Graham Culbertson, “Making Sense of Tolkien’s Anarchism”

Abstract: In this talk, I take seriously the claim that J.R.R. Tolkien made in a letter to his son Christopher: that his “political opinions lean more and more towards anarchy.” In order to take this claim seriously, I have to overcome two conventional ideas: first, that anarchism is a left-wing political philosophy, and second, that The Lord of the Rings reifies monarchical thinking. In Tolkien’s own words, anarchy, “philosophically understood,” is not a left-wing social movement but rather a disbelief in the usefulness of hierarchy and coercion. I argue that this disbelief is apparent throughout The Lord of the Rings. From the opposite angle, monarchism in The Lord of the Rings is purely aesthetic; as a medievalist fantasy, the books embrace the legend of the true king whose return puts the world in order, but the narrative ends before the business of monarchy can actually begin. As such, much of the appeal of The Lord of the Rings depends on this unique fantastical promise: a world of kings and wizards, elves and orcs, but one in which mutual aid is the world’s most powerful force, and coercion can only achieve violence and disorder.

Graham Culbertson received his PhD in American Literature and Culture from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he currently serves as a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. He hosts the Everyday Anarchism podcast, which has received over 250,000 downloads, and is currently adapting the podcast into a book introducing anarchist theory, under contract with PM Press.