LOL Robin I read that article, was tripped up by the mis-attribution, and immediately thought of you, and how you've talked about the problem of students (especially) attributing to Tolkien the paraphrases/bastardizations of Jackson et al.!
But it does emphasize how much these "think tanks" are only pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-academic ... not that people on the left can't be as bad, holy moly don't get real historians & academics started about David Graeber ...
Robin, I remember it as if it had been yesterday - you coming up to me after the talk in that hotel room in B'ham and asking me when will I publish this because you found it so incredibly interesting.
Thank you very much for sharing this, it gives me great pleasure and makes me a little proud to see my work mentioned with your amazing writings!
I recently read the "manifesto" of someone with ties to the Claremont Institute, a man from Indiana who used to own a shampoo company and who has several "compounds" around the US (3 in Moscow, ID, apparently). Both the Guardian and Raw Story have recently published short articles about him. He frames himself as a warlord.
His manifesto (which I won't link to but I can email you the name if you want to pursue an archive link) essentially lays out ideas for a society formed where the current US is after the US has "collapsed" (his call for militarized bunkers and open warfare seems to suggest he and his group are the ones who will be doing the "collapsing"). It includes all the usual suspects: authoritarianism, anti-Enlightenment, anti-equality, strict gender roles, solid hierarchy, a ruling class, capital punishment and corporal punishment, preferential treatment for Christians, etc..
What I found most interesting though and the reason I am mentioning it here is because it also twice draws words or phrases from Tolkien. Once it references the Shire and in another place is a reference to the world being "broken and remade" (referring to his new, planned society being the "remade" world after collapse and drawing from Tolkien's description of the Dagor Dagorath). I have not encountered that specific phrasing outside of Tolkien, though it is entirely possible it exists somewhere and I just don't know if it. I *just* did a presentation on Sauron's utopian plans for remaking "Arda Marred" (in which that phrase and concept plays a role) so coming across this was timely (if disturbing).
That was Tolkien Society Birmingham 2019 - I was sitting with you in Marcel's talk so I remember it well!
LOL Robin I read that article, was tripped up by the mis-attribution, and immediately thought of you, and how you've talked about the problem of students (especially) attributing to Tolkien the paraphrases/bastardizations of Jackson et al.!
But it does emphasize how much these "think tanks" are only pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-academic ... not that people on the left can't be as bad, holy moly don't get real historians & academics started about David Graeber ...
Robin, I remember it as if it had been yesterday - you coming up to me after the talk in that hotel room in B'ham and asking me when will I publish this because you found it so incredibly interesting.
Thank you very much for sharing this, it gives me great pleasure and makes me a little proud to see my work mentioned with your amazing writings!
I recently read the "manifesto" of someone with ties to the Claremont Institute, a man from Indiana who used to own a shampoo company and who has several "compounds" around the US (3 in Moscow, ID, apparently). Both the Guardian and Raw Story have recently published short articles about him. He frames himself as a warlord.
His manifesto (which I won't link to but I can email you the name if you want to pursue an archive link) essentially lays out ideas for a society formed where the current US is after the US has "collapsed" (his call for militarized bunkers and open warfare seems to suggest he and his group are the ones who will be doing the "collapsing"). It includes all the usual suspects: authoritarianism, anti-Enlightenment, anti-equality, strict gender roles, solid hierarchy, a ruling class, capital punishment and corporal punishment, preferential treatment for Christians, etc..
What I found most interesting though and the reason I am mentioning it here is because it also twice draws words or phrases from Tolkien. Once it references the Shire and in another place is a reference to the world being "broken and remade" (referring to his new, planned society being the "remade" world after collapse and drawing from Tolkien's description of the Dagor Dagorath). I have not encountered that specific phrasing outside of Tolkien, though it is entirely possible it exists somewhere and I just don't know if it. I *just* did a presentation on Sauron's utopian plans for remaking "Arda Marred" (in which that phrase and concept plays a role) so coming across this was timely (if disturbing).