Possibly exactly 1 😅

For anyone not familiar: www.youtube.com/watch?v=60m0...

Not long ago I went to a pub with a bunch of philosophy academics and was trying to explain the fascist co-opting of Tolkien to them, and one of the said "oh, so its a Nietzche situation" and that is it exactly. Don't let them pull this shit again. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.

Sharky and his men want to manipulate words to convince the people of untruths. This is a Sharkyian untruth intended to change the narrative in a way that denies that FOR FRODO actually means fighting to protect freedom through community action in the face of an authoritarian bully.

But the thing with the Scouring of the Shire is that sometimes the people, even those who just want peace, need to Rise Up when someone comes in claiming to have business interests in mind (when really all he wants is power) and creates a militia of armed bullies to harass the people into obedience.

How Aragorn/the Dunedain protect the Shire is by NOT getting involved in their politics and being virtually invisible in their society. Allowing them to rule themselves as they see fit while making sure nobody interferes with their autonomy. Protecting their rights to self-determination.

For a really excellent coverage on how the far right really really wants to claim Tolkien as theirs see the excellent work here:
www.theamericanid.com/podcast
Do not let them.

I'm not out here trying to claim that Tolkien wasn't flawed--he absolutely was, and he had some very conflicting and wild opinions. Some aspects of his work are extremely dated and sloppily handled. But fuck this complete misrepresentation of that LOTR is about.

Tolkien, on the record, hated Nazis, hated Tyrants, hated Government Control & Surveillance, hated bullies, and especially hated bullies who enact violence on innocent people while trying to obfuscate that it's all about power.

I'm not the kind of person who considers it very important, normally, what an author would have thought. But in this case, it actually is very important: he would have absolutely fucking hated this. He would have been disgusted.