Happy armistice day!
So I've talked about the political problems of most mainstream science fiction and fantasy writing before (
http://stochasticreview.blogspot.com/2011/04/racial-essentialism-and-fantasyscience.html). However, then I only identified the problem and suggested methods of coping with it for the politically conscious, non-conservative reader. This time around I'm more concerned about why fantasy writers are so keen to champion racial essentialism, moral absolutism and conflict between races or species. I will argue that it is largely due to the influence of Tolkien on Fantasy writing as well as the unquestioning acceptance of the moralizing discourse of total war in the real world.
So let's start with Tolkien. His books about Middle Earth envoke many of these trends. Lord of the Rings is an epic tale of the fight between good and evil, with the combatant's allegiance decided mainly by race.
There are characters who cross this boundary. Saruman, the Wild Men and the Easterlings (Orientalism ahoy!) are conventional traitor characters. The Nazgul represent a more insidious form of corruption leading to evil and the Orcs are often described as corrupted men or elves. Finally it takes some characters time to throw off bad advice or weakness and oppose the dark force; Rohan is held back by Wormtongue's advice while Gondor is hindered by the madness and greed of the regent.
However, this by no means turns the battle ground of Middle Earth into an open conflict where participants are primarily divided by ideology or political considerations rather than race. While there are examples of good characters who defect to the side of evil there is never a case of the reverse. Sauron and his followers are portrayed as beyond redemption. They are ultimately responsible for the war and are killed in droves by the heroic fellowship without any signs of remorse. We are never given any hint that they might have a family life or engage in any activities beyond murder, theft and invasion.
This demonisation of the enemy is of course a major feature of modern wars. Tolkien claimed not to have been influenced by Germany's aggression in WW2 when writing the plot of LOTR. However, there are obvious parallels to be drawn. The war between Sauron and the 'good' races is fought to the finish. There is no suggestion that there could be a compromise peace or surrender by one side or the other. This pursuit of total victory is arguably the defining feature of the modern, total war.
Similarly the racial stereotyping of the enemy is a standard aspect of contemporary war. In his book, 'Colonial Madness; Psychiatry in French North Africa', Richard Keller relates how the conception of the Algerians as violent and irresponsible addicts with a fatalistic attitude was used to legitimate French imperialism in the Maghreb. During the Algerian war of independence the FLN resistance was invariably presented as destructive, primitive and fanatical. Similarly the varied propaganda machines of the World Wars and the following Cold War always attempted to present enemies as unchangeably evil. If an enemy can change then they can be negotiated with and that may not be in line with the aims of those running the conflict. If an enemy is not evil then how can we justify the morally dubious methods we must use to defeat them?
Therefore, the use in fantasy of ideas that seem politically extreme and hard to agree with may not be down to the personal views held by the writers. Readers of the genre can be assumed to be familiar with Tolkien or the many, many authors that have imitated him and therefore are assumed to want more of the same. Thus the influence of total war on Tolkien's fictional conflict (which was tellingly written during the period of the Second World War) is unquestioningly passed down from writer to writer with little attempt to change the fundamental assumptions about the fixed character of races or the genocidal methods justified by moralized, racial conflict.
