Tolkien Anarcho-Monarchist confirmed? 😳🔥🤘 Joking aside, another fantastic video. I love how, even though the Shire has often been equated to Tolkien’s idea of paradise, Tolkien wasn’t afraid to show that even a utopia such as the Shire had weaknesses. As with everything in his work, there is nuance and complexity to the Shire that is often not seen upon a cursory examination.
When I was a kid, I had so much fun exploring everything in the Shire in the Hobbit game. Idk why since there wasn’t much to do, but it was just cool to see the little village filled with a lot of Hobbits
I feel the same way about the Shire in LOTRO. There isn't a whole lot in the way of story, but it's one of the only zones in the game where life feels "normal".
I remember reading the descriptions of Tolkien's political views and thinking I have no idea how he thought that could work. The Shire relied on it being populated by a species with significant differences from actual humans and even then, as you pointed out, it was extraordinarily vulnerable to crises and relied heavily, if unknowingly, on outside forces to help keep it safe or rescue it when needed. There was much truth in the latter part of this quote from Frodo: "I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them."
Tolkien felt affection for his hobbits, but it was mingled with exasperation. I think those who found the hobbits repellent (like Michael Moorcock) missed this dichotomy.
An ideal is not by default a vision the holder believes is realistically achievable, and indeed probably isn't unless they are unwise or have very small ambitions. If asked for what he thought was realistically achievable by mankind in say, 1950, Tolkien might have cited the restoration of lost thrones across Europe and the downfall of the Soviets to enable a liberal world order. Or maybe that's my own biases speaking, for while I do believe I am largely in agreement with Tolkien, I cannot know his full mind.
The Shire can exist if people want it badly enough. This world means helping each other, working together as a community, and building good and green things that last for generations. 🌳
It's basically feudal society where the family you are born to decides where you are in the hierarchy, and it only works because hobbits are not ambitious 🤔🤔 doesn't sound too good to me
I think Tolkien's remarks about anarchy and monarchy (in Letter 52) have been misinterpreted. He is holding them up as alternatives, both of which hold an appeal. The Shire is anarchy (or close), made possible by (1) the natural goodness of the hobbits (2) its defence being handled by the Rangers. Gondor and Arnor are "unconstitutional monarchies" ruled by a King with divinely sanctioned authority. Rohan, Dale and the Dwarf-kingdom are likewise monarchies with the king always drawn from a royal house. The only republic in Middle-earth is Laketown, possibly modelled on Venice and portrayed as a corrupt oligarchy. Generally any kind of politics is a bad sign; in LOTR the only recognisable "politician" is Saruman.
Tolkien's views of an ideal government are... interesting. I think time has proven that while a government like Tolkien describes would be nice to have, the reality is that society needs strong checks and balances to prevent opportunistic scoundrels from amassing too much power and taking advantage of everyone. Perhaps Tolkien himself offers this perspective to the reader in his narrative of the scouring.
I think that is more likely the case, as a writer myself, you constantly put yourself in the idea of “I can’t always be right about this, I need to see a flaw in my logic, even if I still believe in it”
What happens when those scoundrels take control of the centralised and all-powerful system of checks and balances? Their competitors are checked out of any position to oppose them. Tolkien's view is a wise one, people should be left to govern their own affairs. They should have the freedom to make their own choices and either follow or not follow who they may. The alternative leaves too great an avenue for tyranny.
I would imagine that most other things involving committee planning would have been done by committees. Like an old-fashioned British volunteer club. Obviously the gardening and food related committees would be the biggest and most important.
I doubt Tolkien was a fan of committees, as he would have had to spend far too much time in them. Food production would be pretty much run by the landowners i.e. the leading families. The hobbits would naturally co-operate on other tasks, like they do after the Scouring, possibly with the guidance of the Mayor and the likes of Farmer Cotton. But I guess informality would be the rule, combined with a deferential attitude to such authority figures as there were.
The stability of The Shire was assisted by that fact that enterprising individuals, repelled by the narrow - mindedness and provincialism of the inhabitants, left in search of adventure (like Bilbo) and seldom returned. In Tolkien's early ideas about LOTR "wild hobbits" like this would join The Rangers who were not yet recruited from the ancient kings. But later this idea was dropped, and little more was heard of the wild hobbits though they remained canonical.
What's the problem with hospitals? Of course there were no state hospitals in the Shire, but there was some (presumably herbal) pharmacy - Bilbo gifted Old Gaffer with "a bottle of ointment for creacking joints" and Merry later wrote a book "Herblore of the Shire". Some hobbits presumably were specialized ointment-makers and herbalists, as there were specialized "millers, smiths, ropers' and cartwrights", so if you get ill, you would go to such a specialist and buy some medicine to treat your illness.
I believe haywards are concerned with stray farm animals, e.g. cows. I think the Shire embodies several different periods of English history i.e. late Victorian, late mediaeval and Anglo-Saxon. E.g. the late mediaeval is when surnames came into common use, something relatively recent in the Shire. The political set-up is based on an Anglo-Saxon shire, but with variations. In an actual shire the civil authority was a shire-reeve, or sheriff, appointed by the King. The leader in war was an Ealdorman, usually a nobleman. "Thegns" (so spelled) were approximately knights, holding land from the King. There was a Shiremoot but it was a law-court convened by the sheriff and made up of the thegns. There were also folkmoots, gatherings of the whole people. All in all Tolkien's Shire is a bit more democratic. (And Jackson's is a lot more democratic). Details from Constitutional History of England by Bishop Stubbs, a book I believe Tolkien would have known.
Often Saw the Shire as well England past. I wondered how the average Hobbit felt once the truth of how protected they were kept for centuries without knowing And how the king enforced their New protection.
@@pwmiles56 Keeping the king offstage fulfils this dual wish. It's a bit like English Jacobitism in the 18th century. The "true king" was over the water and in no position to interfere in anyone's affairs. For that matter the legit Hanoverian government was pretty hands off, as long as you paid your taxes to fund the endless wars with France.
Shire hobbit frowning up at Aragorn: "We don't have a Lord. The Shire's an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of Thain-of-the-week-"
Mainly by a clan honor system keeping its members holding the Law of the King. Clan conflicts were resolved by the Thain, probably by negotiations. The shiriffs helped people find lost animals, and an ad-hoc border guard controlled and at need threw out unruly outsiders. After the return of the King it is probable that the Thain rose in power, but more as a military leader in response to the diminished presence of the rangers.
Could you make a video about Tol-Fuin Island? I think it would be very interesting, since it is speculated that many creatures of the first age still inhabit that place. I don't know why, but I get the impression that it is Tolkien's version of Skull Island, or the Lost Land.
The way you describe the shire as being ruled by a monarchy who don't exercise their powers, and people who don't have great ambition leading to a utopia of sorts sounds like Australia
"The class system wasn't so rigid that you couldn't advance. . ." and procedes to use Sam as an example. Sure, advancement isn't hard. You just have to help a wealthy kid save the entire world. No big.
I come from a family with a history of working the underground economy. Always remember, without the assistance of those people in positions of power, there is no underground economy. Point being, the taint of Melkor shall always seep into the power structure of government. Or whatever you choose to call it. Corruption and power run hand in hand.
I read somewhere the theory that the shire confusing pathing and direction system was slowly made to mess and confuse Gandalf, so he cannot get a full hold of the land. Hobbits may have also been very polite but closed and dry to him similar to how Bilbo was at the beginning of the hobbit, so he cannot get a full hold of the people (and in consecuence they keep surprising them, as he says in the fellowship of the rings). That's a way to passive-agressively avoid an intriguing and charismatic wizard obsessed with the shire to actually get power in it
Well, I think it's pretty appropriate. When I was Younger and had enough time at hand I "measured" the shire according to thé scales given in the book. Turned Out it Had almost thé Site of m'y Home Bundesland which ist 47k sqkm large. Slovakia isn't that much larger.😂
I wonder if this "anarcho-monarchist" stance would make more sense if understood as yearning for a world similar to the millennial reign in the Christian sense: a world where the governance of nations are on Christ's own shoulders, but where it isn't overly intrusive, corrupt, or bureaucratic in the way our governments always devolve into, and where war and unnecessary violence are done away with.
Most certainly fascism. You can see this by how well everything is organized and no person is without a job. It could be nazism as they seem to push for a racial purity where goblinoids are to be exterminated, but that kind of racism is common with all non-goblinoid races so I doubt it.
Wow... I had no idea I've been following Tolkien's political view for most of my life entirely accidentally... Although considering I've read the LoTR like 27 times in my life I suppose I was indoctrinated without noticing
Tolkien Anarcho-Monarchist confirmed? 😳🔥🤘 Joking aside, another fantastic video. I love how, even though the Shire has often been equated to Tolkien’s idea of paradise, Tolkien wasn’t afraid to show that even a utopia such as the Shire had weaknesses. As with everything in his work, there is nuance and complexity to the Shire that is often not seen upon a cursory examination.
In case anyone is curious, Tolkien's mill was later restored and is now a popular attraction for Tolkien fans.
When I was a kid, I had so much fun exploring everything in the Shire in the Hobbit game. Idk why since there wasn’t much to do, but it was just cool to see the little village filled with a lot of Hobbits
I feel the same way about the Shire in LOTRO. There isn't a whole lot in the way of story, but it's one of the only zones in the game where life feels "normal".
I remember reading the descriptions of Tolkien's political views and thinking I have no idea how he thought that could work. The Shire relied on it being populated by a species with significant differences from actual humans and even then, as you pointed out, it was extraordinarily vulnerable to crises and relied heavily, if unknowingly, on outside forces to help keep it safe or rescue it when needed. There was much truth in the latter part of this quote from Frodo:
"I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them."
Tolkien felt affection for his hobbits, but it was mingled with exasperation.
I think those who found the hobbits repellent (like Michael Moorcock) missed this dichotomy.
I don't think you get it
An ideal is not by default a vision the holder believes is realistically achievable, and indeed probably isn't unless they are unwise or have very small ambitions. If asked for what he thought was realistically achievable by mankind in say, 1950, Tolkien might have cited the restoration of lost thrones across Europe and the downfall of the Soviets to enable a liberal world order.
Or maybe that's my own biases speaking, for while I do believe I am largely in agreement with Tolkien, I cannot know his full mind.
When I was a child, i thought that would be a wonderful way of living...Now as I grew old, I know we will never live in that way, and my heart aches.
Join the amish
Don’t lose hope. It’s what they want. Keep striving and leave a city. They suck now.
In a homogenous society it would...
The Shire can exist if people want it badly enough. This world means helping each other, working together as a community, and building good and green things that last for generations. 🌳
It's basically feudal society where the family you are born to decides where you are in the hierarchy, and it only works because hobbits are not ambitious 🤔🤔 doesn't sound too good to me
I think Tolkien's remarks about anarchy and monarchy (in Letter 52) have been misinterpreted. He is holding them up as alternatives, both of which hold an appeal. The Shire is anarchy (or close), made possible by (1) the natural goodness of the hobbits (2) its defence being handled by the Rangers.
Gondor and Arnor are "unconstitutional monarchies" ruled by a King with divinely sanctioned authority. Rohan, Dale and the Dwarf-kingdom are likewise monarchies with the king always drawn from a royal house. The only republic in Middle-earth is Laketown, possibly modelled on Venice and portrayed as a corrupt oligarchy. Generally any kind of politics is a bad sign; in LOTR the only recognisable "politician" is Saruman.
Tolkien's views of an ideal government are... interesting. I think time has proven that while a government like Tolkien describes would be nice to have, the reality is that society needs strong checks and balances to prevent opportunistic scoundrels from amassing too much power and taking advantage of everyone. Perhaps Tolkien himself offers this perspective to the reader in his narrative of the scouring.
I think that is more likely the case, as a writer myself, you constantly put yourself in the idea of “I can’t always be right about this, I need to see a flaw in my logic, even if I still believe in it”
What happens when those scoundrels take control of the centralised and all-powerful system of checks and balances?
Their competitors are checked out of any position to oppose them.
Tolkien's view is a wise one, people should be left to govern their own affairs. They should have the freedom to make their own choices and either follow or not follow who they may.
The alternative leaves too great an avenue for tyranny.
I would imagine that most other things involving committee planning would have been done by committees. Like an old-fashioned British volunteer club. Obviously the gardening and food related committees would be the biggest and most important.
I doubt Tolkien was a fan of committees, as he would have had to spend far too much time in them. Food production would be pretty much run by the landowners i.e. the leading families. The hobbits would naturally co-operate on other tasks, like they do after the Scouring, possibly with the guidance of the Mayor and the likes of Farmer Cotton. But I guess informality would be the rule, combined with a deferential attitude to such authority figures as there were.
The stability of The Shire was assisted by that fact that enterprising individuals, repelled by the narrow - mindedness and provincialism of the inhabitants, left in search of adventure (like Bilbo) and seldom returned.
In Tolkien's early ideas about LOTR "wild hobbits" like this would join The Rangers who were not yet recruited from the ancient kings.
But later this idea was dropped, and little more was heard of the wild hobbits though they remained canonical.
What's the problem with hospitals? Of course there were no state hospitals in the Shire, but there was some (presumably herbal) pharmacy - Bilbo gifted Old Gaffer with "a bottle of ointment for creacking joints" and Merry later wrote a book "Herblore of the Shire". Some hobbits presumably were specialized ointment-makers and herbalists, as there were specialized "millers, smiths, ropers' and cartwrights", so if you get ill, you would go to such a specialist and buy some medicine to treat your illness.
But if there isnt a giant state to coercively fund their inefficient hospitals, how will we liiiiiiiive?
True, having no hospitals doesn't automatically mean having no healthcare. It did exist, just in other ways.
As an anarchist I’ll take that as a win!
Gotta take whatever wins you can
I believe haywards are concerned with stray farm animals, e.g. cows.
I think the Shire embodies several different periods of English history i.e. late Victorian, late mediaeval and Anglo-Saxon. E.g. the late mediaeval is when surnames came into common use, something relatively recent in the Shire.
The political set-up is based on an Anglo-Saxon shire, but with variations. In an actual shire the civil authority was a shire-reeve, or sheriff, appointed by the King. The leader in war was an Ealdorman, usually a nobleman. "Thegns" (so spelled) were approximately knights, holding land from the King. There was a Shiremoot but it was a law-court convened by the sheriff and made up of the thegns. There were also folkmoots, gatherings of the whole people. All in all Tolkien's Shire is a bit more democratic. (And Jackson's is a lot more democratic).
Details from Constitutional History of England by Bishop Stubbs, a book I believe Tolkien would have known.
Often Saw the Shire as well England past.
I wondered how the average Hobbit felt once the truth of how protected they were kept for centuries without knowing And how the king enforced their New protection.
I never thought I would hear the term anarcho-monarchism used unironically...
Yeah, the two seem at odds with each other from my perspective.
I've commented separately, I think anarchy and monarchy are different models, both with appeal to Tolkien
@@pwmiles56
Keeping the king offstage fulfils this dual wish.
It's a bit like English Jacobitism in the 18th century.
The "true king" was over the water and in no position to interfere in anyone's affairs.
For that matter the legit Hanoverian government was pretty hands off, as long as you paid your taxes to fund the endless wars with France.
Shire hobbit frowning up at Aragorn: "We don't have a Lord. The Shire's an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of Thain-of-the-week-"
The Shire is what rural England used to be...
Rural England and Scandinavia in generations past. Farmers who created beautiful things and nourished their countries.
Wonderful video!
I always wondered about this. Great video and topic.
Mainly by a clan honor system keeping its members holding the Law of the King. Clan conflicts were resolved by the Thain, probably by negotiations. The shiriffs helped people find lost animals, and an ad-hoc border guard controlled and at need threw out unruly outsiders. After the return of the King it is probable that the Thain rose in power, but more as a military leader in response to the diminished presence of the rangers.
Could you make a video about Tol-Fuin Island? I think it would be very interesting, since it is speculated that many creatures of the first age still inhabit that place. I don't know why, but I get the impression that it is Tolkien's version of Skull Island, or the Lost Land.
Thanks for the video 🙃
The way you describe the shire as being ruled by a monarchy who don't exercise their powers, and people who don't have great ambition leading to a utopia of sorts sounds like Australia
i just watched a video on the shire then wondered if you'd uploaded literally 7 minutes ago
We haven't got a lord...we're an autonomous collective!
"The class system wasn't so rigid that you couldn't advance. . ." and procedes to use Sam as an example.
Sure, advancement isn't hard. You just have to help a wealthy kid save the entire world. No big.
All in a day's work, right?
I come from a family with a history of working the underground economy. Always remember, without the assistance of those people in positions of power, there is no underground economy.
Point being, the taint of Melkor shall always seep into the power structure of government. Or whatever you choose to call it. Corruption and power run hand in hand.
''I thought they were an autonomous collective''
Great video! do you plan on ever doing map videos again like you're people of series?
I do have the Gondor/Rohan one still to do. They're fun videos, but also time consuming.
With a yardstick.
Everyone knows Gandalf was secretly planning to take over Shire by manipulating Arnor and Took family from the very start.
Otho and Lobelia spread this rumor
Gandalf watching Saruman take over - "Huh, turns out it's really easy to take over the Shire".
I read somewhere the theory that the shire confusing pathing and direction system was slowly made to mess and confuse Gandalf, so he cannot get a full hold of the land. Hobbits may have also been very polite but closed and dry to him similar to how Bilbo was at the beginning of the hobbit, so he cannot get a full hold of the people (and in consecuence they keep surprising them, as he says in the fellowship of the rings). That's a way to passive-agressively avoid an intriguing and charismatic wizard obsessed with the shire to actually get power in it
Will you do a video on the fate of the Dwarfs of Nogrod and Belegost,after the early second age they prety much dispapir?
Of course there are herbalists in Shire, you wouldn't die.
What do you think would have happened had Castamir and his sons won the gondorian civil war (the kinstrife)?
No way that shire is size of slovakia👁👄👁. I suppose most of it is not settled land anyway but still. Pretty huge if you ask a fellow Slovak
Well, I think it's pretty appropriate. When I was Younger and had enough time at hand I "measured" the shire according to thé scales given in the book. Turned Out it Had almost thé Site of m'y Home Bundesland which ist 47k sqkm large. Slovakia isn't that much larger.😂
Epic content 🎉😊
I've joked about Hobbits being Rastafari, but with these details in mind perhaps it's not so far off. Some sort of medieval proto-Rasta.
The Shire is the highest of fantasies. People living in perfect harmony with nature and no government or taxes.
Neat
In wouldn't say his political views were strange at all. There to my mind very good views. Anarcho-eco-monarchism
Based Anarcho-Monarchism lol😂
Who needs a hospital when you have kingsfoil, other weeds, and a shortcut to mushrooms. Hooray for magic
Weird note to end on
He indeed was a strange guy
I meant about the hospital "bad luck, I guess you die"
I wonder if this "anarcho-monarchist" stance would make more sense if understood as yearning for a world similar to the millennial reign in the Christian sense: a world where the governance of nations are on Christ's own shoulders, but where it isn't overly intrusive, corrupt, or bureaucratic in the way our governments always devolve into, and where war and unnecessary violence are done away with.
I don't know why you call Tolkien a strange guy. He actually makes perfect sense. We live now in a strange world and I guess some accept it.
Being strange isn't automatically a bad thing, you can be an excellent chap and strange at the same time.
Hobbit dark lord
Most certainly fascism. You can see this by how well everything is organized and no person is without a job. It could be nazism as they seem to push for a racial purity where goblinoids are to be exterminated, but that kind of racism is common with all non-goblinoid races so I doubt it.
Wow... I had no idea I've been following Tolkien's political view for most of my life entirely accidentally... Although considering I've read the LoTR like 27 times in my life I suppose I was indoctrinated without noticing
None of this is in the books or movies so this is just this kids made up version of what he thinks happened with some made up characters
Wtf?