opinion of CS Lewis

[politicus]

Strong lean or weak likely FF. He had some very unfortunate social and political opinions (like Tolkien, but more severely so, partially because more conventionally so in a lot of ways) and Mere Christianity is a fairly facile text--and is to some extent supposed to be. But The Great Divorce is excellent, as are Til We Have Faces and a lot of his academic work.

Tolkien was a monarchist, traditional Catholic, anti-industrialist/rural romantic, softcore libertarian anti-nationalsocialist, apartheid critic. Which of those things do you consider "unfortunate"?

I have read that some people think he was "racist", but that seems based on pretty thin evidence and is kind of a (pointless IMO) standard accusation against most people from his era anyway + he was quite vocal in his critique of apartheid.

[politicus]

Strong lean or weak likely FF. He had some very unfortunate social and political opinions (like Tolkien, but more severely so, partially because more conventionally so in a lot of ways) and Mere Christianity is a fairly facile text--and is to some extent supposed to be. But The Great Divorce is excellent, as are Til We Have Faces and a lot of his academic work.

Tolkien was a monarchist, traditional Catholic, anti-industrialist/rural romantic, softcore libertarian anti-nationalsocialist, apartheid critic. Which of those things do you consider "unfortunate"?

His support for Francisco Franco could certainly be considered so.

Sure, but that more or less went with the territory of being a traditional Catholic and Monarchist in the 1930s.

My question was not polemic. I was just curious about what specific aspects of Tolkien's views he found unfortunate. Since it was Nathan I expected there was something more to it than just the usual "his heroes are blond and blue eyed and the orks are darkskinned, so he must be a racist" stuff. Gender roles is a good point I hadn't really thought about myself.

[politicus]

Strong lean or weak likely FF. He had some very unfortunate social and political opinions (like Tolkien, but more severely so, partially because more conventionally so in a lot of ways) and Mere Christianity is a fairly facile text--and is to some extent supposed to be. But The Great Divorce is excellent, as are Til We Have Faces and a lot of his academic work.

Tolkien was a monarchist, traditional Catholic, anti-industrialist/rural romantic, softcore libertarian anti-nationalsocialist, apartheid critic. Which of those things do you consider "unfortunate"?

His support for Francisco Franco could certainly be considered so.

Sure, but that more or less went with the territory of being a traditional Catholic and Monarchist in the 1930s.

Which is unfortunate.

Touche.