I am
impressed and I am depressed, but I am not dispossessed.
Impressed: Whether it is Le Guin's use of words, her
parse, straightforward style, or her sheer insight, there were many times while
reading The Dispossessed when I felt
the gnawing of self-doubt. Many times when I said to myself: "I could
never write that good."
Hence,
depressed, after
being impressed.
But I’m
not dispossessed and I'll tell you
why.
She wrote this novel, stated, because she wanted to write about a utopia (here's the Wikipedia page). She wanted to explore the themes, cultures, philosophies, and patterns of behavior which systems of government (and, I'll say, power structures in a given society) imbue into people, their decisions, their lives.
But modern American capitalism and class warfare cannot be understood without a lesson in American economic history and to turn a blind eye to one of the largest slave empires ever known to humankind and why it largely existed nowhere else but America, as well as the massive dispossession of Native Americans, is to misunderstand modern American capitalism and the injustices yet latent within it.
She wrote this novel, stated, because she wanted to write about a utopia (here's the Wikipedia page). She wanted to explore the themes, cultures, philosophies, and patterns of behavior which systems of government (and, I'll say, power structures in a given society) imbue into people, their decisions, their lives.
Urras
is a class-based capitalist society. Everyone is bent on possessing other
people, objects, wealth, knowledge, abilities, to their advantage over each other and over other
countries. Anarres is Urras' moon and on Anarres a colony was founded to escape
the injustices of Urras (such as the second-class citizenship of even aristocratic
women).
On
the moon, refugees created a utopia under the philosophy of Odonianism. It is a
type of anarchism. It has its problems; Anarres is not a utopia by any means. It’s
a terribly harsh environment. But it has no central government and, in theory,
everyone can say whatever they want, do whatever they want, and exercise their
rights or not exercise their rights whenever they want. Nobody owns, or
possesses, anything. Or at least tries to.
There
are still little envies that creep into people's hearts, even on Anarres. And to
some degree, some people do want to share their life with another in partnership.
But that partnership is not what we would think of as marriage (where partners
perhaps 'own' each other). Nevertheless, 'egoizing' is highly discouraged on
Anarres in everything.
Enter
Shevek. We follow Shevek from his childhood where he absorbs the Odonian ethos
and pathos, and struggles with it, to his adulthood where he falls in love,
pursues his destined career, physics, and eventually decides to go to Urras
where it might be said 'real' physics is taught and practiced.
The climax for
Shevek comes when he realizes that while he's being wined-and-dined on Urras,
invited to very elite parties, given tours of the beautiful countryside, he's actually
being kept in a prison. Urras' elite want a special theory of physics from
Shevek. That’s the only reason they're rolling out the red carpet for him. They want to possess his theory so that they can use it to develop
technologies to push around their enemies and force the Terrans and the Hainish
(from other planets) to finally respect them.
Shevek
escapes his cushy prison and runs to the only people on Urras he most
identifies with: the poor. The underclasses which are oppressed by the upper
classes.
And
here's where I have issue: slavery and colonial dispossession. In a way, Le Guin does hit the arrow on the
mark with the idea of possessing another human being. There's prison referred
to multiple times over. There's the brutal class warfare of Urras. There's what
marriage is to women: ownership by the husband. But Le Guin does not hit
slavery or colonial dispossession. And when I say slavery I do not mean metaphorical slavery (for
instance, in saying that I am 'chained' to my job). I mean literal
slavery. And when I say colonial dispossession, I mean real-life Americans heading west and kicking Native Americans off their own land.
A
novel so influenced by 1960's era politics and movements in America doesn't mention (as
far as I could tell) a word of either historic or current slavery? Or about stealing other people's livelihoods, land, identity from them?
Talk
about being possessed...
What
greater example gets the immorality of possession across than the real
bought-and-sold possession of another human being? Or of the genocidal massacring of people in order to take what, is by all other rights than the right of force, theirs?
But
Le Guin does not really get to this and that's why I believe the philosophies,
the ideas, the utopia vs. dystopia worlds she's creating and exploring, are incomplete. The
closest she comes to it is her reference to the Standford Prison Experiment in Chapter
2. But even that is about prison and about prisoner-guard roles within a prison
power structure. Not an economic power structure dependent upon slave labor, where the ‘prisoner’
must turn value, or profit, for their owner. Nor dependent upon the exploitation of someone else's resources. Urras lacks broader reference.
Counterargument:
Urras is meant to represent modern
American capitalism and class warfare. Not historical possession and dispossession of
people for capitalistic or other reasons. But modern American capitalism and class warfare cannot be understood without a lesson in American economic history and to turn a blind eye to one of the largest slave empires ever known to humankind and why it largely existed nowhere else but America, as well as the massive dispossession of Native Americans, is to misunderstand modern American capitalism and the injustices yet latent within it.
Anyways,
that's my two bits on Le Guin's ideas in The
Dispossessed. Her world is fascinating, but incomplete.