It’s well-known that J.R.R. Tolkien based the hobbits in his famous books on English country folk from the 18th century – but it appears Elon Musk still thinks those in the UK live like the simple fictional creatures.
The tech boss has been branded ‘dangerous’ after using Tolkien’s books to claim that immigrants were like orcs, ‘raping children’ in small British towns.
On the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Musk spoke about his theory: ‘If you go to a small town in England or Scotland or Ireland, it’s like the Shire.
‘These people are like hobbits. They live in the Shire. They’ve never seen anything bad happen in their life. They don’t know what evil is. And they’ve been protected by hard men on the frontier who keep the evil at bay.’
Rogan added: ‘That’s a great analogy. Because the Shire is this peaceful, idyllic place, and it’s only because there are people out there fighting the orcs, right?’
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‘Exactly,’ Musk replied. ‘And if you suddenly drop a million people into a village of 500, it’s not gonna stay the Shire for long. The math doesn’t work. You can’t just import a million people into a village of 500 and expect it to remain the same.’
It’s worth noting that though some areas of rural England have seen an increase in migration, no town or village in the UK has seen millions of immigrants come in.
Musk claimed: ‘There are videos of these little villages where suddenly there’s 200 migrants showing up in one day. And then you get these horrific stories — little girls being stabbed or raped or whatever. And it’s like, ‘Wait, this never happened here before.’ And it’s because the Shire has been breached.
‘And now that shelter’s gone. And they’re shocked. They’re like, ‘How could this happen in our little town?’ Well, because the walls came down.’
Musk’s logic has been criticised, with some calling his rhetoric about immigrants as Tolkien-esque orcs dangerous.
UK journalist David Yelland observed: ‘As a nation, we are surely able to do something about this? Elon Musk is clearly talking utter insanity, and this is dangerous.’
Wired pointed out that Musk’s recent post about hobbits ‘being able to live their lives peacefully because they were protected by hard men of Gandor’ as false.
‘Gondor, for anyone who was too busy being cool in high school to pore over the made-up histories of Middle-earth, was a kingdom of brave warriors called Númenóreans, also known as “men”,’ they wrote.
‘It is perhaps worth mentioning that, by the time of the Lord of the Rings unfolding, the throne of Gondor is absent, and the kingdom itself has fallen into disrepair under the shoddy care of a bunch of lazy, corrupt stewards.
‘The so-called “hard men” of Gondor have become cowards and quislings. More to the point, it’s generally accepted that Tolkien’s hobbits survive (and thrive) because of their humility and noble earnest virtues. Not because they had tough guy warriors running defence for them.’
Musk isn’t the only one using Tolkien’s works to stow fear. The US Department of Homeland Security recently posted a photo of hobbit Merry Brandybuck with the words ‘there won’t be a shire, pippin’, on their social medias.
The post was urging people to join ICE, adding the quote: ‘The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last, the great battle of our time.’
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