And the author of this article is tying himself into a pretzel trying to absolve Tolkien of this great shame.

Honestly if the person written a story is dead and the none is getting money or it I do not care.

I feel you. It would sound silly if I said I can’t read the Prince because Machiavelli was a bad guy

The day comes for all of us when we find out our literary heroes were actually tremendous pieces of fucking shit

On a related note; George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm) actually traveled to Spain to fight in the Civil War on the side of the Anarchists, where he got shot in the neck and then had to flee the country after the Stalinists betrayed the Anarchists and Marxists and began rounding them up to imprison or execute them as 'secret fascists'.

He wrote about the experience in his book Homage to Catalonia. There was also a movie mostly based on the book called Land and Freedom.

Also, The Prince is highly sarcastic but is a good notice to anyone living in what might become a horrible place about what to avoid in leaders.

Funny how the Republican party match up with his qualifications.

This is why we say such things as "We must separate the art from the artist." Some of us pay to see Tom Cruise movies, some of us can't stand to see his face. There are still plenty of fans of Harry Potter, but they can't so much as mention it without being shouted down, these days.

They're all human, unless they're AI. So, we're going to disagree with them on some, or many, or all things, aside from their art. There are extremely few Dolly Partons and Fred Rogers in the world. You can accept this, or you can cancel everyone but the pure, and then decide amongst them who is the most pure, and only ever listen to Dolly Parton songs.

Go ahead and keep screaming about this, but I'm done with it. I like the art I like, that doesn't mean I like the artist. Deal with it.

Surprised you’re not on reddit

I think we can pretty easily separate the idea of continuing to give money to someone who is one of the most active breeders of hate against transgender individuals as bad from the enjoyment of the work of a long dead author who supported horrible causes.

Tolkien had a lot of eugenicist nonsense in his writing. Lots of commentary over how pure Aragorn's "blood of the West" was, and how lesser, less-pure men are just more easily swayed by Sauron. It's pretty vile.

Yeah. Hitler was a painter, too.

The only way to not be disappointed is to not.

It depends on your tolerance for how bad that person is and how much you want to contribute to their financial well being. For JK Rowling, my opinion is that if JK just said she doesn't like trans people, I'd disagree, but that by itself may not be a reason to not enjoy the work produced by her. However, she actively fights to put down trans people and spreads transphobia. That is reason enough for me to never do anything that will finance her and therefore support her actions.

In this case, Tolkein is long dead. Nothing I do now will contribute to him further pushing and supporting fascism.

Everyone gets to make this choice on their own. Nobody said you're not allowed to enjoy that art. If you decide that you're fine supporting artists through thick or thin and there's no line they can cross that will turn you away, then you can't be surprised or upset when other people change their opinion of you as a person. If you're okay with that, then that's fine, it's your life, live it.

Whatcha got on Vonnegut?

Stalinists betrayed the... Marxists

Oh, to hear a tankie try to explain that one.

They have a pasteable excuse why mls always purged communists

I agree. My issue is that Tolkien's views are rarely talked about or they are excused. He is often put forth as a straight progressive.

Dig deep enough, and everyone is kind of a piece if shit.

It's hard not to look at Pandora's box (AI) and think...

...maybe this is better?

Does it have cancer yet? Any hope it will die soon?

They would likely repeat the USSR's propaganda that the POUM (marxists) were Trotskyists engaging in counter-revolutionary behavior along with the Anarchists, and that they had to be put down/imprisoned since the 'only' way to to win the war was if everyone simply allowed themselves to be totally under the command of the Stalinist faction.

lol no

What's the case for The Prince being sarcastic? I realize it's quite different from his Discourses on Livy, but I've read it as being more of a "extreme measures for an extreme situation" kind of deal. He does write in the Discourses that a sufficiently corrupted society could require a monarch using extreme and unusual means.

Giving up and saying everyone sucks is a symptom of someone who does not want to believe that it is possible to try and succeed to be good. Because if nobody can be good, then it is easy to feel okay being bad. Don't let yourself make this excuse.

Low effort comment. Insult is generic and easily applicable; little skill demonstrated. 2/5.

The Tolkien estate is getting money.

It doesn't look good but that's probably Ozempic.

I have plans to prevent even the possibility of doing something bad. But something slips catastrophicaly every now and then. It's always some unexpected angle that I fuckup in, which is why instead of ever assuming I'm good, I will always assume I'm a piece of shit, and "Airgap" myself from others. This is also why I will never date.

As for others, well seeing the polls sometimes, the landlords, and the state of the world. Having people tell me "we all have ADHD", and that it is propaganda. I just stopped expecting them to be reasonable. Many people have entire groups they would like to watch suffer, and love to see exterminated.

If the world was back to what it was, we would destroy it again.

In the case of the anarchists (i.e. whatever chaotic vigilante nonsense the CNT/FAI were doing in Catalunya), they were literallly refusing to raise a proper army to contrubute to the war effort against the fascists despite being one of the most populous and industrialised parts of the republican side. The CNT/FAI was insisting on using small bands of barely-trained volunteers for defense, which was very unsurprisingly totally ineffective against the trained and Nazi-equipped forces of Franco. There was only so long that other parts of the republic could do all the fighting on behalf of the CNT/FAI's self-indulgent nonsense before they actually needed to get serious, and that obviously meant raising an actual army. Of course, it didn't stop there because elements of the CNT/FAI continued to disrupt enlistment efforts and encourage Catalunyans to boycott their own self-defense, allowing the fascists to very underwhelmingly stroll into Barcelona and begin slaughtering people.

Historical context basically, I don't remember the exact argument for it but it's a commonly held view by specialists that I've seen referenced in newspaper-published essais.

I used to think that but then I read about Eric Gill's crimes (Gill Sans font) and now I can't look at it. Don't look it up, by the way.

In some ways he was quite progressive. He wrote strong female characters before it was cool, made a case for diversity (the way different races all have some unique characteristics that help them achieve victory as a team) and championed protecting the environment from villains who would exploit and destroy it (I know, it used to be a republican position, not anymore though). With his popularity, do we really want him to be claimed by fascists? What stands to be gained from bringing him to the court of public opinion, now that he's long dead?

That will be relevant if there's proof of the Tolkien estate supporting fascists. Or do you believe in punishing the children for the sins of their fathers?

And the author of this article is tying himself into a pretzel trying to absolve Tolkien of this great shame.

We must remain morally pure! Anyone trying to understand evil becomes stained with it! Only the most reduced and simple argument can save us from the evils of intellectualism. It is not enough to simply reject evil, we must repeat the rejection again and again until it becomes part of our mental fortress.

We shall repost this rebuke of JRR Tolkien again and again, and every time it must become simpler, purer, easier to accept and less dangerous to the uncritical mind.

Reject moral Pretzelism!

Don't lose faith. The media, and your brain, have a very strong incentive to focus on the negative things in the world. Are there horrible, disgusting things happening every day? Yes. But you're looking at billions of people, and filtering to see only those things. If you walk around and take a look at what your average person does every day, it's generally pretty neutral. Maybe some good things. They stop and let another car go ahead of them. They say thank you to the barista. They hold the door for someone at work. Maybe some bad things. They send someone an undeservedly snippy email. They make a joke in poor taste. They take too much grilled chicken from the salad bar.

Some people are worse than others, definitely, but most people are not evil; it is just much easier to notice when someone's bad actions affect you. Similarly, it is easy to see when your bad actions affect others. But do you think the few truly evil people in this world are walking around wondering if they're good inside and trying to be better? This effort to improve and act well towards others which holds value. I posit that there is no such thing as a good person. There are good actions, and trying to do the best ones you can, when you can, is the best you can do. You will make mistakes, but it is always better to continue trying. I wish you luck, and the chance to see yourself and appreciate what you see.

I can't explain to you. There is just some crucial lack with humans, a screw loose, that makes them non-viable as they are.

I'm convinced our primitive hardware can't keep up with the responsibilities of this new world, and we would need to geneticaly modify ourselves just to survive.

Even a small flaw tends to snowball when there are so many of us.

This is why we say such things as “We must separate the art from the artist.”

Do we? Everyone has to decide that for themselves, everyone draws the crooked line somewhere else.

They guy is dead, and no one praise him or remember him for his political ideas.

First paragraph:

"When historical events are analysed from a distance and evaluated according to contemporary parameters and not according to the circumstances when they developed, it is easy to attain wrong conclusions, or at least, get a distorted view of the different attitudes of the participants and witnesses of those events"

"Tolkein loves fascism" is a WILDLY dishonest summation of the article. You, to use the academic term; fucking suck, OP.

Improve the Fediverse: post less, please.

(i.e. whatever chaotic vigilante nonsense the CNT/FAI were doing in Catalunya)

Calling it 'chaotic' is a bit absurd considering how well the 3 million+ Anarchists were able to collectively organize and run Catalonia, including public transport, food, weapon production, and universal healthcare (during a war with extremely limited resources), as was well documented in Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval.

they were literallly refusing to raise a proper army to contrubute to the war effort

The Anarchists quickly formed a voluntary militia of 150,000 men and women (making up 33% of the Republican military forces) with a coordinated bottom-up structure, where the soldiers themselves would elect someone to lead their squad, and all the squad leaders would elect a commander to lead the squad leaders, etc. Every leadership position could be recalled by a vote outside of combat if the people below them felt they were not performing to expectations. They did this to be in-line with anarchist principles, and they likely believed if they became an authoritarian top-down military force, it would introduce the possibility of going the way of the USSR.

This structure was doubted and questioned at the time by a military advisor to Buenaventura Durruti (at the time, the effective leader of the militias):

From historical records available, the Anarchists forces were surprisingly effective considering they had the most limited resources of any of the Republican factions due to the Stalinists and liberals withholding weapons and supplies much of the time, as well as preferentially withholding the better equipment for themselves. That happened so much, the Anarchist's were seriously considering robbing the republican bank to acquire the gold needed to finally purchase weapons and supplies on the open market, but decided against it when the Liberal/Stalinist government promised once more that they'd buy supplies for them, but they ultimately did nothing again, screwing the Anarchists for the last time until the war was lost.

For anyone else curious, there's a very detailed 6-part documentary on the Spanish Civil war that's quite excellent, and goes into the military and battles aspect as well.

the Anarchist's were seriously considering robbing the republican bank to acquire the gold needed to finally purchase weapons and supplies

A lot of words holding anarchists to very low standards but this honestly says it all. The CNT/FAI were not remotely serious about fighting the fascists and it's no wonder everyone else was sick of them.

The Anarchists were only considering that option after repeatedly requesting needed supplies and constantly being stonewalled by the then pro-stalin Republican government, who were in all likelihood hoping to weaken the Anarchists before their betrayal, despite how doing so weakened the war effort dramatically.

Your extremely harsh characterization of Anarchists as unruly chaotic vigilantes who cannot be worked with is very much in line with USSR anti-anarchist propaganda 🤨

That's like saying practically any significant figure from over 300 years ago is certainly evil because their country likely had slavery. Keep zooming out, don't think critically, and hate everyone you used to look up to.

And how much supplies did the CNT/FAI provide to the rest of the republic? Answer, nothing at all because they could barely handle their own disfunctional industry. The republic was not obliged to prop up their cosplaying indefinitely. Barcelona had a strong pre-war economy and should have been able to not only stand up on its own, but support other parts of the republic too.

I'm harsh on the CNT/FAI because their incompetence was a significant contributor to tens of millions of people being plunged into facsism for decades. I have possibly been too harsh on anarchists in general, mostly in my experience they are lovely people, but I don't think they're serious enough to run a revolution against militarised fascism.

I disagree with your assertion that all 3 million+ people in Catalunya suddenly fell in line with the CNT/FAI's ideology. There were possibly a few hundred thousand actual anarchists in the region, with huge numbers of people who weren't thinking about politics scared shitless of the disorganised vigilante militias going around establishing their vision of "anarchism" with zero oversight. Setting up tribunals and executing/imprisoning people with no due process. Whether they were "bottom-up" or not wasn't really relevant. It was a scary time to be in Spain and the lack of a proper system of government made things much worse for the millions of people for whom this "anarchism" stuff was weird and unknown.

I can point to sources which show the Anarchists were using the profits of the Catalonia transit system to fund sending any excess vehicles to neighboring impoverished provinces which ran at a loss.

And how the Anarchists organized access to universal healthcare across much of the eastern part of Spain (not just Anarchists controlled Catalonia), including hundreds of impoverished villages who previously had little to no access.

You have made confident assertions that Anarchists in the civil war had no military, barely functioned, contributed nothing to Spain, and spread fear amongst the populace, and continue to assert this despite being provided evidence to the contrary, and in fact seemingly dismiss it without even looking at it.

If you're not a Marxist-leninist, then I have no idea why you have such an extreme negative view of the Anarchists of Spain to the point where you're not even willing to look at any evidence that may contradict your vendetta against them.

This will be my last response, as I'm not sure further responses will be productive, unfortunately.

(And that gold the Anarchist were considering robbing to finally get the supplies they needed? The pro-stalinist government, who controlled the gold, ended up just sending it all to the USSR, so they really should've robbed it, honestly)

And, a good one. Thank you, this makes my point perfectly. I don't support what he did*. But, I can appreciate his art. He wasn't doing paint-by-numbers, he was actually good, at least technically. Maybe more of an illustrator than Artiste.

*I can't say "obviously" here, because there are far too many who still do. But, I'm certainly not one of them. Again, making my point.

To expand on this a bit, if there were an art gallery showing of a large collection of Hitler's works, I'd pay $20 to see it, mostly out of curiosity. Then, in this hypothetical scenario, I'd join the protest outside against Hitler.

My son is an adult now, but if I had a young child who wanted to read Harry Potter for the first time, I'd buy them the books. I'd be thrilled they wanted to read such long books, and encourage them to do it. I would not deny them, and lecture them about what a piece of shit the author is.

I don't like Tom Cruise's movies, except for Risky Business. If my kid wanted to watch Mission Impossible movies, I'd pirate the movies for them.

You are an ml user. Why am I not surprised?

Anyone trying to understand evil becomes stained with it!

I did understand his explanations. And they don't hold up to scrutiny. Even Tolkien's daughter understood that.

Priscilla Tolkien, the author's daughter, born in 1929, commented that the "whole period of the Civil War cast a great shadow over my father's life and is a powerful and lasting memory from my childhood."[1]

But I read the article and understood the explanations. And they don't hold up to scrutiny. Even Tolkien's own daughter was ashamed of his view of the war.

Priscilla Tolkien, the author's daughter, born in 1929, commented that the "whole period of the Civil War cast a great shadow over my father's life and is a powerful and lasting memory from my childhood."[1]

“Tolkein loves fascism”

Where did I say that?

And lastly: calm down.

You seem upset. There is no need to use swear words and engage in mud throwing.

Support for Franco was ANYTHING but widespread when the war happened.

Nah, man. Maybe you should rethink your position.

He kinda treated is first wife and kids like shit, even by his own admission. He wasn’t evil but flawed like most people, really.

There’s a good documentary about his life, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time. Seemed pretty open and balanced.

“Tolkein loves fascism”

Where did I say that?

Your title is "TIL Tolkien supported fascist Spain".

You don't have to be a super sluth to see what you're saying between the lines here, saying "well I didn't say those specific words" doesn't work with people who have reading comprehension.