& BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2022-01-31 Mo: Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas“ is not written to be an easy story. Ursula K. LeGuin did, after all, construct it as a puzzle that has no answer—or, perhaps, a puzzle in which all answers are unsafe and unbearable. Thus, in my opinion at least, if you think the story-puzzle has an answer that is bearable and safe, you have not really read the story at all—have not understood at all what it would be like to live in or visit Omelas, where “With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea…”
Do I agree with your reading of Le Guin? Sic et non. Sic: absolutely, the ones who walk away from Omelas are walking toward an uncertain and risky fate; perhaps toward their doom. Non: I believe that Le Guin is passing a clear and unambiguous moral judgment between those who leave and those who stay, and that those who stay are found wanting. What she is saying is that staying is comfortable and understandable and human, whereas leaving is dangerous, the destination unknown, and the way hard; but it is the better course.
She made the same judgment between Anarres and Urras in The Dispossessed; and yet the subtitle of that book is "An Ambiguous Utopia". But in her introduction to the Hainish Cylce omnibus, she makes it clear that it *is* meant as a utopia (there is a helpful fragment of this in the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed#Background.)
All this is the opposite of the "“how dare anybody actually try to do something to make a better world!", though, so if that is truly the vibe of your podcast, then I think you would be wasting your time with it.
I'm just getting a bunch of blank spaces in my browser where you refer to Anders/Newitz and so on. So I have no real idea what you're responding to at the moment. But they're each separately worth paying attention to, and, presumably, also jointly. Probably even if, or particularly when, they are, or seem, seriously wrong. I can certainly imagine they have chosen their side at Omelas, and I can imagine why. LeGuin may not answer her question, but the title suggests not only that there is a question, but that those to whom it is posed (i.e., everybody ...) will need to answer it - cannot avoid answering it.
Possibly somewhat apropos, distantly - The Actual Star is very striking.
As cartoons go, I prefer "Proving the existence of fish" which Google will be happy to show. Though I suppose it is less relevant to economics.
Do I agree with your reading of Le Guin? Sic et non. Sic: absolutely, the ones who walk away from Omelas are walking toward an uncertain and risky fate; perhaps toward their doom. Non: I believe that Le Guin is passing a clear and unambiguous moral judgment between those who leave and those who stay, and that those who stay are found wanting. What she is saying is that staying is comfortable and understandable and human, whereas leaving is dangerous, the destination unknown, and the way hard; but it is the better course.
She made the same judgment between Anarres and Urras in The Dispossessed; and yet the subtitle of that book is "An Ambiguous Utopia". But in her introduction to the Hainish Cylce omnibus, she makes it clear that it *is* meant as a utopia (there is a helpful fragment of this in the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed#Background.)
All this is the opposite of the "“how dare anybody actually try to do something to make a better world!", though, so if that is truly the vibe of your podcast, then I think you would be wasting your time with it.
I'm just getting a bunch of blank spaces in my browser where you refer to Anders/Newitz and so on. So I have no real idea what you're responding to at the moment. But they're each separately worth paying attention to, and, presumably, also jointly. Probably even if, or particularly when, they are, or seem, seriously wrong. I can certainly imagine they have chosen their side at Omelas, and I can imagine why. LeGuin may not answer her question, but the title suggests not only that there is a question, but that those to whom it is posed (i.e., everybody ...) will need to answer it - cannot avoid answering it.
Possibly somewhat apropos, distantly - The Actual Star is very striking.
As cartoons go, I prefer "Proving the existence of fish" which Google will be happy to show. Though I suppose it is less relevant to economics.