Should We Use the “Olden Times” Tactic to Excuse Oppressive Views?

Writers, leaders, politicians reflect a history that is pluralistic and pliable: “That’s how people were back then” doesn’t explain the whole picture

Photo by Armin Rimoldi from Pexels

Last week I was talking to a fellow writer engaged in a debate about possible racist undertones in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. She replied, “Well, wasn’t he just a product of his time?” I thought about her point and conceded that, yes, he certainly may have represented a slant of race relations popular during the 1950s, but there are multiple voices and perspectives at any time in history and major events in the world during the time he was writing, including apartheid, the civil rights movement, protests against the Vietnam War.

Powerful ideas aren’t representative of all

Let’s also not forget that Tolkien was born in South Africa under white rule, which no doubt molded his outlook. The bigger question is who gets to represent what “the times” stand for when public figures whether politicians, artists, writers have a perspective? I’m not sure who ends up making that decision, but it stands to reason that there’s more than one viewpoint whether it’s a popular one or not, that people can take up in history. We could call Donald Trump a product of his time for sure, but we’d better qualify in what way, and how…