Here.
Please don’t read comments until you’ve read this. It is very short and fast to read. It is radicalizing. It is a good short story to send to your friend who needs to understand what capitalism is. LeGuin wrote this in 1973, cementing her status as Chad Supreme of Fuck Mountain. Bow before her might.
Let’s discuss in the comments below.
Critique? Im a utilitarian and id have ten kids rotting if thats what it takes to have utopia for a million people. As long as its not some “your kid might be next woooo spoopy” setting like hunger games sure, and even then hunger games is dystopic.
That is exactly why capitalism is fucked up, actually, is that prosperity comes at the cost of suffering of others. Your utopia simply isn’t if others must suffer for it.
Sure but in capitalism 80% of us suffer or are axploited while a top 5% gets benefits from this. A system with a single suffering individual is simply not comparable to a continuous tragedy such as the status quo
That’s a fascile analysis.
For we have two peoblems. One, having a person be the scapegoat like that does represnet a signficiant existing negative utility. Every person has to consider that their children could be next ans that represents a unadressed negative utility.
Seccond, that presumes disutility is fungible. It is fact not. This plan wouldn’t work. The assumed gimmick is that everyone belives it works and acts like it does. It is the belief and actions of thr people that being about utopia. The negatve externality is ignored out of tradionion. In that way it describes out current world not a hypothetical one.
i read this after playing fallout nv when i was 12 lmao i thought i was so deep
I definitely didn’t get it and when I googled it i got some weird ass lib arguement that its why communism doesn’t work because it requires the miserable person (gulags i guess) i dunno it was weird.
I didn’t get most politics at the time but i tried. I remember googling why are unions bad? because i didn’t get why all authorities told me they are bad, it sounded dope as hell. When I was taught communism in school the teacher told me it wouldn’t work and i just accepted it while trying to rack my brain for arguements for it. I couldn’t come up with it and it was just so universal i just accepted it. so i just became a bluedog lib. its really funny to see my pre/early political thoughts and how i went from left sympathizer to blue dog to soc dem to dem soc to left unity leftist.
The entire system is set up for you to turn right, so any time you stay left, it’s a good thing.
This is a very anarchist story
A classic. Her stories are not only well written, but an awesome radicalizing tool.
I used the Dispossessed to turn my brother in law from a Musk loving techbro into a ‘holy fuck, anarchism is more than a fun word. Maybe there is something to this.’
He isn’t all the way there yet, but I’ll bring him over.
Oh yeah, you can build on the tech brinidea as well. We talked about how the internet basically functions off of anarchic systems - not just individual websites, but the technology itself.
This old wired article is a really good intro for tech bros. When talk about how humans ‘need heirarchys’, just point them in the direction of the IETF of in some ways the W3C.
Not the perfect examples of Anarchist systems, but an interesting first step for people, and holding together everything we do on the internet.
The Dispossessed got me where I am today. Its description of Anarres was strangely similar to my home country before the 90s. The lack of comodities, the peace and harmony in life, pursuit of knowledge, strong moral intelligence, organisational beurocracy, communal living and isolation. I’d heard only bad things about it on the news and boomers, I’ve lived a few years of it and was present during the transition, so Ive seen societal and human values change in real time. But after reading this book i realised why my grandfathers generation, looked upon that time with longing and nostalgia, even tough it was one of the harshest socialist regimes in the world. Some things worked, some didn’t and an ambiguous utopia sounds about right, or the way there at least.
an ambiguous utopia
Yes, this! So good to have someone articulate it so well. UKG didn’t just idiolise Anarres, but it was clearly her preference in the story.
I think this groundingakes things more real for readers, gives us a clear, not a fantastical choice and that’s why it’s so persuasive.
Fingers crossed you’ll one day not only experience the country of your grandfather’s generation, but something even stronger and more inspiring.
So, the entire story is poignant and heartbreaking, and its a poor reflection on our world that we have more people in the basement than in the utopia and we still can’t be happy. I wish the people didn’t walk away though, that seems tantamount to suicide when in reality we can’t simply leave the city, I wish they saved the child or died trying. But, one part stands separate from the rest to me and I’d like to talk about it on its own:
“They were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.”
I think this is a condemnation of so much #deep media, with the fetishization of suffering and pain. I think the reason I love shows like She-Ra and Kipo is their resolve to hope, to have characters be joyful and loving and that not be naïve. In Kipo it is even shown that loving your enemy won’t always work, but it is always worth the effort. No one is made stronger by their suffering, no one is helped by hate, it is so uplifting. Then I remember ASoIaF and how even the reader’s hopes and wants were used as ammunition to show just how mean and bad the world is. I want more media that dares to hope, to be happy and less grimdark.
Point one: You should wish that they tried to save the child, but it makes sense why they wouldn’t–they don’t want to risk killing others by saving one. I think it’s also a good point though, in that a lot of the way our society is currently established, you either choose to participate or don’t, but you can’t change things.
Point two: Absolutely, she is all over saying fuck you to grimdark. It’s one reason I dislike DSN over TNG, because TNG is still very hopeful about the future.
this is actually a whole subgenre in fantasy as long as grimdark stopped being ironic, maybe a dozen years ago. there’s always been this pushback against grimdark for exactly the reasons you’re citing.
for example, Malazan Book of the Fallen is an example of an intentionally, explicitly hopeful work that doesn’t shy away from the dark, grim, and dirty, but rather uses those things to highlight the nugget of hope that survives, celebrating it and the people who never gave up, who fought through the most futile of circumstances to unearth, at great personal cost. also, a decent chunk of the books feature explicit critiques of empire and capitalism.
there’s 10 books in the series and each one stands alone (except the ninth which is the only cliffhanger). the first book was written about a decade before the others so the writing quality is a bit worse but it’s fantastic from there on out. two warnings: 1. the books don’t hold your hand - if characters should already know stuff, it won’t get explained to you, so you sometimes have to wait a while for explanations; 2. some of the books are utterly heartbreaking. they really cut across the whole range of human emotions.
I’m already reading Malazan so that’s covered. Do you have any other recommendations in the same vein?
the main issue with most of the books that come to mind are the politics. they’re largely written by liberals, for liberals, and so you mostly have to take uncritical perspectives on empire, monarchy, and liberal freedoms as a kind of given - the books with decent politics are rare. so I have to divide my recommendations based on what you’re looking for and what you’re willing to tolerate. the one easy exception is NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy.
if you want a story about a great man and don’t mind philosopher-kings, Robin Hobb’s series are great. read these books for the amazing characterization stretching over long volumes that really leave you feeling like you know these people at least as well as you know yourself.
if you just want a plain happy story and can get past the completely uncritical lens the story brings to bear, the Goblin Emperor is one of the best antidotes to the erosion of hope.
if you want something a bit more historical, Guy Gavriel Kay’s works each stand alone and tell wonderful stories in real places, featuring real people, but with the whole thing twisted just a bit towards the fantastic. the names of the people and the places are always changed so that he can tell interesting stories about them. but they always planted from seeds rooted in the real world. my personal favorite is the Lions of al-Rassan, but you honestly can’t go wrong with any of them.
if you’ve already been through all of these, let me know and I’ll dig through my collection for some weirder stuff.
Read through the whole thing in like 9 month period and let me tell you, they really don’t hold your hand. There’s stuff happening in book 1 that isnt explained until book 6 or so, but it’s a very rewarding read.
I enjoyed when some of that stuff comes up and your brain is like: “Oh wait a minute…THAT’S why that happened like 2000 pages ago!”
