Well,for a start,you are absolutely correct about this whole idea permeating Tolkien's work. Especially TLOTR...and this is exactly what Moorcock talks about in his criticism of it. And about which I totally agree with him 100% I'm afraid.
Without getting into too much of a political debate I will just state that I am on the other side of the fence from anyone who is remotely conservative!
Of course it's possible to go and live in the bush frugally and have a happy life...or a strange religious community like you describe etc...but this whole bourguoise/christian idea of glad poverty/snug hard-working frugality etc is just so grating on my nerves! It's the old 'everybody in their right place' mentality...look at the character of Sam Gamgee,that's the obvious example in TLORT,but the whole book is full of this stuff...it's all,'Mr. Frodo this and Mr. Frodo that'...it makes me ill (and the movie version makes this aspect even more sickening) The idea that the guy who cleans the toilets at the rich businessman's club and gets paid $10 an hour should be 'happy to have a job' is what this is all about. The problem is that often the toilet cleaners believe this themselves,thus this ridiculous notion of 'glad poverty'. Are the people of the world so stupid that they are happy that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? It seems so in a lot of cases,especially here in Australia! I think anyone who thinks poverty is fun should go and live in an Aboriginal community in outback Northern Territory for a month. Then they would change. (I know that's not he means!...but still...) Of course reading stuff like TLORT gives people a nice warm fuzzy feeling which is some sort of weird nostalgic longing for some strange never-existant past. This is what Moorcock is talking about and so many Tolkien fans (keep in mind that word is short for fanatics,right?) just seem to find so disturbing or something,they hate anyone saying anything against their hero. On that Tolkien thread on this forum,I can't remember seeing many posts by anyone who DIDN'T like Tolkien. And when I quoted a very valid line from Moorcock I got a condescending reply from one of the people from this forum along the lines of,'oh we've already discussed the boring old Moorcock vs Tolkien non event many times on this forum'...as if the argument had no value whatsoever. And it seems I should have read every post in every thread before daring to say anything about Mr Tolkien...hello? Why does it upset them I wonder? They also hate anyone saying anything remotely critical of other unreadable rubbish like Lovecraft! Isn't that what a forum like this is supposed to be for? I think MM's criticism is 100% valid and correct and it's just really funny,Moorcock's description of TLOTR as 'Epic Pooh' sums the whole book up in one sentence I think. I can't find my copy of 'Wizardry and Wild Romance' to quote what I wanted to,but if you have it,just read the chapter on Tolkien,he says exactly what I think about Tolkien and Agrarianism etc there.
