From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Sun Jun 24 2007 - 14:16:09 EDT
Hi Jerry, I think that with her idea of the "ansible" (a gadget enabling superluminal communication, faster than the speed of light) Ursula le Guin was perhaps metaphorically anticipating the modern cellphone. Apparently the first handheld cellphone not tied to a vehicle was produced by Motorola in 1973 (le Guin's novel appeared a year later). Superluminal communication isn't really possible according to physics - it would imply among other things sending messages from the future to the past - but of course with a cellphone you can call back somebody you met before, to make a date in the future. In the novel, the character Shevek's search for a "General Temporal Theory" (reconciling sequentiality with simultaneity) could obviously be compared to the modern controversies about the "transformation problem" in Marxian economics. You might like to consult: Tony Burns, "Marxism and science fiction: A celebration of the work of Ursula K. Le Guin", in: Capital & Class, Winter 2004 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3780/is_200401/ai_n9366280 "Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed were two of the few American science fiction novels published in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Le Guin shares this distinction with Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (2) Like all literature that appeared in East Germany, Le Guin's titles passed through an elaborate approval process before they appeared in the science fiction publishing house: Verlag Das Neue Berlin (DNB). The Left Hand of Darkness came out in 1978 under the title Winterplanet. The Dispossessed was published in 1987, just two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 as Planet der Habenichtse (literally, planet of those with nothing)." http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-6235850_ITM David Graeber for his part writes: It is hardly a coincidence that some of the greatest recruiters for anarchism in countries like the United States have been feminist science fiction writers like Starhawk or Ursula K. LeGuin. One way this is beginning to happen is as anarchists begin to recuperate the experience of other social movements with a more developed body of theory, ideas that come from circles close to, indeed inspired by anarchism. http://raforum.info/article.php3?id_article=1416 One of the contributions of anarchist thinking is its emphasis on interpretive freedom, i.e. the idea that you do not have to interpret everything as other people do or believe, which opens up a realm of personal imagination and independent thought. From the same observation, many different conclusions can be drawn. That is how I thought about it anyway, when I read the novel in my youth. However, if you want to communicate effectively at a high level, inexorably you do need to accept at least some shared interpretations and non-arbitrary behaviours. To stick to your own interpretation, or accept someone else's, that may be the question. What impressed me most about the novel when I read it in 1976 was the possibility that the processes, interactions and relationships involved in giving and receiving, obtaining and taking, sharing and relinquishing - central to economics, but also the means through which human love is expressed - could be successfully organised in a completely different way. Intriguingly, in pursuing his idea, the character Shevek meets with forces which are internally corrupting the "utopia" of Anarres - forces of conservatism, bureaucratism and centralism - yet it remains dissatisfyingly unclear, what ultimately gives rise to those forces. In Anarres, there is no government oppression or inequality, but individuality is stifled and creativity devalued, while in Urras, where there is unjust distribution of power and wealth, great beauty and achievement also exists. But why this particular polarity? Beyond the obvious allusion to the difference between the USA and USSR (or Cuba), it is not something the novel really gives a profound answer to, and in that sense it mystifies as much as it reveals. Happy sailing, Jurriaan
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