobic Luddism that most conservatives associate with the environmental Left. See this essay, for example. I don’t agree with everything in it, but it makes some key points. Or read this one. It’s hard to deny that Tolkien was suspicious of capitalism. Granted, his suspicion was of a distinctly Catholic variety. But if he were around today I think he’d be a slow-growth, conservationist conservative.

I’ve written about Tolkien in several places, including here and here.

John J. Miller, the national correspondent for National Review and host of its Great Books podcast, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.
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