PrimeJunta

Please post it here. I'm not responding to any off-site stuff. Edit: And "man-hating?" That's... worrying. If you have anything at all to do with the MRA scene, please say so, so I'll put you on my ignore list right away. I want nothing whatsoever to do with that lot.

Haha, you sure that's the analogy you want to make?

Okay, in that case I concede the point. I don't give a sh1t about semantics.

Wow, looks like this thing is really flushing them out of the woodwork.

I do. But that doesn't mean others have to as well. Like gay people. Wow. For once, I am lost for words. And thus prove my point. Hahano.

HELL YES! Seriously, do you even have to ask this? Hounds = good. Wolves = evil. Horses = good. Cats = evil. Tolkien associated major meanings with various animals. Carcharoth ring any bells? What about Draugluin? You keep bringing the Ku Klux Klan and gas chambers into this. News flash: you do not need to want to actually exterminate a group of people to qualify as racist. It's enough to consider them intrinsically inferior. I'm claiming Tolkien did the latter about any number of groups -- Jews, blacks, Mongols/Turks/Arabs -- while explicitly and firmly disassociating himself from the former. You're welcome. True, that. The same goes for choice of words when expressing yourself, though. For example, if you did indeed mean 'attractive' in the broadest possible sense in both cases, then I would suggest you expressed yourself poorly in the first case. Mentioning 'banging' in the same paragraph would cause most readers to assume you meant 'sexually attractive.' Put another way, if someone misunderstands you, I would suggest you consider the possibility that the fault was with your choice of words, not the other party's reading skillz. Why would I bother to check it, since the question was whether you're attracted to girls or not, not whether you're male or female or not? Good, looks like I'll fit right in, then. Edit: I hate this POS editor.

I do. But that doesn't mean others have to as well. Like gay people. Wow. For once, I am lost for words.

I never argued otherwise. You're always "guilty" of injecting your politics into whatever you read. That said, it is possible to tease out the author's politics from his writing too. In fact, systematic analysis like that is the only tool we have of disentangling your politics from the writer's politics. Sorry, Karkarov, but no can do on my part. I'm still waiting for Merlkir's response, which he promised. I wouldn't have written that series of posts if he hadn't made that promise, and I hope he'll honor it. It was a quite a bit of work. However, I apologize if I've insulted anyone. I have been making an extra effort to stay civil, address only the statements people make, and not the people themselves. If I've failed, I'm sorry and I'll try to do better.

In that case, it sounds like we're quibbling over semantics. I would find 'anachronistic' an appropriate term to use if a fantasy world included a technology (e.g. firearms) without including the precursor technologies for it (e.g. metallurgy good enough to forge gun barrels).

"Redheads" or "green-eyed women" are not an ethnicity. They're particular physical features. That doesn't carry the same kind of baggage. That said, if you said "There is not a single red-haired woman I could find attractive," I would find that... not exactly racist, but definitely off. Wouldn't you? Which, of course, is not what I was saying. You didn't say "I like green-eyed women." You said "There is not a single black woman I could find attractive." That, Sharp_one, is a racist statement, any way you parse it.

Do you see ethnicity as equally fundamental to sexual attraction as sex? Just asking.

Now, that's better. Not good enough, though. Once more. Orcs are the evil race, correct? In his letter, Tolkien explicitly connects Orcs with Mongols, correct? How is connecting a specific ethnie -- Mongols -- with an explicitly evil race -- Orcs -- not a racist connection? It sounds to me that your threshold for racism are as high as your standards for versimilitude in fantasy are low, man. Absurdly high. And absurdly low. Google "some of my best friends are black." It's a cliché. You just did it. I was referencing it. Sorry, Sharp_one. Language just doesn't work that way. Words have multiple meanings, and you always have to parse out the one intended from context. I wasn't interested enough to check your profile. So, casually insulting people instead of addressing their points counts as "polite" in Poland? I'll keep that in mind next time I swing by.

There was no subject change. You appear to have very low standards for consistency in your fiction. Firearms in a bronze-age fantasy are anachronistic. There's simply no way you could have firearms with bronze-age technology. If they're present, they must come from somewhere else, e.g. left from a previous much more advanced civilization. They're still anachronistic. If you disagree, that, to me, shows that your standards for fantasy are low. It's not enough to simply declare victory to win an argument, by the way. You actually have to demonstrate your point first.

That's a pretty loaded statement. Are you saying he is required to feel sexual attraction to black women or that makes him racist? Does that mean that all gay men/women are sexist? Are you saying that a gay man is required to feel sexual attraction to women or be called sexist? I already addressed the orientation aspect in the above post, so I won't repeat that here. As to the other point, "there is not a single black girl I could find sexually attractive" is racist. For one thing, it demonstrates that you see black girls primarily as black girls, i.e., members of a group, rather than individuals whom you may or may not find sexually attractive. That makes the categorical statement, in and of itself, racist. FWIW, "I find black girls sexually attractive" is also racist, for the same reason.

That's the best you can do? Seriously? And you really consider that a winning argument? "It's not because I say so! And now I'm taking my toys and going home, you mean liberal politically correct indoctrinated person you!" Ah, the "some of my best friends are black" defense. Never would've seen that coming. It occurred to me that you might be trying to score cheap rhetorical points. You have a habit of switching between definitions of a word as it suits you, like right here: It was obvious from context (mention of 'banging') that by 'attractive' you meant 'sexually attractive.' Here you're using 'attractive' in its broader sense, since I would expect that a 100% gay man or 100% straight woman would could state 'there is not a single black girl I find sexually attractive' without lying. The 'black' qualifier could be there to make it the trick question. (I wasn't just thinking you might be a gay man, by the way. I was also thinking you might be a straight woman. To my recollection, your gender has never come up in these discussions, and your avatar and handle are sexually ambiguous.) That's what you get for having a history of weaseling with words, you know. People get careful and start adding caveats. It also makes you a somewhat tedious person to converse with, since you spend so much time evading points with little rhetorical tricks rather than addressing them. Also, I thought you said you were leaving...?

Actually yes, yes it does. Banging not required obviously, but "there is not a single black girl I would consider attractive" is pretty damn racist, now that you mention it. Edit: Unless it was a trick question and you're actually not into girls, of course.

All right. So demonstrate it. Attempts at sarcasm will only get you so far. Simplest thing. There is no evidence of Tolkien performing single racist act, nor the single racist statement of his. But again, I'm done with this conversation it's off topic and I lately done my share of talking to raging, politically corrected delusional people. OK. So, Orcs as "degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types" is not racist, because...?

No, we cannot. Because in fantasy world the author as the creator chooses what technology is available at given time. So, unless the source material is contradicting itself at some point we cannot say that something in fictional universe is anachronism even if people fight with actual forged swords in a space opera. You appear to have very low standards for your fiction.

Sheesh, I'm actually getting warmed up. Been a while since I was properly talking Tolkien. Here's another point for Sharp_One and Merlkir to consider: In all of Tolkien's corpus, the only good possibly not irredeemably evil Negro is a dead Negro. Discuss.

All right. So demonstrate it. Attempts at sarcasm will only get you so far.

You do know that "the Ku Klux Klan was EVEN MORE racist" doesn't do a thing to demonstrate that JRR was NOT racist, I'm sure? Thank you for your contribution. You will be missed. :waves:

Point 4: Sexism Thesis: Tolkien was a raging sexist. Tolkien's sexism was not the obviously nasty "women are evil creatures who must be kept in their place" kind. It was more the "women are beautiful things to be put on pedestals and admired from a distance, also prizes to be won by heroic men" kind. There are a quite a lot of women in Tolkien. There is, however, exactly one woman with any kind of agency that I can think of: Galadriel. Her original name was Nerwen, which means "Man-maiden." Haha. Funny that, no? And even she can't escape being pedestal-ized, of all people by Gimli. He. Worships. A. Hair! From her head! How freakin' objectifying is that? Every other woman in Tolkien -- every other one -- is purely and totally objectified. They have no agency. They're objects noted for their beauty (e.g. Arwen) who don't actually do anything much, or if they do do something, they do it solely for the benefit of the main hero, the guy they're supposed to be helping. Consider one of the rare cases where a woman has an actual speaking role that goes past a few lines of gossip (hello, Ioreth!): Eowyn. Now she's someone who could actually kick some ass. But does Tolkien let her? No! Instead, she finds fulfilment by... setting aside the sword and shield and becoming a happy little housewife for Faramir. The point of her entire story is that it's all well and good for girls to dream of heroism, but their real calling is to be good little housewives and helpmeets for the men who do the real hero-izing. I could go on, but instead I'll just make a short list, again from the top of my head. Thingol and Melian. Thingol is a run-of-the-mill elf. Melian is a freakin' maia. Yet Thingol calls the shots, all Melian does is make a border around their kingdom. Beren and Lúthien. Beren is thel hero. Lúthien is the prize to be won. This despite the fact that Lúthien is part Maia and therefore should be inherently miles ahead of Beren in power and majesty. Again, the man himself (letter 131, page 135), which describes really well how Tolkien sees men and women... with a nice little nod at those precious bloodlines of his, too: It is Beren the outlawed mortal who succeeds (with the help of Lúthien, a mere maiden even if an elf of royalty) where all the armies and warriors have failed: he penetrates the stronghold of the Enemy and wrests one of the Silmarilli from the Iron Crown. This he wins the hand of Lúthien and the first marriage of mortal and immortal is achieved. Note the phrasing. It's mentioned in passing that Lúthien 'helps,' but mostly she's a prize to be 'won.' Fëanor's mom whose name I even forget. She gives all her power to Fëanor and dies, although elves normally don't, and in Valinor certainly don't. 'Cuz, y'know, moms. Rosie Cotton. Besides being a nice set of b00bs to come back to for Sam, what, exactly is she? Does she ever say anything? If she does, is it anything remotely interesting? Ioreth. Look her up. Morwen. Lalaith/Nienor/Niniel. Finduilas. Aredhel and Eöl. And so on and so forth. Challenge: Pick one woman from Tolkien that you would like to be, rather than possess. Say, play as a character in a cRPG. Galadriel the Man-Maiden doesn't count. Edit: Annnd, I think that's about enough for today. Getting late, plus I need to walk the dog. Looking forward to your thoughts, Merlkir.

Genealogical trees is not in and of itself racist, of course. Let's keep the Bible etc. out of this discussion, shall we? In case you didn't notice, Middle Earth is fiction. Tolkien wrote it. The rules and logic there came from his imagination, his values, his politics, his religion, his views. As much as it at times appears to be so -- and this is for me the main appeal of the damn thing -- it is not real. Heroic Middle Earth bloodlines have to be pure because Tolkien decided they have to be pure. He wrote this at the time when someone else -- a little corporal from Austria -- was kinda obsessed about purity of bloodlines too. It is not coincidental, or irrelevant, or existed in a vacuum. It is very much in tune with one extremely nasty and extremely common way of thinking at the time. Your book about crows and eagles would have no such problems because crows and eagles have no such connection to real-world politics... unless, of course, your heroic crows were all named Alastair and Grimbold, and your villanous eagles were named Ahmed or Mohammed (or why not Moshe and Yitzhakh if you want to pick another flavor of racism) in which case it would be obviously racist.

Point 3: Racial stereotypes, part 2: Dwarves as Jews Dwarves are a stand-in for Jews, and embody many of the racist stereotypes associated with them. I'm sure Tolkien would have been extremely upset at being accused of anti-Semitism, and compared to a Joseph Mengele he certainly wasn't. However, he did hold some pretty stereotypical views of the Jews as money-grubbing legalistic insular types, and where he portrays dwarves as truly heroic -- the only real example of that I can think of is Gimli -- that heroism is presented as a story of how he overcomes the deficiencies of his people, in his friendship with Legolas, and later in the way he puts Galadriel on a pedestal and starts worshipping a freakin' hair from her head. (That's a subject for another post in this series, namely, sexism.) Evidence, exhibit A: The man himself, from letter 176 (Letters, p. 229): I do think of the 'Dwarves' like Jews: at once native and alien in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accent due to their own private tongue. ... The ellipsis is the editor's, not mine. I wonder what he felt necessary to excise? Evidence, exhibit B: Primary characteristics associated with the Dwarves: greed and gold and insularity plus suspicious hostility towards everyone else (projecting much?). Thrór sat under the mountain and accumulated a freakin' mountain of gold. The Dwarves betrayed and slaughtered Thingol of Doriath over riches. The Dwarves draw up an insanely complex contract mostly involving payment and money matters when hiring Bilbo, and would've been perfectly at peace with letting him get himself et by a dragon. Thórin throws a fit when Bilbo tries to keep more than what he feels is his fair share of Smaug's treasure, and indeed the main concern of the Dwarves is always some piece of shiny, like the Arkenstone in The Hobbit. The Dwarves are also always an exiled people, their ancestral homeland coincidentally taken over by, surprise surprise, those sallow Turkish-Mongol-Arab stand-ins, the Orcs.

Point 2: Racial stereotypes, part 1: Orcs Thesis: Orcs/goblins are a transparent stand-in for Turks/Arabs/Mongols. Evidence: Orcish language, "Black Speech," is phonetically similar to Turkish. They wield scimitars. They come from the East. And here's the man himself on how they look: The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the 'human' form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types. (Letter 210, paragraph 19, on page 274 of Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter, ed.) I don't know how you can get more explicitly racist than "least lovely Mongol-types." Seriously. Challenge: Name a single instance of a living non-white character, location, or culture being portrayed in a positive light. Never mind a protagonist, hero, or character with agency; we both know there isn't one anywhere to be found. Getting maudlin over a corpse doesn't count.