The dangerous philosophy of Ursula Le Guin
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2023
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Please do an analysis of the master, John Steakley, he died so early in his writing career; "Armor" is a masterpiece.
Since the fem ideology is a h8 movement, why are you so enthusiastic about supporting it? ( and please don't waste my time with ''they want equality''. That ship has sailed)
15:36 who says an anarchist utopia wouldn't use capitalism as it's economic model?
@@strangevisions5162
It's antithetical to Anarchism, which is anti-hierarchy, Capitalism is a Hierarchical System by its very design.
@@strangevisions5162 They could. Every person I have ever seen speak against capitalism end up being heavy duty consumers who enjoy the capitalist system
I had the privilege of working with her on a project. She was easy to talk with - direct, friendly, and avoided sophistry and self-aggrandizement. I asked her about how she generated her ideas. She told me she created a place, then went there and asked questions of the people she met, wrote it down and for the most part resisted re-editing it. To me this explains some of the wonderful mysteriousness of her work - she let the subconscious do the driving, and the human mind is very complex. Not everything makes perfect sense or gets resolved.
That’s so cool
For anyone interested in more structure for this kind of practice, consider the active imagination technique from Jungian psychotherapy. A philosophy channel, Eternalised, has a nice video describing it
I would have loved to meet her.
That is very cool. It also reminds me of Ray Bradbury having a sign above his typewriter saying "don't think" and explaining that there should be no space for intellectualizing and thinking *while* writing. That thinking should be before and after, that the act of writing is the time for emotion, the subconscious and intuitiveness.
I do the exact opposite when I write. I create people and then I give them a place to live.
"We wil need writers who can remember freedom" - a chilling warning to our future selves
Those who cry "freedom" are usually just offering a different set of chains.
@@slappy8941just - don't ...
" freedom " - " different set of chains ..."
That's just another " hip " bromide . Because OF COURSE every human belief system is a " .. set " of chains .
Here's another one : to be truly free you must be dead .
And to our current selves.
(cough cough) Old guy, 65, born at the end of "Golden Age of Community", Boomer, one of the people old enough to have a basis for comparison; one of the people she is referring to.... do i detect a lack of respect in the room? you realize we own everything? - Speaking of which, how is the Capitalist dream working out? How is multiculturalism going for you guys? Got that social harmony all sorted? Everybody getting a bit of military training I hope? .... on behalf of your parents i just want to say ' Told Ya'. ;)
And yet, the architects of the world all seem to be old men who whine about how much better things were in their day and not the younger people trying to fix the problems your ignorant asses created.
When the last Boomer is safely planted in the ground, a great evil will have left this world.
This was extremely interesting. As an immediate reaction I have two points. Firstly, that in my almost 60 years on the planet, I have come to realise that only by taking the conscious decision to discover our whole selves - including the distasteful darknesss - can we truly begin to be works in progress. You'd be amazed at how many people simply will not or cannot do this (or maybe you wouldn't). Secondly, as a disabled person raised in an institutional setting, who struggles with lifelong issues of power and control by others, I know from daily experience that the unjust find the idea of the powerless becoming powerful not only dangerous but terrifying.
Thank you for a most intresting half-hour..
Thank you for commenting.
Of course they do. They know what they do with power ...
I’m compelled to offer my sympathies, if you want them, I mean that respectfully. Can you tell me how you would change if anything in institutional living for the future. I imagine a safe place where those most vulnerable are same from those that would prey on them. Beautiful communal living; City, country, suburbs, mountains beaches etc. a more interactive family feel rather than so institutionally bland and orderly, more fun… I have worked with children to the elderly every place made me sad because they weren’t like loving homes… I think AI will be amazing for this industry
@@pinchebruha405as someone who was also raised in some really dark institutional settings- I’ll answer your question; while I certainly lack any clean cut, absolute answer with what to do with those of us who come into this world unwanted and abused- I do know for a fact that allowing the most depraved adults to work in these settings is not the answer. There needs to be far more public oversight and transparency with what actually happens in these “group homes” and residential facilities for children. Unfortunately it’s often the most mentally ill amongst us who feel called or compelled to work with the ill and vulnerable. These institutions are crawling with child abusers and ped0philes. I have yet to meet anyone who has endured an similar childhood to mine that has managed to make it through unscathed. I’m pushing 40 and to this day get occasional night terrors about my time in those places. I’m not sharing this publicly in order to gain sympathy for myself. My story has already been written- the damage done. I am sharing this in the hope that enough of us will understand the consequences and get Angry enough about this matter to do something to protect the children that are currently living in these hell holes, and to save the ones currently destined for these deplorable conditions in the future.
The whole issue is who is unjust and who has the power to judge and how to be sure we aren't curently closing eyes and pretending to be just ones ?
Perhaps many in this feed already know of the work of Octavia Butler. Another brilliant sci Fi author who did philosophy & political science in her work.
Butler was Amazing ..
@@studiohq I've read a few of her books. Dawn Xenogenisis has valuable information on extra terrestrials that contemporary humanity would do well to understand. Some aliens might be so unimaginably repulsive to humans that multiculturalism in the broadest sense is impossible. Butler used a species with thousands of tentacles for eyes that humans could not cope with 'visually'. Consider a space fairing spider alien species that lives within an attendant swarm of alien mite species that cultivates a particular sort of toxic alien chemical to protect its community. The biota of humanity and the biota of the spider aliens compel their hosts to seek extermination of the other. i feel like that - with Islam.The Left hand of darkness shouts the message of 'irreconcilable difference'. Iain M. Banks certainly picked up the ball and ran with the gender stuff. The Culture has people taking a year off to become a female and have a baby,,,not becoming a man to have a baby, thus paying some respect to the biology of gender.
she also did pederasty. "Fledgling".
@@O-es2zn Banks very much delved into gender following on the style of Ursula Le Guin. I've read them all, multiple times
@@O-es2zn It was full of it. Are you trolling me. You refer to 'a few notes on the culture', every culture novel was full gender related stuff, and "with very long lives, it seemed unadventurous to remain the one gender for the entire period." Men could have babies by just doing a stint as female. A female could be a high level special services operative with enough geno-splicing. I suggest reading the books or going to Bank's source, Le Guin.
Thank you for this tribute to Ursula Leguin. Mrs. Leguin was a member of our food cooperative in Northwest Portland Oregon. For years i had the privilege of seeing her as she did her weekly shopping and I would often ask her what kind of trouble she was formenting. One of the interesting aspects to her life was that her father and mother were both anthropologists. Alfred Kroeber was one of the pioneers of academic American anthropology in the 1920’s and her mother, Theodora, in the 1960’s published Ishi in Two Worlds about her husbands friendship with Ishi the last member of the Yahi tribe of Northern California. I’ve always felt that the anthropologist role as an outside observer of human culture, informed Ursula Leguins ability to conceive of other worlds. (An interesting anecdote that Ursula Leguin would tell of her having a story published in Playboy in the 1960’s. She was told by her agent that the magazine would not publish her story if she authored it as Ursula Leguin. Instead the story was published using the more gender ambiguous UK Leguin. She said she would sometimes later regret that she had used this ruse to gain publishing acceptance. However she would share this anecdote to illustrate the gender barriers that women writers had to overcome in the neanderthal 1950’s and 60’s. Ursula Lequin was an unpretentious warrior for human and humane liberation.
Anecdotal UA-cam comments are the best and this coming from prime-ish source, as mediated by machines.
Ursula was great. Food front wasent a cooperative. As a former employee it was a capitalist structure lying to yall. No profit sharing or cooperative management. Single ownership and yall paying into it was weird. I say this because it should be an honest moment in honor of the woman who believed in sharing power and that institution never did that.
Anthropologists 😬
So cool to got to meet her! I once had a dream that I met her.
i remember actually seeing and reading the story in my father's Playboy magazine in the late Sixties in my youth in Manila - it was "Nine Lives" about a person cloned nine times sent out as a space explorer being a self-sufficient social unit, until a number of clones are killed in an accident - quite avantgarde and way ahead of it's time - as Ursula always had been all her life!
An interesting essay about Ursula Le Guin, one of my favorite authors. However, it focuses only on her writings from 1968-76, her "classic period," if you will. I'd love to see what Mr. Walter thinks about her last great novel, Always Coming Home, which to my mind is both a greater artistic work than her more famous novels, and also a more mature and holistic expression of her underlying philosophy.
That is also my favorite for many years!!!!
44444444 ♥
Very much my favourite Le Guin novel.
Thanks for the recommendation I just got my library’s copy.
I love The Dispossessed so excited to get a copy of this!
Just a month ago I was talking with a new friend about how amazing her stories were, how they changed the way I thought...and the friend had exactly the same perspective. Her work was truly amazing, thanks for making this great analysis of her and her tales!
"“There are not too many truths, there are only a few. Their meaning is too deep to grasp other than in symbols." - Carl Jung
A quote worthy of Deepak Chopra. Jung shall never cease to haunt my pre-frontal cortex.
his roots in theosophy are troubling to me...if you dig into it, it gets scary
@@robinaart72 Jung was also a known fraud, making shit up and fudging his findings to suit his agenda. And then we have Jordan Peterson accusing all kinds of ...what would he call it, cultural marxism or left wing ideology or whatever, to be unscientific. Then he labels Jung a "heavy hitter". Something's gone very wrong if we accept Jung as some sort of truth-sayer.
Profound
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is a rejection of Utilitarian ethics. the school which believes the best solution to a problem is the one which maximizes the overall happiness of the most people.
A "utipia" which concentrates all the suffering onto a single unlucky child maximizes happiness for the most people; only one person in the city is unhappy.
It shows how unjust and uncaring Utilitarianism is. (Written when groups like UNESCO were making public appeals based on Utilitarian ethics)
@@R.P.-hw2rq Thank you for sharing that perspective. Good literature can illicit a wide range of valid interpretations.
Thank you for bringing this up. I was kind of amazed to see a philosophical discussion about Omelas that omits any mention of utilitarianism at all.
This really is an amazing work of art. It stays with me in a way that can only inspire me to put just as much soul into everything I create. You showed a profound respect and understanding for Ursula's work and philosophy. I'm going to share this with others who can really appreciate it.
Tombs of Atuan was the peak in my opinion. The first book was unique, and a great story arc. But ToA was powerful. It took half the book to set up, but wow what a second half!
And the setup was equally compelling. The unknowing and fumbling through darkness, beholden to chains of society. Very profound writing
@@collinbeal I rereaded by accident a month ago...! Stunning poetry in the deepest sense
I'm with you on this. That book is so damn powerful, gets better after every reread.
The Tombs of Atuan has a special place in my heart, too. It was an ur-text for me as I drafted a novel for which the first six chapters take place in pitch blackness, underground. So were A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness, just in different ways. Naturally, I cite Le Guin when pitching the book, which contains several subtle nods to her. Strangely, agents have been uninterested.
@@joshualavender best of luck in your endeavors. The LeGuin that I've read, contain metaphysical themes, which are easy to take in from reading, but difficult to adapt to film. And that last part is probably what too many agents are looking for.
You've earned my subscription. This blew me away in a lot of ways, almost like it opened more paths for me to understand this journey we call life. Thank you so much for this video, it is truly inspiring. I've been a sci-fi / fantasy fan for most of my life and while I've heard of some of her books I never realized how deep they actually are. Now I've got some reading to do, and some new insights. Thank you!!!
I cannot express how much I enjoyed this. Your ability to thoughtfully interweave multidisciplinary perspectives into such a well produced and cogently presented thesis is like a breath of fresh air to my idea starved mind. SUB!
What an incredibly dense, insightful, thought-provoking tribute. Absolutely stunning work here.
In 1978 I was a junior English faculty member and decided to publish an article on "The Dispossessed." At that time I was steeped in anarchist (libertarian socialist) history and theory, so the article was the easiest of the three I'd written. It virtually poured out, and was quickly accepted by Science-Fiction Studies. It was a useful explication of the novel because LeGuin herself was well versed in anarchism. The article reappeared around 1985 in a collection of writings on LeGuin by Harold Bloom of Yale, though I was long out of academia by then and not aware of the Bloom book until over a decade later. The article is easy to find if you search on my name and "The Dispossessed," and this demonstrates not my illustrious intellect but the lasting interest in this writer.
Are you still steeped in delsions?
In a radio interview she revealed the source of inspiration for Wizard of Earthsea. living in Portland, OR during a dark winter she said " I heard a voice asking me when I was going to write my story?" From this encounter came the Earthsea material. She went on to say that the voice returned many years later and asked her to finish its story. interesting
Oh automatic writing dictated by demons perhaps? Communism is demonic and opposed to Christ.
yea in an interview she did about the dipossessed she said she'd hear her characters too, like they were writing the story. wild
Beautifully written and spoken. I began reading Ursula Le Guin in my late teens and never really got over her capacity to write poetically through prose, and to penetrate human motives and desires for beauty, for peace, for power. Her metaphors were really ikons, windows through which unseen realities could be grasped. I loved her books and would reread them periodically. You’ve done a wonderful work here.
Edit: I’m looking at your content and remember vividly how, as a teenager, I absorbed volumes of Burroughs, Heinlein, Clarke, Dick, Asimov, and Herbert. I am anticipating the enjoyment of your essays. This is going to be good.
I think we probably had similar experiences in reading. I sometimes joke that I’ve forgotten more good sci-fi than most people read. I was also a huge fan of Analog and similar magazines
your reading list mirrored my own. Great men all. And Ursula and C.J. Cherryh and Anne McCaffrey, Mary Shelley, Andre Norton.
I used to go to yard sales and pick up Hugo and Nebula award compilations for like a quarter (a long time ago). Not only was I impressed that so many people had those books, but the stories inside were great. They were nice thick books, too, full of ideas.
Thank you so much for this essay. It did kind of boggle my mind a bit. I did read once that LeGuin wrote The Wizard of Earthsea for her brother, who was suffering from depression. I guess she had the idea that he was separated from his shadow-self. tbh, I felt that she was rushing in where angels fear to tread in applying Jung's philosophies to what is a pretty complex illness. However I have just given a Google around that, only to find someone saying how useful the book was to them in their depression . . . so what do I know?
I don't remember LeGuin's stories for their philosophical ideas (I reckon I was too young and dumb when I read them . . . and maybe I am still too dumb), but for a kind of clarity of image and story and prose that I still remember as remarkable.
They are remarkable poetry also.
I read Wizard recently (as an adult), and what struck me the most about it was how incredibly real the protagonist was. Most protagonists have limited flaws or flaws that feel forced, leading to situations in which the character makes a poor decision not because it made sense for that character but rather because the story called for it. In that case, the protagonist makes a number of regrettable decisions and actions, but they all feel like a natural extension of who he was laid out to be. That really kicked me in the pants! If that was the result of her crafting a character and story meant to represent a real but difficult to portray trait of many people, all the power to her for going in that direction. That potential source and the eventual outcome make sense to me!
depression may be complex but a support/motivation or a personal solution can be simple
It's interesting you say this, because I was wondering why she would have the protagonist be a boy in the first place. I mean, if you're a female writer speculating on a different world, why have it be patriarchal at all? Not that I thought that as a young boy when I first read it, but I think about that now. But if she was writing it for her brother, that would answer the question.
Saw her speak in Berkeley a couple decades ago. She said it started with the premise of if Gandalf was a boy.
I greatly appreciate that you didn't just play the hits, you went into her personal convictions and philosophy, which is commendable. Thank you.
Just imagine Hegel being incorrect and the philosophical cul de sac it has trapped humanity in. Worse than any “Demiurge.”
Philosophy never creates history, it tries to understand after it happened.
Just for the very simple reason that 99% of us don't give a damn about any philosophy, if we like it or not. The remaining 1% then have contradicting opinions... see?
Even Lenins ideas got uprooted by Stalinism, Jesus teachings got ruined by every church after.
Even if fascism would be seen as a "great idea" the results are sub par (I hope you get my sarcasm).
I really enjoyed this video on LeGuin. She is one of the few authors whom I regularly reread. I might have added the influence of her father, Alfred Kroeber, an anthropologist of, in particular, California Native Americans. I believe at least some of LeGuin's views are rooted in Native American life. // One aspect of her writing that I deeply admire is that she is able to present individuals and societies in their full complexity, both their strengths and weaknesses. This is why The Dispossessed is so satisfying, in contrast to other political utopian novels where the assumption is that the reform will do away with all human problems. Le Guin may have been an idealist, as you define it, but on the other hand, she seems to have had a secure grasp of intractable human nature and its limitations. // Thanks for taking the time to post this.
Reality,natural law
I believe "Ishi" the last of his tribe lived with her family the last couple years of his life before dying of tuberculosis and that he had a passion to share the skills of survival he learned before his family (except an aunt and sister) were slaughtered. Much more to his story in the book Ishi Last of His Tribe
I read Ishi in the late 60s before I read Le Guin's works in the 70s. I didn't know that was her father till much later. Ishi made a great impact on my young mind and helped form my current paradigm.
1960s were Heinlein, Silverburg. I read her 1970s, first then discovered the Ishi book, then made the connection following. Yes, a deep impact for me too. I think of it as a journey to becoming a human being(a term Ipicked up in "Little Big Man"). Good to meet you here. @@Rivenburg-xd5yf
Yes Le Guin's mother published a book about this. Both her parents were anthropologists, not just her father.@@carrollkinkade2329
How did I not know about this channel? The algorithm did me a grave disservice until today.
I've been a reader of science fiction for more than 50 years. LeGuin is an icon for me. Your analysis is brilliant and thought provoking. I subscribed to the channel and to the podcast.
Welcome aboard Lisa. Join the Facebook group, you'll like the discussions.
Just wanna say thank you for this. Just read Omri Boehm "radikaler Universalismus" very fitting to this topic.
One of the few things in life I regret is, to not send Ursula a snail mail letter, to say thank you to her when she was still alive. Rest in Power Ursula!
Write one now, and send out into the paper ether. It might come back, but you will have scratched that itch.
@@johnnyxmusic good thinking!
@@frerkshow9874 Thank you for being so open minded. I mean my idea is kind of stupid on the surface… But you know, the act of writing is a way of clarifying our thoughts for ourselves. I think if you send out the letter… And you get it back with a canceled stamp and all of that you can slip it into one of your favorite books by Ursula K. Le Guin… And just have it be a little secret communication between the two of you.
This is a well thought out tribute. Everyone I know who read sci-fi over 65 knows and loves her incredible work and influence. Most of the people I encounter under 50. Don't know her works. I hope you can help change that.
She deserved a Nobel prize. Nobel Prizes don't deserve her.
A wonderful video and introduction to Le Guin (I’ve never heard of Le Guin before). Liked and subscribed thank you (I know editing takes a long time and you’ve put the work and time in)
lucky you! i wish i could go back and discover her for the first time, and observe how much she shaped my thoughts. some books will hit harder than others, i could hardly read the wizard of earthsea, but the lathe of heaven is a yearly re read.
My favorite books from U. Le Guin are those you mention. She helped me shape my ideas my writings and so much more too... Thank you for this much needed commentary. She did good on her time among us.
I can't love this enough. LeGuin has been my favorite writer all my life and always will be.
The Hainish cycle (all of it) books and short stories are my personal favorite, because she creates a universe in which human problems are explored again and again, resolved in various ways - less about the science and more about the living with it and with each other. Especially good is Four Ways to Forgiveness, later Five Ways to Forgiveness, when she expanded the story of a supporting character.
Always Coming Home. For most of my youth, I treated this book as a sacred text.
LeGuin's "Dylan Years" almost all featured male protagonists and so are still her most popular books. Her later stories (many of which are part of the Hainish cycle, not just those seven early novels) feature more women. They are lovely, complex, thoughtful -- and too often ignored. I suspect this is because SF is still dominated by men, both as the writers and as the subjects.
yes unfortunately. especially when it comes to buying sci-fi. One look at a row of book covers can explain why. And in recent years military science fiction has become very popular; and that genre appeals to a certain type of sci-fi nerd
+ Estraven, referred to as "he/him" at the time of writing, a choice Le Guin regretted decades later...
@@joelpartee594true, but if she had used a 3rd pronoun then, even the singular they, I wonder if it wouldve even gotten as much attention. The singular they or alternating an individuals pronouns based on their current gender expression...either cpuld very well have been written off as "a format gimmick" or "too confusing" by publishers and/or readers then. I mean Im just imagining based on my experience on the 90s that people were not ready in the 60s/70s
While the singular they has been around since approximately Shakespeare, it was used for hypotheticals where a specific person is not referenced (and therefore could refer to anyone ie man or woman) ie its primary use is as an easy abbreviation for "he or she". But it was not the most widely used even for that; mostly people used "he" for hypotheticals unless it was clearly something restricted to women, for example, a comment referring to nuns, or childbirth. And the technical rule for specific personal pronouns was everything not female was "he".
So singular they has only been employed to refer to specific known individuals as a personal alternative to male or female pronouns for maybe... 25 yrs? I mean we were exploring singular "they/them" in writing at turn of 21st century, along with "zie/hir" and "co". (I always pushed for singular they as the 3rd pronoun, because it was already what anglophones default to when gender is unknown because of its history in hypotheticals). But it didnt really take off til maybe 10-15 yrs ago. (And alot of losers STILL have a fit about the fact it exists).
So while I absolutely understand her regret, I can see why "he" seemed like the best you could do as a writer without it being disruptive to a story in the 60s or 70s...but it would be cool to have like a 50th Anniversary print where just pronouns are changed to whatever she now thinks would best reflect Estraven and the Hainish.
I’m glad both that the book exists as originally written and also that Le Guin expressed her evolving thoughts when she did - I don’t have a link in front of me, but there’s an essay written in the 80’s in which she endorses they/them and makes some other salient points, such as regretting her declaration in the book that attraction to one’s same gender expression is virtually unknown on Gethen.
The later story "Coming of Age in Karhide" is worth a look for LeGuin's later ideas about how to deal with gender syntax. It's also just great.
I just fell in love with your channel! Thank you for taking me down memory lane.
Curiously enough, I consider Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" to be the world's first science fiction novel.
It's generally agreed it is, since Aldiss made that argument.
It's that or some ancient greek writer pissed off at his contemporaries making up shit about their travels and passing them off as real accounts. so he wrote his own version, prefacing it as all lies after that statement and then sailing to the moon fighting a war with the sun ppl and i think he marries the son of a space king from a species of all men, but who could get pregnant in their youth, or something. He even ends it half way, teasing a sequel he likely never intended to write, because the sequel was another lie, as he stated at the start. So he might also been an early example of mpreg too.
Considering the genre was effectively gone for millennia Mary Shelley definitely is the source of the contemporary genre though.
@@willowarkan2263 All science fiction is myth, but not all myth is science fiction.
I think it was some dude during the inquisition. He had to title it "Somnum" or something, meaning 'dream.' Because if the inquisitors thought the stories about sailing to other planets and meeting the strange peoples there were actually speculative stories and not just some weird trip- it would've been heresy. Kinda like I'm doing now, except dangerous.
@@DamienWalter as far as I am aware the framing device was that this was a travel journal and not a mythical epic. But I suppose if you define myth broad enough it'll include other genres of literature.
I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi, but this video made me decide to finally read Ursula's books
Good stories, SciFi only if the second hand book shop shelf stacker puts them in the SciFi shelf.
you’re in for a real treat . It’s a universe ( Hainish cycle) her short stories and novellas in „The birthday of the world“, is a great start .
Fascinating. And I really like your voice and your presentational style, which kept my attention throughout. Very knowledgeable and a fascinating insight into the mind of a popular SF writer. Your video has made me realise that such writers have their own moral universe, represented through their work - and arguably SF writers such as Le Guin more so. Thank you.
"The Lathe of Heaven," influenced me directly. She was one of the finest authors in the genre.
Wow. I really needed to watch this. Thank you Damien for a fantastic synopsis. Ursula is one of my favourite authors and I love discussing these things with others. I was today years old when I discovered that I could actually be described as a radical idealisms philosopher. Brilliant. You have a new subscriber! Keep up your brilliant content
it's really nice to see this video. I read a number of Le Guin works when I was quite young, and in fact probably too young to read The Dispossessed in particular and really understand it, but I still really enjoyed her writing. I later came back to left hand of Darkness and it's a book I really appreciated for many reasons, and will probably come back to yet again now that I'm in my forties.
Just a small correction though: John Campbell hadn't anything to do with Amazing Stories. The magazine he edited for decades was Astounding Science Fiction, later Analog Science Fact and Fiction. I know it doesn't sound like an important distinction when you say it, but Amazing and Astounding had very different principles and, sometimes, audiences. Amazing was the first American dedicated science fiction magazine, starting way back in 1926. Astounding started some years later, and led the way in terms of that Campbellian model in the 40s and to an extent the 50s, but not all writers and fans were on board with it.
I've struggled with Le Guin's ideas and never finished 'The Dispossessed' and now I know some of the reasons why! I knew too little of what you've masterfully put across here. Now let's see if I can finish 'The Dispossessed' this time round. Thank you.
I highly recommend it! The whole book is much an exploration of Le Guin's ideals as a ruthless critique of it, and one of the most beautiful stories I've ever read. It takes a long time to set up, but the payoff is great!
I shall always have a fondness for the physicist Shevek, but the world he came from was one of almost Soviet-level bleakness. She did a really great job of showing how the "anarchist" world enforced conformity.
My take as well, Soviet bleakness. Stopping trains to rob food.@@richardokeefe7410
Fantastic video. Unfolding deep and complex ideas in such a digestible way with no click bate takes. Thank you! 👍
I feel really dumb. I never realized that the dark thing was Ged's own dark side. I thought he had dragged some evil thing from the supernatural into the real world. I totally never registered the correct significance of him naming it with his own name. D'oh!
Well as a kid you're not supposed to notice. Symbols are most powerful when unconscious.
I realized this before I was half through the book!! I was around 14. I had to reread it over and over to make sure Ged was a character I would use as a role model. ( I'm like Bill from kill Bill, many fathers and role models)And now I'm going to go to my storage to find the sets from Le Guin to read again... I'm tired of this TV screen and political fear mongering and separation of people to propagate their control.
You still were partially correct. He had dragged evil thing from supernatural into the real world. Those things are the Nameless ones. The same "ones" who were The subject of fanatical faith in Tombs of Atuan, they are formless beings that are the representation of evil in the world of earthsea. So Ged disturbed one of those and it took Geds form it was basically an mirror image of Ged but in negative. They were the same and completely opposite at the same time. So it isn't literal dark side of Ged. Its a Separate being and it is a dark side of Ged but in purely symbolic sense.
Very interesting video. I believe The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas was inspired by Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. The chapter Rebellion presents a similar dilemma. The spiritual brother Alyosha is challenged by the intellectual brother Ivan as to whether or not he could agree that God had created an acceptable world and unite in praise of God's ways if he could just come to accept the suffering of a peasant child who was torn apart by the hunting dogs of a rich serf owner. Alyosha who is a believer finds himself saying "No" along with his brother Ivan. It is the rejection of all possible theodicies (justifications of God) that had been proferred by Leibniz & Hegel. The culmination of the 19th century novel.
Thank you for this very revealing presentation. I read Ursula as a teenager in the 70’s and an amazing world opened up, with strange yet oddly familiar concepts. I wanted to digest more but never did, but would often consider her work and experience her pull again. And then, here you are, filling in some brush strokes which deepen my understanding. Abundant gratitude.
Wonderful!
Wow, quality content. Beautiful imagery and powerful ideas that are consuming my mind. Thank you. So happy I came across your work.
She is the greatest spec fic writer and one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century as far as I'm concerned. You rarely encounter writers who tackle and articulate the subjects she made the center of her fiction, even today. Earthsea should be taught in school. Tehanu is my ride or die.
It always disappoints me that so many ignore what I consider Le Guin's masterpiece, Always Coming Home. That book gives so much insight into her taoisism and her ideas of how language shapes reality. But it lacks the sort of narrative that people latch on to, which for me is the most revolutionary aspect of the book.
I've read her commentary on this book, she said that she wanted to present a lifestyle rather than another Utopia. I also think such stories are much more powerful, as you inevitably start to feel like you're a part of that society, you start thinking like the characters in the story.
I didn't know it's called idealism, but for me that is the most important lesson from Le Guin's books. She drew attention to the fact that the true revolution is not gonna be radical transformation of society, that is merely a side effect. The true revolution is revolution of the mind.
A Taoist would not steal the property of others - so I deny that Le Guin was a Taoist.
I read Always Coming Home years ago, and from what I remember she also released a companion tape with it that was a kind of Anthropology/Folklore study of the culture in the book that included songs and poems from this culture as if it was being analyzed by a Social Science scholar of the future. It was very original and interesting and as an Anthropology/Social Science major and amateur Folklorist and Folksinger I found the tapes fascinating. I don't know if most people "got" it, but I was pretty impressed.
great essay, Damien, very though-provoking. One of my favorite writers. I love all these books. As an aside, this is the first video of yours I've watched, and look to be 15-20 years younger than I'd thought, based only on your podcast! :)
I only sound like an old curmudgeon, I don't look like one...yet. Welcome to the channel.
Man, you are good. Actually, you are very good. Few days ago UA-cam algorithm offered me the video and I smirked on a clickbity headline, but saved to “watch later” with “okay, let’s see what he has to say” thought. And now I watched it, even paused and re-watched some places to give it second thought and I’m deeply impressed with your understanding of Ursula’s messages, general erudition and vast knowledge, your ability to put together information from different sources. Bravo! Subscribed.
The first UKL I read was Left Hand of Darkness when I was about 50. I've never experienced such a slow build to such a peak; it is breathtaking. And the world she created is utterly relevant today, as the younger generations settle in to accept gender fluidity. I've since read Wizard of Earthsea and bought the second novel in that series.
Gender fluidity is only possible in a privileged society. If you are struggling to survive it becomes irrelevant nonsense.
"as the younger generations settle in to accept gender fluidity" they are just brainwashed buy sinister individuals believe in their own bullshit like poor people of the previous century were abused by communism falacies.
That was my first UKL novel as well. I was in my 20s then . . . . it opened my mind in a way that my life was never the same in what I believe was a good way. Learning of her parents and her early years with them provided me info to paint in a dimension of complexity I believe would not have been likely without her powerful gifts of observation in her very early years. Good to know you are enjoying more of her works. So grateful she wrote so many titles
The Earthsea books are some of my all-time favorites! Glad to hear you're enjoying them :)
I first read them as a teenager. I'm middle-aged now and every time I re-read I notice something more. UKL's writing had so much to enjoy at different levels, whether the reader is a teen enjoying the storytelling or an adult noticing deeper philosophical meaning!
Three more await you - the last book of the trilogy and two more.
Our main character grows and changes, as people do.
Her rendition of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching is really excellent and worth checking out. It’s an amazing window into the Taoist philosophy that compelled so much of her work. Just a glimpse. But an awesome one.
Thank you. That needed to be said. Go Tao!
Yes, I have this! Taoism and Anarchism are similar!
The Dao Dejing is 5000 words of Classical Chinese. Classical Chinese is already a very difficult language at the best of times when the person writing in it is trying to be clear. When, however, you have someone like Laozi writing it in layer upon layer upon layer of puns, symbolism, and obfuscation (sometimes I think just to be bloody-minded!) attempting to translate it into a completely alien language is not … hopeless, but far beyond what any single person can accomplish.
Don't read just Le Guin's translation. Read several. Above all, read some translations where the translator is a native Chinese (albeit modern vernacular Chinese) speaker, not a westerner. Read enough translations and you might start to reach at the truths within this astonishingly dense text.
Don't believe me that this is so difficult? Consider the difference in modern English between "horse play" and "pony play". Now put a couple thousand years (and several major linguistic shifts) between modern English and some future translator (even to whatever English morphs to in that time!), and apply that for any number more such possible misinterpretations again amplified by thousands of years, and tell me how easy the task will be.
Then do that across the same time span but to a completely alien language.
And add Laozi's bloody-mindedness.
Not particularly a fan of her translation despite being excited she did one. Ames and Hall Philosophical translation is my favorite by far.
I would actively recommend *against* her translation of the Tao Te Ching, there are so many translations out there and hers is not comparable to the best ones available.
Extremely thought-provoking. I appreciate all the new leads to explore.
I remember reading 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" - I didn't know it was written by Ursula Le Guin, and I certainly didn't know the context of when and why it was written.
I'll have to come back to this video. You've done a great job at analyzing and deconstructing...a lot of things.
The EarthSea trilogy and the Dispossessed are nothing less than masterpieces !
Daughter of the famous anthropologists Alfred Louis Kroeber and Theodora Kroeber, and married Charles Le Guin, a French emeritus history professor. There influence can be felt, blended into her incredible talent as a writer and outstanding imagination.
14:00 A lot of Anarchists were actually full-on materialists. Peter Kropotkin was a biologist and prominent anarchist, who noticed that organisms survive through cooperation and symbiosis, just as much as they do through competition or dominance.
Yet we always assume that competition is more "natural" and "real". We assume that dogs have an alpha male, even though that's been debunked and withdrawn by the original author. We assume ants have queens as if they give orders, when they just have a different job - and if they don't do that job they're replaced.
Even the first human cities had no signs of hierarchy or stratification for _centuries_ after they were built (e.g. Mohenjo-Daro) - and some even overthrew regimes when they appeared (e.g. Taosi 2000BC, Cayonu 7200BC, also Teotihuacan 300AD).
Hierarchy has only been around for under 5% of human history. Of course humans can be selfish and power-hungry, but to pretend that's all there is to humanity is just wrong.
As a longtime reader of Science Fiction (60+ years), I really appreciate this excellent commentary! Thanks!
I really love the way you narrate your essays, great to listen! thank you
Thoroughly enjoyable discussion, thank you for taking the time to create it!
Through much of my life I've been focused in the hard sciences... career in STEM, personal interests revolving around technology. I went so far (in youthful hubris) as to denigrate anything I thought of as "Soft Science", and the human mind is still nearly as squishy and soft as science gets. It's full of questions with few answers and at our current level of technology... my "hard science" has not been particularly helpful at reducing the uncertainty around it.
I'd definitely have been classified as a Campbellian (from your 'Sci-Fi Philosophies' list), fully enfranchised in the idea that cold hard facts always win. Not sure if it is just age and wisdom or the pointed object lesson of 2016 where one individual (not an intelligent or visionary one... but one with power) was able to throw cold hard facts into the dust bin and sell their particular vision of the world to nearly half the US. Over the last 10 years or so I have slowly come to recognize and value the power of thought to shape maybe not the 'cold hard reality' of this universe, but the reality of the experiences we humans encounter in it. Part of me still thinks "yea but... those human fantasies ultimately fall to reality, Stalin and Hitler's visions could not be sustained... and Mao while still holding on has survived by evolving"... but another part of me recognizes that "if you live during a time when the vision of one mind is in control, it's not particularly comforting to know that "the universe" will eventually apply a correcting force.
Alright enough navel gazing... what all this 'personal growth' has accomplished is that the kind of sci-fi I've always loved has started feeling... thin. The reason I liked it so much when I was 25 (the focus on the big picture, the technology, and how science/technology can provide solutions) now makes it feel... incomplete. I'm gravitating more and more to writers like Le Guin who confront the challenge of adding humanity to Sci-Fi... in all our sloppy mushy soft-science'y complexity.
Have you read Kim Stanley Robinson? He was a student of Leguin and he has a wonderful balance of the sciences and philosophy
The dispossessed is a great book. It shows a really interesting anarchist society and i find myself thinking about it often
Loved discovering Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy as a teenage girl...hopefully her work continues to be enjoyed by all 🧝♀️
I've been away from this channel way too long. what and awesome comeback video from an Author I don't know of. Thank you for your concise and understandable insite.
A million years ago, the best friend I ever had told me about this writer. This friend and I no longer talk.
I miss you so much
This is a fantastic video. I’ve recently become curious about and interested in reading more sci-fi. Many of. The concepts/philosophy I hope/ expect to find were discussed here. Le Guin is shooting to the top of the list.
This is such a broad and beautiful approach to the worlds of Le Guin. Immediately subbed.
Magnificent. This is the best thing I’ve watched on UA-cam in years!
It's amazing that _The Left Hand of Darkness,_ my favorite Le Guin's novel, was her first. What an unrivaled talent!
Le Guin does not reject science and technology replacing them with some New Age-ish mysticism. The Ekumen is possible thanks to technology. Even Kesh people of her much later _Always Coming Home_ have _some_ use for remnants of ancient technological society. But technology is not an excuse for dictate of materialism, not is ti equated with "progress" or wellbeing.
That book and the Lathe of Heaven I found to be particularly interesting novels.
@@jokerace8227 Somehow _Lathe of Heaven_ didn't quite "click" with me. Better than vast majority of other SciFi (or literature in general, for that matter), of course, but still not one of my favorites.
My god this was good! You never disappoint! I have been doing a deep dive into idealism lately and then you drop this! Absolutely stunningly beautiful in every way! Thank you! 🙏
Awesome video. Just what I needed to bring my thinking back to a state of sanity in the current social and political madness we are living through. It’s very easy to lose focus on the important and the subtle in these times. Hearing about some of Leguin’s ideas, and so many of my favorite schools of thought and the way she approaches them is wonderful. I did fry my brain a bit studying Hegel recently and I think he’s maybe a dangerous starting point for the out of practice, social media engaged former armchair philosopher. Leguin’s clarity with her approach to Jung, Taoism, a grounded view of gender, freedom and perhaps a necessarily paranoid optimism is exactly where I need to be.
This is a beautiful work of art, thank you for your effort :)
Fantastic episode. I’m only a third of the way through it and I am glad away by your writing and your delivery excellent and well researched. I look forward to watching the rest of it as well as many of your other videos. Thank you for making this.
Loved every single line written by her. Great video
I read a lot of LeGuin as a boy. I turned into a conservative, by the very liberal standards of my homeland, Sweden. Don't worry about which books your young'uns read, they will digest them and grow into themselves anyway.
Don't know what happy turn of path led me to your YT channel but I am an instant fan of your analyses and theses on my favorite fiction genre. Most welcome thought provocation. Making myself wait until morning to visit your deep dive into the work of my favorite author - P.K.Dick..
Le Guin and Bradbury has been my favorite writers since I was a young boy who had found the magical world of Science Fiction.
To know your shadow is to become too human to be a satisfactory plaything. To know you, then, you are the source of knowledge. All other sources are foolishness and sinking sand, those standing on those consequently fools. Ursula Le Guin was an amazing mentor to me. I got only one letter from her, but I also found her beloved masterpiece The Wizard of Earthsea as an adult after finding her letter again years later. She will be in the acknowledgements when I publish one day.
Very good. I did enjoy this. Also, quite amazing illustrations/animations. Especially the main morphing sequence that transforms Ms. Le Guin herself.
Brilliant! I feel like I gained a much deeper understanding of some of my favorite books.
Thank you for this brilliant segment!!!!!! Please do one on Alice Sheldon (aka James Tiptree Jr) and Joanna Russ who also wrote groundbreaking SF ("Houston, Houston, Do You Read"" and "Female Man" respectively!!!!!
Houston Houston Do You Read ..... the portrayal of violence was so astounding and distrubing. Tiptree had an insight and bravery that partriarchy fears.
@@user-to2sq9jq6p Sheldon was an astonishing literary prodigy for her time - a female author who hid behind a male pseudonym who wrote stunningly muscular, hard-hitting stories - like a subtler Harlan Ellison but no less virile. It was only when her story "Women Men don't See" made the Hugo and Nebula Award nominations as a piece written by a man, ostensibly, with such brilliant feminine insights, that Sheldon withdrew this story fom all competitions, because she felt it being a case of stolen valor, being a woman, after all, behind the story. Shortly after that, she revealed her true identity. "Houston, Houston, Do you Read" won both Hugo and Nebula Awards,."Screwfly Solution" under her female pen name Racoona Sheldon also won the Nebula Award in 1977. All these stories feature Sheldon's seminal, uncompromising and startling insights into gender relations and the very cooncept of gender. Sheldon, LeGuin and Russ were the most courageous and compassionate SF authors EVER in addition to being actual literary geniuses. The world is better for their work! I feel priveleged (I am 67 years old and non-binary) to have discovered these titans in my formative years in the late Sixties and early Seventies in the Philippines! They meant more to me than Bradbury, Heinlein, Herbert, Delaney, Zelazny or Ellison!
Thank you for this succinct appreciation of Le Guin's body of work. I cut my literary teeth on what I now understand was mostly Campbellian sci fi, as a teen in the sixties. I read The Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness when they were published, when I was also reading Alan Watts and the second wave feminists. Around 1980 I took a quickie summer first year university credit in sci fi, taught by a new doctoral grad who preferred experimental fiction. I vividly remember nervously delivering a presentation on the unfortunate way women were portrayed in sci fi, knowing nothing about Campbell and forgetting Le Guin. Now that I'm good and old, a younger friend recently recommended The Disposessed. He read it when he was a teen and recalled it as very radical, transformative for him. Boy, was his memory correct! I need to reread Left Hand and Lathe.
Fantastically written, designed and presented. Thank you.
Wow, you are an incredibly skilled and sensitive teacher. I've learned so much from this video, and take away so many new ideas from it. Thank you for this most valuable contribution. ❤
Thank you for introducing me to this author. I will explore her works. This was inspiring to watch.
For as long as we equate strength and power with fearlessness, the Demiurge will write our collective human story. Cause when we no longer fear, we have come to accept the dystopian nightmare.
That was quite something !
Have read the "Left hand of darkness" which is my point of entry to her writings. Now, will follow the path of "the Hainish Cycle". For starter.
Thanks for the great job you've done here.
So good! Always been fascinated by her and her family...instantly subscribed!
You should read the book Dancing With Dragons by Donna White. The theme is LeGuin's interactions with her critics, academic and otherwise. Dr. White includes LeGuin's philosophies and was able to interview LeGuin extensively for the book.
U might like "Shikasta" by Doris Lessing. ❤
Just a minor point. John W Campbell edited Astounding (which subsequently morphed into Analog) and it was in Astounding that Godwin’s “Cold Equations” was originally published.
I’m glad I saw your comment - I was just about to make the same point. It’s not a surprising error as the names “Amazing” and “Astounding” are quite similar. Of course the histories & content of these magazines were considerably different.
WOOOOOOW, this thumbnail art is GORGEOUS
I've never read any of the works of Ursula LeGuin, and this awakened something in me that I knew from when I was younger and clearly forgot...
Thank you for this.
Cool presentation. I love Le Guin's writing.
However, I must object to your assertion that the rationalist/materialist approach "failed to make a better world". That is high absurdity. The past, even the relatively recent past, was far far worse than people seem to realize. That rationalist approach has been incredibly beneficial to humanity. Furthermore, it isn't in a opposition to idealism... it empowers idealism.
The world is far too complicated and nuanced for a lens that only allows dichotomies to provide a useful perspective.
That is the argument that a typical believer in Le Guin's philosophy might make, not a presentation of my beliefs. Although I can make the case in both directions.
We wanted Le Guin's world, but instead we are left with the desolation of Rowling's
@@CovenoftheOpenMind She's a bully who targets innocent Trans girls and brands them as rapists.
ms. le guin was an absolutely marvelous person and a brilliant author. i was privileged to meet her (she and my composition teacher, elly armer, collaborated on a brilliant project about an archipelago of music).
What a gift this video is. Thank you! I've read all of the books mentioned, but it's been 30+ years for some of them. Clearly time to dust them off again!
Thank you for this. I've been teaching Le Guin lately: Gifts, A Wizard of Earthsea, Rocannon's World and The Left Hand of Darkness over the last three years, with a sprinkling of her short stories mixed into other novel studies. I read a passage from one of her stories at a staff meeting last month. I love to hear that I'm not the only one who takes Le Guin seriously and recognizes her relevance to so many branches of thought as well as her importance to the evolution of social conscience in our time. Again, thank you. I loved every minute of this.
2:40 I have to dispute the implication that Anne McCaffrey and the Dragonriders of Pern were written intended for children or are kiddie lit (aside from the Harper Hall Trilogy) especially in the early stories published in Analog that became Dragonflight written around the same time that Ursula was publishing Rocannon's World and City of Illusions both authors were targeting the same broad audience using similar notions or conventions (mythic/midevil trappings in a future scifi setting) I adore both authors and recognize that Ursula K LeGuin has literary distinction beyond what Anne McCaffrey gained but Anne McCaffrey didn't become the first Science Fiction author to hit the NYT bestseller list as a 'children's fantasy author' and so I guess it's that it lightly slights her readership to present that and to characterize the Pern series as 'fantasy' when it has won the Hugo and Nebula awards of distiction for being actual Science Fiction.
And also "McCaffrey considered most of her work science fiction and enjoyed “cutting them short when they call me a ‘fantasy’ writer.” All the Pern books may be considered science fiction, since the dragons were genetically engineered by the Pern colonists."
I love Ursula's writing. It speaks to particular stirrings of the human soul that elsewise fall victim to serial neglect. Fully acknowledging that, most of us have to deal with the world beyond the psychological, moral, or spiritual, and when in contact with the objective, refusing to test one's theories against reality generally results in ineffective output.
So I guess I'll just put the question to you: Has philosophical idealism ever helped an engineer to design something that, once built, functioned?
Engineers deal with reality below the level of complexity where empathy is needed.
Definitely, provided that the engineer understands everything is language. math and engineering are language, programming codes are language, you name it
Thank you for the video dude it was very interesting, keep it up.
UKLG was the first author whose books I actively sought out; sometimes in department store book sections back when such things existed. I read everything she wrote and still treasure her early stories. By the 1980s her books took an uncharacteristically dull turn with Coming Home. A state of affairs that essentially remained in play for her fiction for the remainder of her life. Relief could only be found in the odd short story or more likely in her non fiction descriptions of her life. She was a singular writer who was forthright in her views though subtle and persuasive in their narratives. A lovely decent concerned soul. However, I take issue with this videos suggestion that her views were qualitatively in contrast to authors who values were quite different, although I will not deny the possibility that she would agree. I remember clearly understanding her points of view. I loved the Dispossessed without accepting the black and white of her worlds implied within were wholly reflective of the real world. The Gulag Archipelago was ample proof against. She was a great.
Dispossessed was a from a simpler time with less data then we have now, Gulag not withstanding. The Utopianism was strong in many 70s writers. We know better now.
@@Rivenburg-xd5yf 1984 and Orwells other writings clearly established the ugliness of the leftists decades before. The History of the Communards in France in the 1800s established this a hundred years before that Leftists are fundamentally evil. Gulag restated it. I take your point though.
Thank you. I have never considered before that my personal philosophy, such as it is, is a constant struggle to reconcile naturalism and idealism. Idealism is certainly more fruitful ground for fiction. I was always struck, for example, by how poor Campbellian authors were at writing dialogue. Their words seemed to lack humanity; like explanatory annotations to a blueprint. Campbell's vision did not define science fiction so much as engineering fiction. Nothing against engineers, but I would trust an engineer's blueprint for a brighter future about as much as I would trust a Philip K Dick design for a better bridge.
She was a wonderful author. She had something of a fixation in making most of the main characters black, and pointing it out in a curious way that made it completely irrelevant to the story and plot. Frequently the advanced civilization or mages would be black, and this repeatedly stated; the invaders, the barbarians, white. But the story could easily be told in the reverse, or without any reference; the decision seemed to be arbitrary but insisted upon, like telling you a characters eye color. Skin color was named, but no racism was expressed in the stories between the characters at least in the way the U.S. media is so obsessed about. It never affected the story at all.
But then again eye color could be relevant. In City of Illusions for instance, the main character Falk looks just like everybody else except for his yellow, cat-like eyes. In some instances, like when he met the King of Kansas, it made him accepted and welcomed for no real reason. In other situations such as when he fell in with robbers, his strange eyes make them not trust him and even abuse him out of fear. The eye color was later stated as in fact, the only distinguishable mark of his 'race'.
If there was some kind of point she wanted to make with this I didn't get it, I think races are irrelevant and don't exist. Or maybe that was her point? That dividing people by race, is as arbitrary as dividing them by eye color.
I would love it if it was; because her racial heritage always seemed ambiguous to me too. And I don't need to know, because it just doesn't matter.