Picture a “Lord of the Rings” nerd. What did you see? A fundie with a bad bow tie? Someone carrying a fake sword and wearing plastic elf ears? Possibly a wizard cloak?

Did your “Lord of the Rings” nerd have a bomb strapped to his chest? Blood on his hands? Neither did mine. 

The British government disagrees. When it considers avid readers of the beloved series, it suspects extremism. Having the ”Lord of the Rings” on a bookshelf may be a sign of a potential right-wing terrorist. 

Lol, what?

It’s true, terrorists themselves are a definite concern. After 9/11, governments needed to take measures to protect their own countries from similar devastations. The British formed Prevent in 2003 but it did not pick a fight with Tolkien until nearly 20 years later. 

William Shawcross, who investigated the program, wrote that United Kingdom’s Prevent system had three main objectives: “to tackle the causes of radicalisation and respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism, to safeguard and support those at risk of radicalisation through early intervention, identifying them and offering support, and to enable those who have already engaged in terrorism to disengage and rehabilitate.”

Initially the program dealt mostly with Islamic terrorism, but in recent years it has shifted focus onto right-wingers. 

Its definition of “extremism” is extremely disturbing, as well as their theories on what causes “radicalization.” 

Because J.R.R. Tolkien is not the only author they have determined to be dangerous. He’s in good company. 

C.S. Lewis. Aldous Huxley. Joseph Conrad. Even George Orwell and his “1984.” All the best British people are on this list.

Reading these wise and skilled writers identifies those reading as “those at risk of radicalisation.” 

And it gets worse: Prevent recognizes a list of historical texts as suspicious as well. 

It tells citizens of England that they should not read Hobbes’ “Leviathan.”

It claims they should not read Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government.”Or Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France” or books by Thomas Carlyle and Adam Smith.

It’s hard to identify what the most concerning thing about this situation is. 

A first-world Western country is beginning a suspicious books list. 

They are focusing on potential right-wing extremists despite the fact that, as William Shawcross writes, “the facts clearly demonstrate that the most lethal threats in the last 20 years have come from Islamism.”

The books that they see as radical are books that portray good and evil, right and wrong, objective truth and falsehood. 

What is dangerous about these ideas? And if the British government sees them as dangerous, what does that say about those running the nation? 

Not only that, but even if the books were dangerous, this shows the absolute disdain those in Prevent have for British citizens. It assumes an impressive amount of idiocy in a reader. Big Brother knows you have no discernment of your own, so we’re going to keep you away from all these bad ideas. 

Wow.

A government that does not want its people reading Orwell is a government that does not want an aware citizenry. 

A government that does not want its people reading Tolkien is a government that wants a sterilized population that cannot recognize evil. 

A government that does not want its people reading Locke, Hobbes, Lewis, and Burke is a government that does not want voters who can and will think. 

“Lord of the Rings” does not make bombers. It is not a red flag pointing to a radical right extremist. 

But thinking that it does is definitely a sign of radical left extremism.  

It is not the books that need to go, but the Prevent report itself. Surely there’s a hobbit out there willing and ready to chuck it into Mt. Doom.