Brin on Tolkien

The full text of David Brin's article on Tolkien (of which an abridged version appeared on Salon) is now up on his own site. It's well worth reading, and a much better critique of Tolkein's conservative world view than you'll read from any snobbish literati or postmodern academics.

I've never seen Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, but Brin condemns this as the most evil thing since Joseph Goebbels. All I can remember is that Bakshi's version of LOTR was horrible in the extreme

Brin's basic point is that you shouldn't just accept a story being about "Good vs. Evil", but actually stop and think; what is that makes the guys in white hats 'Good' and the guys in the black ones 'bad'?

Update: The Gline, as ever, has some interesting thoughts on the matter.