><i>“I think he’s a crypto-fascist,” says Moorcock, laughing. “In Tolkien, everyone’s in their place and happy to be there.</i><p>It's called a traditionalist. But of course in 2022 everything has to be called "fascist" or this weasel word, proto-fascist ("it's not fascist per se, in any historical sense of the word, but we still don't like it, so let's invoke Godwin and call it proto-fascist").
Context. Tolkien endured ww I and it’s horrors. When he wrote of returning to the world he left, he knew it was impossible IRL. That time had gone, never to return. One could argue that both Moorcock and Tolkien ended up with the same world, with the Elves and Dwarves being gone, Men as the only players and the spirit of technology (or Saruman reformed) diffused everywhere.<p>With politics, with VR, perhaps future people will look back on the Matrix as documentaries about the struggle with reactionary “realists” trying to disconnect people from the world. The world is too similar to the 1930’s and people should be frightened by that.
> We go there and back, to where we started. There’s no escape, nothing will ever change and nobody will ever break out of this well-ordered world.”<p>Well, this is simply not true - Frodo and his friends do go on, through the Shire, to Valinor.<p>And having devoured a lot of Moorcock in my youth I must say that in my old age I prefer well-written twee (if that is what Tolkein is) to pulp.