Tolkien on Authority

Hint: He wasn't a fan.

(Taking a little break from our series on Declaring Your Independence.)

Like many of you, my life has been enriched by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. When I was a child, my father read to me every night, and several years of this wondrous ritual were occupied with the task of reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The experience changed my life.

It was much more recently that I discovered that Tolkien had political views with which I am quite simpatico:

“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.”

There is much that can be said about this.

On the surface, Tolkien appears to be talking about merit—the ability to lead well. We assume so based on his statement that “Not one in a million is fit for it”—which causes us to assume he means that “fitness” is possible, albeit extremely rare.

That is, first and foremost, an indictment of democracy, as that is the most common system in which one can “seek the opportunity” to boss other men. Yet the math is clear—if not one in a million is fit for such a position, then no one is.

So is he really talking about merit, or is this a more general indictment of the notion that anyone should be in a position to boss anyone else?

We get a hint later in the quote:

“Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses…”

His meaning is obvious: He wants as little authority as possible.

He is describing a king who has no interest in bossing people around at all. He prefers a king who is focused on personal pursuits, and whose only exercise of power is to “sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers.”

Indeed, he makes that view quite clear:

“The mediævals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop.”

Fear the king who wants to be king. Fear the bishop who wants to be bishop.

This is a devastating indictment of democracy. Set aside, for a moment, the gauzy democracy mystique of ‘selfless public servants’ who just want to “serve the people.” Nearly 100 percent of the people who run for office do so because they want to hold that office.

Based on Tolkien’s calculus, we must thus fear every democratic leader. If you’ve been reading my work for more than a few days, you know just how much I agree with him.

Most of the best anarcho-libertarian theoretical work (on how social order could be accomplished without involuntary governance) came after his time. If he had known more about it, he might have been a greater proponent of some form of intentional anarchism. (And as it happens, he did head in a general anarchist direction later in life, which we will soon discuss.)

As it was, he appears to have preferred a disinterested, far-off, largely powerless monarch. If democracy cannot be trusted, and if truly meritorious kings are fewer than one in a million, then a distracted hobbyist king is the best choice.

And even given my firm belief that birthright authority is an ontological fiction—I would absolutely prefer to live under a hereditary line of puttering fops than what we have now.

pxfuel/free for commercial use