J.R.R. Tolkien had a great love of nature and trees that was well recorded in his lifetime by both himself and his contemporaries. Environmentalists and ecocritical studies have often commented upon his radical eco-centric fantasy world, where the trees can speak and talk and even fight against the tyranny of mechanization and industry. Yet, Tolkien himself rarely spoke of the greater meaning behind this, and often dismissed taking his works as allegorical (Drout 165). But an author’s work cannot be divorced from their beliefs, their history cannot be excluded. Nature began to influence Tolkien radically at a very young age and, while it definitively shaped his literary work, it may have also shaped his political and philosophical views during his lifetime, even if he was reticent to disclose these beliefs.
Tolkien’s first real exposure to trees and nature was through his father. In Tolkien’s biography, it is stated that “During the first year of the boy’s life Arthur Tolkien made a small grove of cypresses, firs, and cedars. Perhaps this had something to do with the deep love of trees that would develop in [J.R.R. Tolkien].” (Carpenter 21).
Tolkien lived briefly in Bloemfontein, Africa, with his father and mother before moving to England after his father died when he was three. He grew up in Birmingham, near Sarehole Mill, where the surrounding countryside of flowers, trees, bogs, and wildlife would greatly influence and appear throughout his later works (Blackham 23). There, he explored the local areas such as the River Cole, Mosely Bog, Sarehole Mill, with his brother. Tolkien explained that when he was young his mother taught him basic botany, and soon the boy fell in love with the trees and wildlife, loved to “be with the trees.” He recalled, in particular, a willow which was cut down when he was young and the loss he felt, especially since they didn’t use the timber. He said he “never forgot that.” (Carpenter 26-30).
Even his early art focused heavily on the natural elements of the world. Many of his earliest pieces incorporate nature and man-made objects and buildings side by side in a more rural setting, but in each, the natural element supersedes the constructed; the focus remains on the greenery, the flowers, and the trees. In Lambourn, Berks, the trees at the front of the image overpower the gated meadowlands that lay behind them. In Pageant House Gardens, Warwick similarly the hedge obscures the house that lay behind them and in King’s Norton from Bilberry Hill, the branch of a coniferous tree cuts through the distant town, and the painting is centered on the fields and farmlands below it (Hammond and Scull 16-21).
These lands also directly gave rise to areas within The Lord of the Rings itself; Mosely Bog is considered a heavy influence for Fangorn Forest, where Tolkien would talk to the old trees he found, seeing faces in the gnarled bark and twisted roots. (Carpenter 28, Blackham 25). Robert Blackham even goes so far as to hypothesize that the destruction that Tolkien witnessed in his time serving during World War I would serve as inspiration for the dark lands destroyed by Sauron’s forces in The Lord of the Rings (Blackham 30).
Tolkien never shied away from these facts; in a letter to Deborah Wester from 1958 he states, “...I was born in 1892 and lived for many years in ‘the Shire’ in a pre-mechanical age...I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands.” (Tolkien, Letters 303). Yet, the focus on the pre-mechanical, the pre-industrial and “unmechanized” points us to something else about Tolkien: specifically, how his views of nature would inform his political and philosophical beliefs.
Tolkien rarely spoke of his political leanings. In the same letter to Deborah Wester, he states “I do not like giving ‘facts’ about myself other than ‘dry’ ones...” He explains then how his certain dispositions and stances mean little, and that only “...God himself, could unravel the relationship between personal facts and an author’s works.” (Tolkien, Letters 303).
This, however, doesn’t mean that Tolkien lacked opinions about politics, sociology, and even economics. For, as Aristotle puts it in Book 1 of his Politics, “man is by nature a political animal...” which of course can be taken to mean that political stances are a natural state of being. (Aristotle 1253a). So what were his political leanings, and how were they influenced by his views of nature?
We should first gain an insight into what Tolkien’s specific views actually were. In one of the few times Tolkien ever directly addressed his political views, a letter to Christopher Tolkien in 1943, he states “My political opinions lean more and more towards Anarchy [...] – or to ‘unconstitutional monarchy’” (Tolkien, Letters 74). A question we might pose then is the apparent disparity between these two political systems, and what exactly Tolkien meant by this statement.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, considered to be the founder of modern anarchism as a political stance, stated in his book What is Property? that anarchy is “the absence of a master, of a sovereign,” (Proudhon 271). Unconstitutional Monarchy is, therefore, a strange phrase, especially to pair with this term of anarchy, as Monarchy, necessitates a sovereign; a king or queen. Our task then is to find the meaning of the word unconstitutional as a modifier to a monarchy. Thankfully, Tolkien illuminates his point and states in the same letter that:
“I would arrest anybody that uses the word State... the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.” (Tolkien 74)
From this, it appears that we can understand Tolkien’s intentions by the word “unconstitutional,” meaning, uncoercive or unforced. Power, in Tolkien’s mind, should flow from a natural place, and not out of a desire to rule or command fellow human beings. This is an idea that is reflected in his works, with the Ring often being seen as a metaphor for this desire for power and its corrupting influence. He even states in a letter that part of the corruption of Denethor was because he was “tainted with politics.” (Tolkien 258). As stated above, those who desired power are often not of the correct type to rule over other men, even as unnatural as the entire arrangement is in its most basic state.
Interestingly enough, this theory of politics and the drive for power being a naturally corruptive force can be found in the likes of philosophy, and particularly in the views of a philosopher of whom Tolkien likely would dismiss (Tolkien 252, 253). In Karl Marx’s Capital: Volume 1, he describes something he calls the primitive acclimation of wealth, which he states if the key to the rise of capitalistic societies of unequal power. Namely, what this is, is greed and the actions taken to gain power-these are barbaric means which then leads to more barbaric peoples claiming power (Marx 507-510). Furthermore, in describing how these people have consolidated and use their power especially in regards to the use of land, that they will destroy and exploit the natural resources of an area to maximize profit. (Marx 511-516).
Tolkien, however, likely would refute the idea of being called a Marxist or communist, and never really engaged in the ideas of the conflict between capitalism and communism in any meaningful manner (Drout 84, 85). He obviously disliked the idea that the commerce of society necessarily had to rely on the exploitation of the natural resources of the world, but he wasn’t against the idea that a free and unregulated market could find a way to advance without the exploitation of nature.
It should be noted that within The Lord of the Rings, we never really see any economic system or government structure for the Shire, with only the note of some aristocratic class system existing but being irrelevant for the story at hand (Drout 166). Similarly, the other political systems are all monarchies of some sort, except for the Ents who have a parliamentary system. Perhaps the frustration that is apparent in the scene stems from Tolkien’s own experiences with a parliamentary system, especially with one so focused on the natural world-- but Tolkien’s political activism and discussion are relatively unknown.
It is here that we can see how his particular political views are influenced by nature, and not by political sciences or philosophical discourse. He rarely engaged with those fields, (but could not avoid them) focusing on the more thematic elements of his works than the economic or philosophical. At best, it appears as though Tolkien admired the idea of a harmony with the natural state of the world; one where humanity focuses on its place within nature. Hal G. P. Colebatch states that Tolkien’s political views stemmed from an idea that “...Man was not ultimately created for Earth.” and so should not worry themselves so heavily with the concerns of who rules over whom (Colebatch 538).
Many of these sentiments are reflected in another letter he wrote, this one in 1956, where he discusses how the Ring corrupts those with and without power alike but is more susceptible to corrupt those with it. Furthermore, he elucidates another fact about his political leanings: that he is not a socialist. (Tolkien, Letters 252-253). He says he is “averse” to planning (meaning here a planned economic and societal system, as opposed to unregulated systems of government) and then laments the “The present design of destroying Oxford in order to accommodate motor-cars...” (Tolkien, Letters 253)
Tolkien had a great distaste for the rapid industrialization and mechanization of the world around him; as the quotes from the beginning of this work reflect. When he returned to Birmingham many years later and saw the fields he once explored as a child replaced by the rapidly expanding city planning, he was taken with a certain despair (Tolkien, Letters 20).
His dismay at these turn of events is most clear in two letters, where he says “How I wish the ‘infernal combustion’ engine had never been invented...If a ragnarök would burn all the slums and gas-works, and shabby garages, and long arc-lit suburbs, it could for me burn all the works of art – and I'd go back to trees.” (Tolkien, Letters 88, 109). It seems here then that Tolkien, like William Morris before him, desired a return to the yesteryear of simple lives, unmechanized.
But these just hinted at Tolkien’s political stances. It doesn’t appear as though any contemporary of his could be considered as defining his political opinions. Treebeard in The Two Towers, says “I am not altogether on anybody's side because nobody is altogether on my side if you understand me: nobody cares for the woods as I care for them” (Tolkien 472). It seems very likely that this is the voice of Tolkien himself; his opinion on the trees and nature he saw being torn away at by the machines of industry (Curry 54). He even said in a letter that, “Every tree has an enemy, few have an advocate” (Tolkien 340).
Tolkien, it appears, believed that he had to fight for the trees, to be an advocate for them in a time when those who cared for the natural world were (in his eyes) few. His love of nature encompassed and informed his ideas of what a state should look like; that of a state of nature. This is not in the meaning of the state of nature of humans in philosophy (i.e. whether or not man is good or evil) but instead of a harmony with nature.
In his books, we can see this most clearly with the descriptions of the devastation that surrounds the Black Gates and the destruction that surrounds Isengard after Saruman’s fall, which is described as “... land[s] defiled, diseased beyond all healing.” (Tolkien 296). Other forests, such as Lothlorien, Fangorn, and Mirkwood all having lasting impacts in the story and are all restored by the end of the novels, having wrought their revenge against the machine-loving forces that assailed them. Tolkien himself stated that “Lothlorien is beautiful because there the trees were loved.” (Tolkien 462). Perhaps, Tolkien felt that the beauty of the world he had known as a child only came under threat because no one was left to love the trees. He recounts in an earlier letter, a small anecdote about a neighbor wanting to cut down a great poplar tree, and how he loved the tree, and then how it was spared being cut, much to his delight (Tolkien 340-341).
It appears then that the good of the world is that which works in tandem with the natural elements, focuses on the love of the world and the trees, while the evil will seek to destroy and harm the land. This is a highly environmentalist position to take, one which is still championed by leaders of the movement (Drout 165).
Yet, environmentalism often colludes with socialism and communism, anti-capitalistic movements that link the destruction of the environment with the rise of industrialism and the modern age. Tolkien’s position on those statements is unknown, untouched by anything he left behind for us to investigate properly. Yet, his eco-centric ideas stem from eco-socialists and eco-anarchists such as William Morris and Henry David Thoreau, but he never seemed to agree entirely with them. (Drout 165). It seems that there was no political movement during Tolkien’s time with which he could identify.
Tolkien died in 1973, but his works have endured and have been used to push forth political, philosophical and environmental issues. The eco-anarchism and socialism of his time evolved and changed since then, and perhaps their contemporary counterparts could provide us with a political system with which Tolkien might agree. In this, the novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn may serve as a guide to a political discourse which Tolkien might have agreed with in some sense.
Daniel Quinn points that mankind has often sought to dominate nature, instead of living with it, and that for all the advances that modern technology and industrialization has brought us, it has failed to meaningfully change the state of existence in human beings. (Quinn 169-185). He defines two different cultures of peoples, Takers, and Leavers, or those who think they know good and evil, and those who “live in the hands of the gods,” this meaning not perhaps literal deities, but in the realm of nature and the natural world. This is best summed up when Ishmael says, “the premise of the taker’s story is ‘this world belongs to man’ ... [while] the premise of the leaver’s story is ‘Man belongs to the world’” (Quinn 191).
The book details that man has mythologized its own place in the world, instead of actually attempting to understand their place as another living thing in a world of living things.
This political theory is what is known as green anarchism or a variant of Anarcho-syndicalism, which focuses on a return to harmony with nature and restoring the environment and our world to a better and more sustainable system. This theory appears to fulfill the political desires of Tolkien, where humanity returns to its roots of natural living, where it supersedes the man-made and artificial world. Yet, its inherently socialistic roots allow for the argument to be made that Tolkien might still disagree with the theory.
Nature has long been seen as an influence in Tolkien’s life and has often been used to paint a picture of his views on industrialism, war, and politics. While Tolkien himself may not have actually been predisposed to call himself an environmentalist, his disposition towards the development of the country and the beauty of the natural world is evident in his works, letters, and even artistic depictions of the world.
Bibliography
Aristotle. Aristotle’s Politics. Translated by Benjamin Jowett & H.W.C. Davis Clarendon Press, 1920.
Blackham, Robert S. The Roots of Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Tempus Publishing Limited, 2006.
Curry, Patrick. Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity. Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Drout, Michael D. C. J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Routledge, 2013.
Hammond, Wayne G., and Christina Scull. J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.
Kreeft, Peter J. The Philosophy of Tolkien. Ignatius Press. 2005
Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume 1. Charles H. Kerr and Co. 1906.
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph. What is Property? An Inquiry to Into the Principle Right and Government. University of Virginia Electronic Text Center, 2001.
Quinn, Daniel. Ishmael. Turner Books, 1995.
Tolkien, John and Priscilla Tolkien. The Tolkien Family Album. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992
Tolkien, J. R. R., and Humphrey Carpenter. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Harper Collins, 2006.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
I think I started off way to vague on this topic. It eventually collapsed down into "What is a political philosophy Tolkien could agree with?" which works, but is more speculative in nature. I wish I had started smaller, and let the work naturally grow as it began to do as I researched.