Peter Thiel Doesn't Understand His Favorite Book

On Tolkien, the broligarchs, and why literary education matters

My mother tells me that once upon a time, centuries ago, our family had a castle in Ireland. Apparently, we burned it to the ground to prevent it from falling into the hands of the English. I haven’t verified the tale, but that level of bloody-mindedness feels both curiously plausible and familiar, if you know my immediate family.

I come from a long line of hot-headed people. My mother had many uncles, but only one she considered nice. And yet, he was still seen, one day, chasing a man down a street in Sydney, whilst brandishing an axe. She doesn’t recall why he was so vexed, but we naturally assume he had a good reason at the time.

I have not (yet) chased a man down a street with an axe. My daughter, Hattie, is only ten, and won’t be dating men for another seven-or-eight years. Of course, I have occasionally wanted to chase somebody down a street with an axe. After all, I read the news like anybody else.

Now, some will tell you these are bad inclinations. They’ll say, ‘Nobody should even slightly daydream about chasing a man down a street with an axe, because that’s bad and wrong’. I understand their point of view. Not everybody descends from the sort of people who would burn their own castle to the ground out of spite.

For thousands and thousands of years, my ancestors settled their grudges with axes and farm implements (and, evidently, a little bit of light arson, on the side). But in recent human history, we put down our axes and decided not to do any of that, any more. Because after all, who wants to live in a world like that?

Feudalism is not a wonderful system in which to live. It does look slightly better in fiction than it does, you know, in the actual history books. For supporting evidence, please glance over the past thousand-or-so years of European history. Here’s a brief summary for those pressed for time: a small minority of inbred aristocrats quarreled over petty nonsense, and meanwhile, hordes of ill-educated, superstitious peasants were kept in check by a cadre of religious zealots. Technological innovation proceeded terribly, terribly slowly.

Mind you, there were some exciting battles. And some people rode about on horses wearing interesting armor. Some, lacking the requisite knowledge, think it all sounds marvelous. Billionaires, chiefly. I assume it’s the pageantry, because, you know, who wants to be referred to as ‘CEO’, when it could be, ‘Milord’?

I would suggest that if a country dismantles its own democracy and implements a neo-feudal system, the economy will start to seriously under-perform. We have better ways to do things, nowadays.

The American middle class was at its most prosperous between the end of World War Two, and the 1970s. So prosperous, in fact, that they actually landed a space craft on the moon. Impressive, considering it was only sixty-six years after they invented the airplane. How did they do it? Well, apparently having a healthy and thriving middle class really helps to fund a scientific research apparatus. As a result: technological and cultural innovation. Not that you’re supposed to think about it too much. Yes, apparently, we still have to debate this. It’s not for nothing, after all, that last weekend, there were roughly 3,300 ‘No Kings’ protests across the United States.

Then, sadly, there are the broligarchs.

Tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are surprisingly open about their opposition to democracy. Despite being the greatest living beneficiaries of the existing system, they seem to feel as if feudalism would be much better. They’re feudalists, you see — though they call themselves neo-feudalists, nowadays, to keep it all modern and shiny. What does it mean? It means, approximately, that you have too much wealth and power for their liking, and they have too little.

It’s sad, really. Nobody in their inner circle seems to have said to them, ‘Guys, you can build yourself a secret lair under a volcano, and wear a cape — nobody is stopping you.’ But I gather there’s some allure to being named viscount or king. I get that, I really do. Remember how I have ancestors who burned their castle down, so as not to give it to the English?

Some part of me — and I’ll admit it, I don’t mind — also feels an atavistic stirring at the possibility of owning a castle, one day. In a parallel universe, I am running about northern Europe with a mob of like-minded villagers, killing our enemies with axes and having the time of our lives, until we all die in our thirties of some easily-preventable disease.

But in this universe, we have elected to live in a prosperous and progressive representative democracy, knowing that, among other things, we might one day colonize the moon. In every respect (and putting aside the potential for me to take a castle from the English), this is obviously the better reality.

Still, there are some who disagree. The oligarchs have a vision for the future, and none of it remotely resembles that economic golden era of post-war America. What does it entail? Well, quite a lot of really bad science fiction, I’m afraid.

Their plan, sadly, would see the United States balkanizing into smaller, competing city-states, each of which is run by CEOs. Again, it’s the pageantry, I think. They want to be barons, counts, and kings. Don’t get excited; you’re going to be a serf — and so are your children and your children’s children. They’ll have to address their betters as ‘Milord’. You know, on pain of death.

Let me say this again; it’s not just important to read books, it’s important to understand them.

Peter Thiel, who co-founded Palantir, famously adores The Lord of the Rings. He believes, somehow, ‘the blood of Númenor runs strong in his veins’ or some such thing. Then there’s Palmer Luckey (no seriously, that’s his real name), a tech billionaire who founded Anduril Industries. That one was named after The Flame of the West, aka Narsil aka The Sword That Was Reforged (you know, in LOTR, obviously). Then, of course, there’s Jeff Bezos, who insisted that Amazon, a company he founded, make a television series called Rings of Power. None of these men — and this is my main argument, here — show any signs of having comprehended The Lord of the Rings.

Who, after all, could possibly read Tolkien without noticing how much contempt the author has for men ‘who, above all else, desire power’. The heroes in The Lord of the Rings are heroes precisely because they distrust power. At critical, and somewhat obvious places in the narrative, the novel’s heroes each reject its temptation. No, it’s a great deal more than that; they reject the offer to become an immortal, a living god, obeyed by all.

In the second chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo offers the Ring of Power to Gandalf:

‘No!’ cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. ‘With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.’ His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. ‘Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire for strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.’

The Lord of the Rings touches upon many things, but primarily the story concerns itself with the greatness of those who are capable of resisting power for its own sake.

Would the tech bros resist the Ring of Power? Well, ask yourself: how do they spend their lives?

Peter Thiel wouldn’t be permitted into Rivendell, let alone be invited to join the Fellowship. The Council of Elrond would toss him out the moment they learned he’d named his surveillance company Palantir, referencing the magic stones created by the elves, and now used as an instrument, by the Enemy, to corrupt and manipulate the powerful.

I hate saying anything so obvious, but Peter Thiel really doesn’t seem to understand these most essential themes of his own favorite book. Because, even as an act of irony, you wouldn’t name your surveillance start-up Palantir, for much the same reason a Christian wouldn’t name their hardware store Tools of Lucifer. Because, and much like the Ring of Power itself, the palantir is too dangerous to use. Even Sauron is lured into making a disastrous strategic error, based upon something he has seen in a palantir stone.

Now, usually when a person loves a story, there is that one character with whom they strongly identify. In saying that, good luck figuring out which is Peter Thiel’s favorite. There are only two likely candidates; The Dark Lord, Sauron, or the deeply wise and terrifically cool Aragorn, son of Arathorn, heir to the Kingdom of Gondor.

But Peter Thiel is not a magic-wielding angel who has fallen into evil, and neither is he a sword-wielding, rugged outdoorsman and descendant of kings. Thiel and Bezos and Musk, along with all the other broligarchs, are guys who spend their existence amassing vast piles of money off the backs of others. In The Lord of the Rings, they correspond only to one archetype: that money-grubbing Master of Lake-town. You might not remember him; he appears briefly near the end of The Hobbit. He flees the dragon, carrying as much gold as he can, and dies of starvation, alone, in the wilderness.

(The broligarchs might be likened to dwarves, who are famous for their pettiness and greed. They all share a penchant for mining the darkest places for gold. But no broligarch would endure more than five minutes of physical labor, so the comparison doesn’t really stick. They might be dragons — you know, for hoarding pointless piles of wealth — but they all seem to lack that essential, acerbic wit of Smaug. And unlike dragons, none exhibit the basic decency of letting themselves go extinct.)

Which all leads me to an important point: if the broligarchy do succeed in dismantling the legal and economic safeguards which allow them to operate, then they’re going to be killed. And not by you and me, of course, nor any of the millions who simply don’t want to be their serfs. No, they’re going to be murdered by their heads of security. (For further information, please see any history of Europe covering the 9th until the 15th Century.)

But it’s all so sad and stupid, when you think about it. You have to wonder, how did we get to this place? Well, anti-intellectualism played its part. Demagogues, as well. Those small-minded politicians who wanted you to feel a bit threatened by smart people. You know, those scary folk with big words, who know things.

And then, of course, there were all those people who said things like, ‘there’s no value in having a literary education’. As I just demonstrated, it turns out there is some value to be found in a literary education. Understanding narratives becomes self-evidently important. Perhaps you want to live in a castle and call yourself a king. There are better narratives, is my argument, and most of them won’t see that castle burned to the ground by a bunch of people who don’t want to be your serf.

But this is only a story, after all. We are a story-telling species. We put all our ancestral knowledge into containers we call ‘tales’, and we send them off into posterity, for the benefit of future generations and those who might listen.

And we see now, more clearly than ever, that it is important to read and understand great tales like The Lord of the Rings. It’s not simply because it’s all so fun and fantastical, but because the tale itself is richly instructive. Seventy years after its publication and that book can still bring to light the spiritual impoverishment of men who, despite all available knowledge, would still wish for you to call them kings.

With chaste affection,

Kris St.Gabriel