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My title pretty much encapsulates my concern.

Are questions that are blatantly ideologically motivated (extreme example: "Why is Tolkien's portrayal of the westerlings so racist?") a problem or are they considered appropriate?

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  • 1
    Do you mean easterlings? :-)
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Jul 19, 2017 at 22:43
  • 1
    Derp @Randal'Thor. I don't Tolkien very well
    – Magikarp Master
    Jul 19, 2017 at 22:44

1 Answer 1

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The answer to this one is extremely simple. By all means ask your question, but avoid the colour commentary.

For the record, someone already asked the question in your example. It did attract some downvotes, but was largely well-received, mostly because it avoided making any direct assertions.

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  • (1) It was not "well recieved with some downvotes" - it has, deservedly, gotten 18 downvotes. (2) It was "well recieved" likely not because of some inherent quality of the question because liberals like to make Westerners sound bad (and HNQ, which has upvote bias regardless of topic, on top of which from my observation most SO traffic on HNQ questions tends left wing politically). (3) It most certainly was NOT because it "avoided making direct assertions", it very explicitly made them by saying "as a Westerner, he was a racist") which I just edited out as being contrary to Be Nice rule.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Aug 3, 2017 at 13:51
  • @DVK-ON-ahch-To - My interpretation was perhaps a bit more generous. I felt that every was asking "Is Tolkien a racist" rather than asserting that he is.
    – Valorum
    Aug 3, 2017 at 13:57
  • the problem wasn't in asking whether Tolkien is a racist (there's a valid basis to ask that, given surface reading of the text). It was the now-deleted "as a Westerner, he was a racist" assertion.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Aug 3, 2017 at 14:00

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