bear in mind that i'm hashing out my thoughts here & trying to nail down something i have been thinking about for a while -
one frustrating tendency in so-called "critical" engagements (both fannish and scholarly) with tolkien's conservatism embedded in his texts is this tendency towards a) a binaristic either/or framing of the problem at hand and b) a firm remaining within the bounds of the text, rather than a willingness to take a perspective that lies beyond it. in fandom specifically, this tends to couple up with a liberal tendency towards a particular brand of identity politics that tries to "locate" the most "moral" position within a text, usually in relation to a particular character or a particular "group".
re. b - remaining within the bounds of the text: by this i mean that people take the boundaries of the text (and at a pinch, tolkien's opinions about it) as the limits for a potential critical viewpoint. you'll see this manifesting in tolkien scholarship in a disdain for anyone using "theory" to make a critical assessment of tolkien - whether critical theory about race, or feminist theory, or marxist literary theory. its an approach that i think descends from a specific strain of formalist criticism, one that tolkien himself was an adherent of. however, of course, within modern fandom, this is not a viewpoint that can be reconciled necessarily with our own internal politics, but the text must be reconciled with. thus we come up with concepts like the "unreliable narrator" framing, which allows some escape from the text, but is still essentially dependent on the text; or we come to rely on the binaristic narrative framing, which again is still dependent on the text. all escape here is simply reacting to what tolkien has already seeded in the text and therefore is already bound by the limitations of tolkien's imaginary.
to give a more specific and less abstracted illustration: tolkien's texts are coloured by a love for hierarchy and a deeply held belief in the important power of aristocratic rule. the strategies i've seen being used to resist this are a) misreading or ignoring class signifiers to construct classless utopias (e.g. misreadings of the shire), b) dividing aristocrats into "good" and "bad", but with a slightly different framing than tolkien's framing of "good" or "bad" (e.g. the fucking ouroboros of sindar v noldor discourse), c) imputing our notions of "good" on tolkien's "good aristocrats" (e.g. the men in these texts are models of "good" masculinity, because they allow "feminine" emotions to be seen) or d) attempting to invert this aristocratic rule, but by substituting one aristocratic group for another (e.g. inversions that position morgoth or sauron as "liberators"). all of these remain highly dependent on tolkien. none really inquire whether or not class should exist, or whether a society ruled by kings is desirable - this is a classic marxist critique and one that has come under fire (one thinks abt the reaction to michael moorcock etc describing the continuities between tolkien's ideology and that of the tory, boarding school, oxbridge educated british ruling class)
which brings me to the question of a - a binaristic either/or framing of the problem at hand. because we refuse to fully escape the text, we are then forced to litigate a series of binary problems: was tolkien racist or not? was tolkien a feminist or not? was tolkien an antisemite or not? was tolkien classist or not? are the valar good or not? are the noldor good or not? is feanor good or not? is thingol good or not? ad nauseam, ad infinitum. ofc none of these are particularly interesting questions! they are not useful critical questions at all! but i think in terms of fandom, they also stymie the possibility of creative response?
e.g. if the valar are bad, then feanor must be good - but is that really the case? is it possible to consider the entire system rotten? can you imagine the perspective of an elf that might consider the entire edifice completely rotten from top to bottom? are all rebellions really morally equal? can a reactionary rebellion be salvaged and turned into something "progressive"? or should we instead exit the text and refuse the framing of this particular rebellion as either bad (tolkien's view) or good (opposite to tolkien)? because the thing is, if you accept the possibility that it could be good, you are still bound by tolkien's textual logics! and the thing about tolkien's textual logics is that every single one of his characters, to a man, represent some form of conservative idealism. even characters like eowyn or aredhel or luthien, who rebel against the bounds of patriarchal society, are still framed in the language and ideal of roman aristocratic women - women of consequence, strong and titled women with as much courage as men, honourable women with honour to protect, yet still indefinably womanly and possessed of womanly virtues such as compassion, mercy, etc. so to remain within these textual logics is instead to implicitly accept some of the premises of tolkien's views, even when cast in opposition.
(and to be clear, i'm not acquitting myself of these reading strategies here, god knows i do this all the time with my grand unified theory of liberation via luthien & the leithian tale)
or to put it this way, with more clarity and less abstraction: something i have been thinking about is whether or not tolkien's textual logics can conceive of the concept of a rebellion that is not self-interested. as much as i love luthien, her rebellion is self-interested; but so is feanor's - its just that his is framed around "liberation" via an aristocratically led rebellion in which the elvish aristocracy occupies the position the valar once did. the reordering / industrialisation of the shire is similarly a self-interested one, with the substitution of one hierarchy for another. ditto morgoth & sauron's rebellions. the only rebellion that even comes momentarily close to escaping self-interest and hierarchy is that of the elves of eregion - but even there, the desire for healing is explicitly a desire to rebuild valinor on another shore (tolkien positions this as hubris; a more critical position might suggest that this is contiguous with feanor's rebellion, of continuing an elvish hierarchy and dominion, but through healing & wisdom instead of war, which is the classic liberal-technocratic position). in other words, there is no possibility of another moral world which completely refuses the possibility of hierarchy: all rebellions seek merely to substitute one set of rulers for another, there is never the possibility that someone could exist who might want none to exist and for all to have an equal share in the beauty of middle earth.
if we remain within the bounds of the text, we are bound by this very basic premise that runs right through tolkien's work - is maybe fundamental to his conception of middle earth. and there are a lot of things to be said viz. scholarship (especially in the way it manifests in this complete refusal to engage with critical literary theory & culture studies outside of the remit of tolkien studies & the sheer poverty of analysis that engenders), but i think the saddest part of this is that it limits the creative possibility & engagement of fandom. it limits the size and scope of the legendarium in some ways and funnily enough, makes it more claustrophobic than it might have been otherwise.
