On Fri, 5 Sep 1997, Janice E. Dawley wrote:
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 15:16:08 -0400
> From: Janice E. Dawley <jdawley@TOGETHER.NET>
> To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU
> Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Le Guin and Literary Silences
>
> Emrah Goker and Martha Bartter wrote:
>
> >>So a child in Anarres cannot become a citizen until he/she undergoes an
> >>implicit rite, I refer to the imprisonment game, symbolizing Odo's own
> >>pains; it was described in extreme detail in the book.
> >
> >As I remember this, Shevek and several of his friends literally invented
> >this game -- it was not imposed from above (although the teachers did
> >act in authoritarian ways; e.g. when Shevek added a 'new' idea he was
> >accused of egoizing).
>
> Indeed, this is the case. Regarding the prison game:
>
> "They had picked up the idea of "prisons" from episodes in the Life of Odo,
> which all of them who had elected to work on History were reading. There
> were many obscurities in this book, and Wide Plains had nobody who knew
> enough history to explain them; but by the time they got to Odo's years in
> the Fort in Drio, the concept of "prison" had become self-explanatory. And
> when a history teacher came through the town he expounded the subject, with
> the reluctance of a decent adult forced to explain an obscenity to
> children." (p. 27, Avon paperback)
>
> Shevek and four peers are so fascinated by this strange concept that they
> decide to try it. The situation gets out of hand, and one of them ends up
> closed in the makeshift cell for 30 hours. The incident is traumatic enough
> for all of them that only one of them ever mentions it again, and they
> never return to the site. Le Guin uses the situation to point out the
> snowballing effect of power differentials. It starts out as a game, but by
> the time Kadagv is pushed into the cell, "They were not playing the role
> now, it was playing them." Psychologically, I'm not sure I agree with her
> conclusion, but it's thought-provoking.
I believe there was a well-known (it had to have been well-known for me
to have heard about it) psych study in which two groups of college
students played at prisoner and prison-guard roles; the study turned very
ugly very quickly. My interpretation of the study actually tied pretty
closely to Le Guin's (but then, I'm an anarchist too). I'm sorry, I
don't remember the cite (and although I'm a librarian I'm *very* busy
right now with moving out to the west coast - anybody know of shared
space or temporary rental space in san francisco starting october or
november? let me know off-list) but maybe somebody else does.
> Sorry for the extremely long quote, but I felt that it illuminates much
> that has been discussed in this thread. It is clear that:
>
> 1) There is violence and "crime" on Anarres and it is dealt with by the
> people closest to the offender. Thus a murderer or work-quitter can expect
> "retribution" for their behavior unless they leave and go someplace like
> the Asylum. "Retribution" is unspecified, but I would imagine something
> similar to the situation in _Woman on the Edge of Time_ where offenders are
> criticised, shunned or even killed to prevent further damage to the community.
>
> 2) The decay of Odonian principles into the stifling reign of "public
> opinion" (p. 134) is a major concern of the novel. Bedap is a harsh critic
> of the society he sees around him, and his questioning of conventional
> wisdom literally rocks Shevek's world. Ironically, I think that the sense
> that Anarres is in stasis and thus not a "real utopia" is taken straight
> from this character in the book!
Agreed. It is an "ambiguous utopia." Ambiguous perhaps because Le Guin
is in fact dealing with creeping power accumulations - the ways in which
power pools in institutional structures.
It may appear that Le Guin ignores many of the problems we have in our
present society; but she emphatically does not. In fact she creates
Urras, the counterpart to Anarres, to display many of our society's
problems. IMO, Urras adds to the realism of Anarres. Anarres is not a
perfect society; there is no such thing. However, a basic premise of
anarchism is that people can live together cooperatively and in an
egalitarian fashion. Anarres demonstrates this. How is it achieved?
With social reinforcement of cooperative behaviors rather than social
reinforcement of destructive, competitive, or aggressive behaviors.
Anarres thus avoids many of the problems we see in our own society and
Urras, but Anarres is still subject to other problems. I believe we're
meant to see that Odonianism (anarchism) might be in many ways a better
way of organizing our society but that it would not be *perfect*. I am
also reminded of -- who was it, Jefferson? Paine? -- the early US
Revolutionary who said that good revolutions must be watered with the
blood of martyrs every 20 years. Translating to a non-violent society,
that's what I see Le Guin saying: the struggle will not end. We can
create a much improved society but there is no achievable perfection.
>
> Le Guin certainly does not ignore the problem of evil. The character of
> Sabul, the physicist with whom Shevek works early in his studies, is a
> shining example of someone who uses influence to keep people out and
> advance his own position. Even though, according to the structure and
> principles of Odonianism, he can't and shouldn't do this, in reality he
> does, and Shevek has to work with and/or around him in order to keep in
> touch with physicists on Urras and get his work published.
>
> I have just realized that this message is becoming much too long! So I will
> send it now. Looking forward to more discussion --
>
> -- Janice
>
> -----
> Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT
> http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm
> Listening to: Feed Your Head, Volume 2; The Best of Márta Sebestyén
> "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected;
> the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and
> servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas
>
Laura Quilter / lquilter@igc.apc.org
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be
in your revolution." -- Emma Goldman
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
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