The Politics of SciFi & Fantasy - Caleb w/ Brent Lengel

Had a blast doing this Caleb!

I think the reason Tolkiens writings are often viewed as non-political, even though it is clearly not, is that he wrote as if it was actual history being passed down through textual tradition. He came up with an entire meta story of how LOTR was passed down to him from the characters in the story through translators and editors and that he, in this meta story, translated it to English.
Therefore we can read it the same way we would read Beowulf or the Icelandic Sagas, which would have been political at the time of writing, without seeing it through a political lens.
Tolkien actually started to write SciFi as well although it was never completed and wasn't published until after his death.

Fun and interesting conversation.

Lord of the Rings is not ONLY WW2 allegory, but it does include allegory of WW2, even tho Tolkein didn't notice it or didn't admit it.

Tolkien defintely racist. Black Númenor who fought for Sauron against white Númenor Aragon is racist to me. Also Tolkien openly admitted greedy dwarfs were based on Jews.

Should also say Cs. Lewis wife was a socialist

The claim that anger and hate and militarism are harmful may not be classical Marxism, but it is an evidence based claim, a scientific claim, and we can easily include it in Marxism.

Dr who was always of the left it even had a Marxist Leninist writer called Mac hulke who actually went to the ussr to write tv shows etc but nowadays dr who is just sjw shite

I disagree with Lengel's mainstream view of a particular artist just winging it and stumbling into success and you can very clearly see his entire work as one whole in contravention to the Disney stuff which followed up.

On the politics of it, I agree with Caleb on the New Left influences and I would add a radical streak of Maoism on the verges of the creation and unfortunately under the surface, a petit-bourgeois and left-liberal but nonetheless progressive core.

The hard-core Trumper "conservatives" I know think "fantasy" is the same as "science fiction", which I think is ridiculous. Big difference between fantasy and science fiction.

It is sad that humanity has to suffer to produce great art.

Would've been interesting to talk about Dune as well.

Speaking of Metropolis: the script was written by his wife Thea Von Harbou, who was a member of the Nazi Party. It is a Fordist fantasy. Fritz Lang was a Leftist as a Leftist he didn't believe in Fordism; i.e. the need for labor and corporations to work together. However he had no choice in the ending. Because of the film, Lang was asked to head UFA (German film industry). Instead Lang packed a small suitcases, took a train to Switzerland; claiming he was going on a business trip to discuss a new film. He told no one-not even his wife that in fact he was leaving Germany to go to the US. His wife ended up becoming head of UFA.

During Wagner's time, there were 2 camps-Wagner & Verdi. I never like Wagner after Lohengrin. I felt the Ring cycle was immoral; not just in story line but in technique. I was fascinated to learn that my criticisms were not unique to me but one that was taking place at the time; causing a split. For example, the way the the human voice is dealt with. In Verdi, the voice was primal; whereas in later Wagner the voice was an instrument like any mechanical one. For the Verdi supporters, this was considered an immoral ideology; capable of dehumanizing humankind and life in general. Man is not just an unfeeling machine; a clog in the machine, but a feeling & creative being who creates & can master machines. etc. .

When i was a child and saw Star Wars, i hated it. I must have been 6 years old. My family lived during the fascist & nazi period and my neighbors were either Puerto Rican or German in my neighborhood. I was disgusted by its application of Nazi ideology; i.e. the life force and how you can feel in the blood those you're related to. The bloodline of course a reference not just to families but to the German race & bloodline. What is evil ultimately reduced to but Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in single combat; aka abusive father and rebellious son. Who are the heros-nobility and the working class who support nobility-i.e. princess Leia? Basically its a war between the Empire and nobility who want to maintain power.

Art in my opinion is perception of reality based on the state of mind in a particular instant. An artist reproduces his/her perception in art form, by doing so artists create a feeling that everybody shares.
There is craziness in art due to the link between meanings and what those meanings signify to humanity; at the same time art is a calculated control tool, because it targets the 5 senses: Did we have the wrong seeing, hearing, taste? Etc., what it is very obvious escapes us all along because our senses are: ‘’ I like’’. ‘’I do not like’’ - what I see, hear, taste, smell, touch...
Mind and brain are bodily functions. THE MISTICAL AREA, ARE THE SENSES. Senses are non physical.


How many are out there such as Umberto Eco and few intellectuals, who apply reexamination. To reexamine gives confidence… it gives logic. Talking about it helps. Our talking (this video interchange) is the oiling and tuning of the machine. No matter how well we understand art production there is an element of doubt when we link symbols to historical developments.
It is the element of doubt that has got to be reexamined.
We as communists need correct action.
A correct action is everlasting while, happiness/unhappiness are temporary. Let’s rid ourselves of models to lean upon. Research and critical investigation are our best allies. Models’ proposition can take the smoothest of conversations into a gridlock.
Thank you guys!!!
We all need inspirational videos like this one, especially at this moment of uncertainty.

PEACE. Enjoyed the Build.

Good talk. One thing I thoroughly, thoroughly disagree with, ideologically, on principle, and just objectively speaking: Great Art is not made more during times of crisis, turmoil, hardship, suffering, and chaos, any more than it is made during times of stability, peace, cohesion, connection, and harmony. If anything, less.

I know it's very difficult for children of the 20th century, especially citizens of bourgeois states, to see this, and especially for the under-traveled Westerners who remain woefully ignorant of the vast riches of non-Western and non-modern cultures... but I refer to you the great communal, joyful, intellectually sophisticated and physically exhilarating musical traditions (as well as visual, theatrical, and linguistic) in various African cultures, that are made by cohesive and connected collectives with high levels of trust and empathy.

The first modern art movement, Cubism, was directly and explicitly inspired by African art. Many of the musical ideas in modern composition, such as poly-phony or the variation-within-sameness of minimalism, also come directly from African traditions. Needless to mention the blue-note, basis of Blues, Rock, Gospel; and the clave, most basic of African polyrhythmic patterns, etc., etc., which form the basis of modern music, African American music, as we know it.

I believe Tokien's critique of industrialism is rooted in the Catholic critique of capitalism. The reason a lot of what Tolkien wrote comes off as anti-capitalist is because he was essentially anti-capitalist - from a right-wing perspective. He didn't believe in human progress like Marxists do, he loathed anything that would remove us from our feudal past in terms of technological progress. As a Marxist, I find myself disagreeing with the worldview Tolkien presents on many levels. There are a few exceptions: Tolkien's critique of capitalism (which I believe he equated with industrialism) includes the idea that capitalism - or perhaps the radical individualism which has sprung up alongside the capitalist era - can destroy communities by destroying traditional values and wisdom. I agree with that. Radical individualism has done a lot of damage to American society and culture. I also agree somewhat with Tolkien's view of women, which was progressive at his time, and saw women as equals to men in terms of their ability to be heroic, valiant, and intelligent people. Tolkien's worldview (and I find that his worldview bleeds quite heavily into his books) was that human beings lived in a state of harmony and peaceful equilibrium UNTIL the forces of industrialization and human progress shattered it. The feudal societies in Tolkien's books - Rohan or Gondor after the return of Aragorn to the throne - are idealized and only become disharmonious in the face of the technological and industrial progress that Sauron and Saruman represent. So, in a way, Tolkien did believe in communalism and the equality of individuals in a progressive way, but believed it could only be achieved through a return to a level of reduced human progress (i.e. the feudal/semi-feudal structures that existed in most of Middle Earth). I find Tolkien fascinating and love the books and movies as well. Viewing Tolkien from a Marxist perspective reveals the complexity of political thought in general and somewhat proves that most people's political thought is not "left" or "right" but pretty syncretic. Tolkien very clearly did not have a Marxist or dialectical view of history or progress

You gentleman are fantastic! I fit right in there between you both. I have a love and an appreciation of both Science Fiction and fantasy and I am a socialist! Common ground can be found. Thank you both for this discussion.

There is that anarchistic quote by Tolkien, that the bossing of other men is the most vile thing, and not one man in a thousand is fit to do it. He grew up in the period of GK Chesterton and the huge influence of 19th century Catholic Social Teaching and Christian Socialism on the ILP and the Labour Party, at least in its middle class utopian membership, who were generally speaking to the left of the trades unions building the Labour Representation Committee behind Kier Hardie, another Christian Socialist preacher turned union activist. So he was doubtless somewhat influenced by Distributism, and imbibing a measure of socially conscious humanism via his Catholicism, despite remaining tribally a Conservative voter. We have to remember how different the ecology and environment of political ideas was in the early twentieth century compared with since the neoliberal turn of the late 1970s in particular, as well as since the onset of the Cold War. So official British Conservatism of the period was vastly to the left of where American conservatism is today - it was a Conservative prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, for instance, who introduced mandatory paid holiday (2 weeks a year) for all workers, for instance. That's one of the very few labour rights we didn't get through union victories or Labour election victories, and that we still have, because it's a universal benefit.
About JK Rowling, there's a bit of an Atlantic translation problem there, because the British New Left was very different to the American New Left. Rowling is a Blairite, which is to say a middle-class saviour-complex liberal anti-socialist who distrusts and despises the worlking class by turns, while at the same time basing their pride on a piety of pity towards workers and believing that they, and they alone, can help workers, and so must have absolute power within the Labour party, and have the right to rule nationally, by reason of social niceness. The Gryffindor vs Slitherin split in the Potterworld Britain is very clearly between Tories (Slitherin) and New Labourites in their idealised conceit of themselves (Gryffindor). New Labour and the British New Left have almost nothing in common. The New Left happened a generation earlier, although it is still a live tradition, and arguably vindicated in Corbynism, whereas the Blairites are all essentially products of childhood in the 1970s and 1980s in middle class suburban homes reacting against union militancy and the Labour left and wider Marxist left in British politics in those decades, and considering themselves the cogniscenti who have seen through the "follies" of "naive" socialism. There's a huge overlap with the PMC thesis in Listen, Liberal, except that in the UK they call themselves social democrats rather than liberals (Liberals are in a different party - the LDP). But she is shamelessly elitist and condemnatory about working class organisation and voting patterns other than meek submission to New Labour, and the Potterworld reflects that.

Lewis is a genius because of his theory of literature which no-one else has since written according to, to my knowledge, which is that you can embed a spirit and an idea in the structure of stories, rather than up front in the action and dialogue. That a whole story can evoke a character, distinct from the characters in that story, without the reader noticing at all, but nevertheless being moved by that character evoked by the story as a whole (the 7 planetary gods of the classical and medieval cosmology, which Lewis, under the influence of medieval Christian literature, saw as allegorical images of aspects of the Creator). In the same way that Tolkien was able to express the authentic feeling of Iron Age literature in the vocabulary and speech patterns of characters of different ages, from different historical ages in Middle Earth, because he was a philologist and scholar of that literature, Lewis was able to create feelings of wonder and longing for something transcendent in his Narnia tales because he was one of the world's greatest scholars of Medieval literature, so he could do that stuff with structure and stories embodying a character from his depth of understanding of that literature and of the quite different philosophies of writing and story construction in Medieval literature of which those who have only studied modern literature tend to knows nothing, with the possible exception of Alan Moore.

Thought provoking.

Wow. First question in and completely didn't answer the question, which I was interested in hearing his answer, and took the question to talk about himself... 9_9

another good one