> I think the Sharer society of *Door into Ocean* is a wonderful model for an
> egalitarian and nonviolent society, and eminently workable ...
It seems so, but I still wonder how they dealt with "mental illness" and
what-all falls in that category. We find out a little about it with Merwen
and the discussion of where her scar comes from, but that's not much. We
also see a little with the stonesick. Anyway, I guess my question is what
outlet does the Sharer society have? If someone is basically a stable,
healthy person who does not want to be part of the Sharer society (another
question might be, "Is this possible?", but for the sake of argument, say
it is), where can that person go? A raft of her own? That doesn't seem
safe or really desirable.
In _Daughters_, it seems to be normal for young children to go starfaring.
That's almost looked on as a sickness, but it does seem like an outlet
for people who want to try living in different ways and with different
people.
> I think it's important that it's a classless society, in terms of "private
> property" and skin color (internally; non-Sharers call Sharers "purple
> fish"); there's a pervasive ecological awareness, including a consciously
> symbiotic relationship between the Sharers and their living homes; and
> their social practices and language assume mutual responsibility in all
> actions (I thought the verb forms in particular were fascinating.)
Definitely--although a professor of philosophy with whom I was
discussing the book suggested that the verb "to eat" does not work
very well. Merwen eats plants, but there's no direct sharing going
on. If you really stretch it, you might say that as Merwen processes
the foodstuffs, she generates waste products that the plants will feed
on later, but that encompasses much more than the simple action "to eat".
Perhaps that's not a verb that translates...
Anyway, yes, I think it is important that it's basically a classless
society. I think it's also important that the society is technologically
advanced (in the biosciences) so that they do not need "metaltech" to
solve medical or agricultural problems. They don't have much need for
geology, physics, electronics, etc. Some questions that might be
interesting to think about... How well would they weather a
catastrophic event like a meteor impact? What if something happened to
their sun? Where do they go? What do they do?
Don't get me wrong, I like the society a lot. I'd be happy to try and
learn to like fish more and become a part of that world--even though I
work with computer for a living now and that would be a completely
useless skill there. I think I'd probably apprentice to a life-shaper...
Pax,
-allen
--
Allen Briggs - end killing - briggs@macbsd.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:34 PDT