: Why are Racism and the equality among humans taboo subjects? That's what I feel. It is true that the oponions evolved. I read a few days ago in the current isuue of The Economist an interesting article.I don't remind the Title, but I can search it if you want. It was about the evolving concept of human equality. We all know that we are not born equal(still it is rarely said), but each human deserve the same respect for what he is. That's what the article call fairness, if I got it right.

: I never beleived that Tolkien was a racist, but his work show us he beleive that all people are created with different abilities.
: Why weren't the Ainur created all equals in power and abilities?
: Eru has created free and individual minds, but there are not equals. It is the same with his Children. Why was Feanor given so many skills?
: Another factor why there is differences of power and abilities among humans especially, is the education factor. I think that people from all different "races" in our world can be to the same level if they are educated the same way. These people would only differ between them because of their personnalities and individual caracteristics.
: The individuality is one main concept that is in Tolkien's work.
: That's why his book would have never been published in communist country. So Tolkien was no communist. The spirits are and must be free. The aim of Sauron's ring was to controlled the spirits. Unlike Morgoth who wanted to controlled the physical matter of Arda. That's strange, I feel that Sauron is nastier than Morgoth.
: Could it be?
: I read that Sauron is assimilated to the image of a totalitarian State, so Tolkien was not a fascist.

: I have another two things I like in his work. It is his vision of death and the Fall of Men. I like much how Aragorn died. That's true he lived a long time, but I think that we, humans of the Earth, should ponder about that. When our time has come to leave the world and our body, we should not foullishly try to live a few years more. Indeed the spirit become senile and you are just a vegetable. I just have to look at my Grandfather, to convince me of that fact.
: But I am not saying life has to be relinquished without consideration. We must not do the opposite. That's not because something is going wrong that we must forsake our life.

: Humans has fallen. I like this explanation to expalin the bad side of human nature. You know, human can become like Orcs, and even worse. Just look at the news.
: Here I just want to say that current religions who guide humans in our world are just like Tolkien myth. Tolkien's ideas can become the backbone of a new religion. Hopefully or not, there is Science. Science will one day prove and explain a lot of things.
: Magical phenomenons will be explained, the concept of spirit may disappear in the future. The spirit may only be the result of an electric phenomenon and religions will disappear. Who knows?

: Mordan

Science may indeed explain many things one day. Or perhaps relgion will. But the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. But I digress. I don't detect racism in Tolkien, but I do detect a theological view about humankind. According to this view man was created perfect, but after "the fall" as some put it, man began a long slow decline. So if Adam's generation lived for a thousand years, the next generation would live only nine hundred years, and so on. Mental ability would also be corrupted, so that what you might see are major civilizations declining into ever less civilizations. It's a sort of reverse evolution. So that Numenoreans who intermarried with "lesser" folk were shorter lived than their predecessors. That's not racism. It's a form of Christian philosophy though Tolkien was very careful to leave overt religious acts out of the story. But I always hate to write on these kinds of topics since anything one says can be twisted or misconstrued to mean some thing other than what the author intended.

One side note about parallels with WWII: Much of the "history" was written long before WWII, and wasn't finished until the mid-fifties. How could Tolkien have refused to have the book published prior to WWII when it wasn't even finished then?