After my talk on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at Princeton University last week, I had an interesting conversation with a student who is in the midst of research on Tolkien’s approach to democracy. I promised to suggest some avenues of research that she should pursue. Here are my suggestions:
Regarding your research on “the influences that drove Tolkien”, especially with regard to his view of “democracy”, I would suggest that you place him within the solid tradition of Catholic political philosophy which clearly influenced his artistic and socio-political vision. Specifically, you should examine notions of subsidiarity and distributism, which are essentially democratic in the deepest sense of the word and which challenge the increasingly undemocratic nature of modern macro-democracies.
With regard to subsidiarity, the heart and hub of Catholic political philosophy, you should read the papal encyclicals, Rerum novaram by Leo XIII (1891) and Quadragesimo anno by Pius XI (1931). With regard to distributism, you should read The Outline of Sanity by G. K. Chesterton and The Servile State and An Essay on the Restoration of Property by Hilaire Belloc. Belloc and Chesterton were major influences on Tolkien’s intellectual development as is evidenced by the large number of books by both these authors that Tolkien owned.
I particularly recommend the following essays in my book, Literary Giants, Literary Catholics: “Catholicism and Democracy”, “Fascism and Chesterton”, “The Individual and Community in Tolkien’s Middle-earth”, and “Religion and Politics in The Lord of the Rings“.
Regarding other of my own writing on these topics which might be helpful, I would suggest you read the following:
Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G. K. Chesterton: chapters 21 & 29
Literary Converts: chapters 8, 19, 22 & 28
Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc: chapters 13 & 16
Small is Still Beautiful: Economics as if Families Mattered: all
The chapter on political philosphy in Peter Kreeft’s The Philosophy of Tolkien will also be helpful.
I hope this helps.
Tolkien a democrat?! Say it ain’t so Joseph!
Okay, okay, I know you were not suggesting that, but the very thought makes me cringe! Tolkien was a Monarchist was he not? And a strong believer in the Old (Catholic) world, yes? I know about the guilds, etc, etc in the middle ages, but perhaps it’s because of the revolution(s), but democracy leaves a bad taste in my Catholic mouth. To me it just spells the doom of the Catholic world of yore. A pox on it!
And speaking of the Chesterbelloc monster, while there is much from them that I admire, I have never been able to forgive them for their love of the French revolution. How two Catholics could so love a revolution tha massacred their fellow brothers and sisters and so persecuted their Church, and destroyed the world made by that said Church, is beyond me.