The Most Improper Job of Any Man is Bossing Other Men
I came across this article from last year only this week: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/11/anarcho-monarchism
In it, David B Hart, Orthodox theologian, muses on the meaning of a passage of a letter by JRR Tolkien, where the maker of Middle-Earth is lamenting the state of politics. Allow me to quote at length:
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)—or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate real of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could go back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so to refer to people. . .
[…] the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and 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. At least it is done only to a small group of men who know who their master is. The mediaevals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Grant me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you dare call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And so on down the line. But, of course, the fatal weakness of all that—after all only the fatal weakness of all good natural things in a bad corrupt unnatural world—is that it works and has only worked when all the world is messing along in the same good old inefficient human way. . . . There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.
David B Hart makes the comment:
One can at least sympathize, then, with Tolkien’s view of monarchy. There is, after all, something degrading about deferring to a politician, or going through the silly charade of pretending that “public service” is a particularly honorable occupation, or being forced to choose which band of brigands, mediocrities, wealthy lawyers, and (God spare us) idealists will control our destinies for the next few years.
But a king—a king without any real power, that is—is such an ennoblingly arbitrary, such a tender and organically human institution. It is easy to give our loyalty to someone whose only claim on it is an accident of heredity, because then it is a free gesture of spontaneous affection that requires no element of self-deception, and that does not involve the humiliation of having to ask to be ruled.
The ideal king would be rather like the king in chess: the most useless piece on the board, which occupies its square simply to prevent any other piece from doing so, but which is somehow still the whole game….
My comment: I admit I am fascinated by the topic, since it combines my love of law with my love of literature, especially that oldest, fairest, truest and most dignified form of literature known as fairy-stories.
However, of more interest to me personally was a comment appended to the article by one Stuart Kohl, who writes this. I hope I will be excused if I quote the whole letter:
I wouldn’t say Tolkien was an anarcho-monarchist. He did once say the best form of government was an extremely inefficient absolute monarchy, which, in effect, is what the Hobbits erected in the Shire: their loyalty was nominally towards the High King in the North, but as that office had remained vacant for centuries, they went around organizing their own business while pretending as though there still was a king.
Hobbit government is the farthest thing from anarchy. Hobbits follow The Rules, minimal though these might be. They are largely common sense, hallowed by custom, and enforced by social suasion. There is a local military commander, the Thain (obviously from the Anglo-Saxon thegn, a minor noble who commanded the fyrd in a particular place), and a titular functionary (the Mayor), and a small police force, the Sheriffs (again, the old Anglo-Saxon shire-reeves), who, by Tolkien’s admission, spend most of their time rounding up errant cattle and turning back scruffy-looking interlopers from the outside.
If anything, the Shire is something of a libertarian paradise, where people follow the Golden Rules of “mind your own business” and “keep your hands to yourself”, though, of course, there is a social class hierarchy in which certain families have hereditary status (“respectability”) equivalent to that of the country gentry in late 19th century England. All this is taken for granted, because everybody accepts and follows The Rules.
Anarchy, of course, is an obliteration of The Rules, and the civility of the Shire would collapse instantly if anyone were seriously to question their validity. Once the consensus of The Rules collapses, order can only be restored through force–external, tyrannical force, such as that imposed by Lotho Sackville-Baggins and Sharkey (Saruman), or the internal, regenerative force of the Hobbits themselves, once the Shire is raised by Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. Like Cincinnatus, they take up arms only to defend the status quo ante (demonstrating in the process that the ancient institutions of the Thain and the fyrd do work), then put them down and return to their plows (both real and metaphorical).
It’s interesting to note, though, that to some extent the Hobbits of the Shire are free riders. Their rustic, libertarian paradise exists only because it is guarded by the Rangers of the North, who are, of course, the Dunedain of Arnor, whose Chieftain is also the Heir of Elendil, the rightful King of Arnor to whom the Hobbits have, all these centuries, been giving their nominal allegience. Not knowing this, however, the Hobbits fear, distrust and disdain the Rangers, who are not at all “respectable”.
Nonetheless, Aragorn, when restored to the throne as King Elessar, makes no attempt to altar the governance of the Shire, but rather legitimizes them by making the Shire self-governing and prohibiting Big People from entering its borders without prior leave. Even he does not violate his own law, but stops at the gate on the Great Road whenever he visits with the Mayor (Sam), the Thain (Pippin) and the Master of Buckland (Merry). It’s an interesting example of Tolkien’s realism and ambivalence about the ideal society he created that he recognizes it cannot stand against the “real” world without the protection of forces that are its antithesis to a large extent.
All believers in the Rule of Law are delighted with the image of a king bound by his own statutes, a Jesus who suffers himself to be baptized, that all righteousness should be fulfilled. This appears when King Elessar will not cross the boundaries to the land of the little people his law protects.
We see it also in a short but sweet scene in THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER by CS Lewis. Lucy utters a spell to make invisible things become visible, and behold, a great supernatural lion appears in the room with her:
“Oh, Aslan,” said she, “it was kind of you to come.”
“I have been here all the time,” said he, “but you have just made me visible.”
“Aslan!” said Lucy almost a little reproachfully. “Don’t make fun of me. As if anything I could do would make you visible!”
“It did,” said Aslan. “Do you think I wouldn’t obey my own rules?”
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
