Monthly Archives: April 2013

Utopian Freedom in The Dispossessed.

Posted on by
2

How much freedom can be granted in a Utopia? The United States of America was founded on principles of freedom, but has numerous laws and regulations in addition to the Bill of Rights and other constitutional amendments that limit government authority. North Korea on the other hand is an oppressive state where the people are given no freedom. Utopian societies must be aware of how they wish to grant individuals freedom and how much. A collective society such as Japan would likely have a very different vision for Utopia than someone from the U.S., especially concerning freedom. It’s not just how much liberty an individual can have, but what kinds of freedoms are available and how these rights interact with each other. Our most relevant assigned text on this issue is Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. The people of Anarres are anarchist who have no formal government. The world of Anarres is scarce, forcing it’s denizens to cooperate for survival. The way freedom manifest itself on Anarres is very different from the way one would expect it too. According to Dan Sabia’s essay “Individual and community in Le Guin’s The Dispossessed”:
The notion that freedom can be defined negatively must be rejected and the idea that it must be used responsibly, because its exercise involves the welfare of others, must be emphasized. …[T]hat the exercise of liberty almost always affects other human beings, and that it always requires interacting, cooperating, and often sharing with others, mean that free actions do impose general and particular obligations on the individual, and this is what makes Shevek’s society an ethical community.

Freedom is usually described in the negative, that is actions that cannot be performed because they contradicts and individuals rights. The constitution’s Bill of Rights is an example of negative freedoms. The people of Anarres may be free to do as they wish, but they also understand the consequence of what that freedom means. As a result they are constantly striving to balance what is best for themselves and the whole community. Negative freedom is meant for people to be left alone, freedom for everyone to do as they wish as long as others aren’t harmed. The Odianians flip this notion and work together to ensure mutual freedom, survival and quality of life for the collective. Shevek and his peers do not feel weakened by these obligations, but strengthened.
Dan Sabia, Individual and community in Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin’s the Dispossessed: http://books.google.com/books?id=9goKmJQaMzEC&dq=the+dispossessed+analysis+of+odonianism&q=freedom#v=snippet&q=freedom&f=false

vacationing to a utopia

Posted on by
6

i was at my house the other day watching tv and a commercial came up that was talking about going on a vacation to a number of far away place,for example they brought up hawaii and as they talked about it they showed all the different ocean scenes and people getting back rubs and all the different flowers, bacally making it look and feel like a utopia. a place where all your worries just fade away and your mind and body are in complete relaxation. but what made me think of this class is at the end of the commercial it said “find your utopia today”. it does seem that way that everyone wants to go to places like this becasue they feel like there is nothing there that is bad and that everything there is made out of sunshine and rainbows. even when people are at work they have the screen savers with a picture of an island with white sand and a blue ocean surounding it. so my question is do you think that places like hawaii have utopian principles? when you go there is everything just perfect and you dont have a worrie in the world. if so are there places that have dystopian properties? if you think that places have this utopian quality where would your place with utopian principles be?

The matrix

Posted on by
1

While i was in class the other day my mind started to wander and i somehow started thinking about the matrix. now if you have never seen the matrix you should probably move out from under a rock. the matrix is a move about machines taking over earth, during this the human race bascally trashes the earth trying to find a way to stop the “robots” from taking over. after the humans make it so the machines cant use solar power they start to use the humans as a source of power. with this is wher they create the matrix which is what the machines use while they grow humans in these growth sacks. the matrixs is bascally a vitual reality where everything is like we see it today. the machines use it to preoccupie humans so there minds are constantly running. a quote i found intresting is when the agents( machines in the matrix) talk about how the first matrix didnt work because they gave everyone what they wanted and it was anarchy. so bascally humans turned the world into a dystopia. is it so bad that the humans live in this nice new world in which they have no idea that it is all a virtual reality? and the old world they live in is pretty much gone so that means that something had to be done. even know that means that they are being harvested by machines when they die. but for all we know we could be in a matrix. so the question is do you think that the matrix is good or bad?

Booming real estate with empty houses.

Posted on by
7

I am posting about the empty industrialized cities in china, specifically the ones that are modern and have booming real estate markets at present. The uninhabited cities in china demonstrate a utopian tendency within industrial societies. They tend to think that they will always invent a technological way to solve the problems that are the result of the constant growth necessitated by industrial society. These problems range from pollution, to nutrition, to climate change, to economics.  People in industrial society expect multi-national corporations and government to solve these problems by funding and encouraging the creation of things that solve pollution, malnutrition, and climate change. The idea that the elite “super-humans” that corporations are in this society, will save us is a utopian and naïve expectation. This expectation is faith based and dangerous. People can do lots of things in their daily lives to reduce pollution or improve their nutrition. People in industrial societies are pressured to believe that endless economic growth is possible. This is another utopian dream of industrial society.  Endless growth is impossible insofar as the resources on the planet are finite. The uninhabited cities in China are uninhabited because there is a lock of people to populate them, because enough people are still living an intensive agricultural lifestyle after Mao imposed it on all of China. China assumes that people are going to be driven from the farms to the factories, but they have forgotten what happens when their workers organize and finally increase their wages. Eventually all the industry leaves or collapses whichever comes first.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/business/global/20ghost.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

I kind of miss the aliens: reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents as Critical Dystopia

Posted on by
1

Parable of the Talents is a critical dystopian narrative in which the United States falls apart at the hands of religious zealots – Christian Americans – who purportedly seek to return America to puritanical values, but who reframe religion into an increasingly rigid and political force. The overlap of the political system with a religion that seeks to proselytize and convert people to the “truth” feels vaguely familiar. However, in this novel, there is no sanctioning body putting a stop to what would certainly be called human rights violations. We are launched into a dystopia without a back story about the function of the rest of the world, particularly the Western world. All of the world agencies, like the United Nations, that should be intervening in this world are seemingly no longer active. The United States democratic government seems to be a farce, allowing groups with power operate entirely outside of the criminal justice system and without the morals and ethics protecting individual autonomy that we value.   Continue reading →

Parable of the Talents

Posted on by
1

Upon reading Peter Stillman’s Dystopian Critiques, Utopian Possibilities, and Human Purpose in Butler’s Parables, I found that it focused on three major points. The first uses the Parable books as a warning against this possible dystopian version of our future. Next, it investigated a discussion of the individual versus the collective/ community as a means of exploring utopian possibilities. Finally, the role of processes and change and human agency in solving the problems associated with the conditions created in this potential dystopian future.

In Parable of the Talents, there is a warning against the religious right and the intolerance that comes from what Stillman describes as “social totalities”. This warning seeks to show how a utopian dream of some today can become a dystopian nightmare. This point in particular made me think of our discussion on whether a nation can be considered a community. Today, there are man people that think of the U.S. as a “Christian nation” and are intolerant of others’ beliefs. But it seems like on a national level, this type of belief would lead to the type of theocracy Butler warns against rather than a community.

The next major point Stillman makes is that the Parable series often explores how individualism and collectivism are used to create a utopian vision amid the dystopias described in the novels.  There are instances described of people, with the means, locking themselves away from the world but it seems Butler’s conclusion is that individualism often fails and communities based on individualism will also fail, such as communities that are based on ownership of property rather than collective agreements. Acorn is a response to this problem; it is based on the need for interdependence and trust because the individual is too weak. This point seems to have been raised in almost all the works that we have discussed this semester. I especially think of Looking Backward, this belief that no person was self-sustaining was particularly relevant in Bellamy’s work. The role of community is central in the utopian vision. While Acorn does not survive, Olamina finds the Earthseed is the greater unifying factor and she chooses to abandon Acorn and focus her efforts on Earthseed.

Finally, Stillman discusses the role of processes, change, and human agency in Butler’s works. The idea of Earthseed is that change is inevitable and true immortality is the survival of the species. Stillman explains that Olamina is able to see the importance of her message through her active role in spreading her beliefs; it is only when she is an agent for this change that she feels she is making an impact. Earthseed as a religion becomes popular and the people who follow it create a larger stronger community because of their faith. Stillman does describe some of the problems associated with Olamina’s rejection of individualism (including relying on a neighborhood or traditional nuclear family) is that it cost Olamina her family and Vere is highly critical of that fact. Also, throughout Parable of the Talents Olamina does not attempt to radically change the political system but works within it when she must, this is another critique Stillman addresses about the work.

Thinking about community in the way Olamina seeks to achieve shows that community is both important and can have unintended effects. I think as Americans we think of community in terms of family and neighborhood, both of which Olamina finds as unviable options in the dystopian future. She is willing to lose her family to achieve her vision and I think that ignoring familiar relationships to create a real community based on interdependence and trust is quite radical but also causes us to rethink how we can form communities now.

 

Secondary Article Citation:

PETER G. STILLMAN

Utopian Studies
Vol. 14, No. 1 (2003), pp. 15-35
Published by: Penn State University Press
Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/20718544

Posted on by
2

“Poetry dwells in a perpetual utopia of it’s own”- William Hazlett

 

One of my favorite parts of the “Parable of  the Talents” is the poetry that Octavia Butler incorporates throughout the entire book. It got me wondering why poetry would be so involved in a utopian novel so I started to search around and see what other utopian thinkers and poets thought. Many believed that poetry and utopia are inseparable from each other; each is dependent on the other to be successful. This makes sense when considering the history of poetry because many poems were written to describe a utopia or to portray our world in a utopian perspective.

Consider this poem written by Kathy Pottle titled “Utopia”:

 

Nobody will ask
whether the speaker is the author

or a persona.

 

Some people will like

to muss the hair of children

 

Buck teeth will be a sign

of character.

 

No one will wear

white cotton underwear.

 

The sun will rise
the moon will rise

the sun will retire

the moon will fade.

 

Interest in bloody meats,

green grapes, and peas

will increase

This poem actually is Pottle’s version of utopia and how it should be presented which perfectly intertwines the idea of utopia and poetry, which Butler also uses in “Parable of the Talents”. Butler uses the poetry as a way to make the story breathe, to make it more alive and all encompassing. It’s no wonder that so many authors have the idea that poetry and utopia are so  connected and why several poets and authors use them to play off each other.

Do you agree that poetry is an integral part of  utopia or vice versa?

College as a Utopia

Posted on by
8

I was thinking recently about how difficult choosing a college was for me as a high school senior. There were so many different options and they each varied in many ways. When I was touring one of the colleges I visited I remember thinking of how much it reminded me of being in its own world. Colleges are in many ways mini-communities. Students and the Admissions Office go through a mutual selection process. There is usually on-campus housing available. Student eat in dining halls with other students. There are places where students can get their mail, receive health care, get resources at the library, receive financial assistance, etc.. There is also the safety provided by Public Safety. In many ways, I believe colleges could be viewed as Utopias. Although  I am sure we each see the imperfections in our college, and other colleges we have visited, they do seem to share Utopian qualities. There is a strong bond between students (and often a connection felt by alumni). People receive similar educations, make memories about the same places, get to interact with people of similar mindsets, and have a place that they call “home” for several years of their lives. In my opinion, College of Charleston may not be my ideal Utopia, but it made me see enough of Utopia to choose coming here over any other college. I chose a place that is near the beach, with students I felt I could relate to and want to be around. It is a place that provides an education and all of the resources I wanted for these four years of my life. Being able to choose a community that has the personal connections, codes of conduct, housing, etc. as we do in college, may be the closest any of us comes to living in a Utopian community. What do you think about seeing a college as a Utopia? Did/does the College of Charleston possess aspects of a Utopia in your mind?

Gender Norms in a Post-Apocalyptic World

Posted on by
8

          In issue I believe to be important, when contemplating Octavia Butler’s, Parable of The Talents, is the gender norms that are defined in, not only this, but all post-apocalyptic world. As Olamina writes:    

“I’ve heard that in some of the more religious towns, repression of women has become more and more extreme. A women who expresses her opinions, ‘nags,’ disobeys her husband, or otherwise ‘tramples her womanhood’ and ‘acts like a man,’ might have her head shaved, her forehead branded, her tongue cut out, or, worst case, she might be stoned to death or burned.” (Butler, 55)

Continue reading →

The Purge

Posted on by
7

What if our American society was perfect in every sense of the word. We did not have homelessness, violence, poverty; everyone had a job and made a decent living for themselves. What if the government did not have to do much governing because we conducted ourselves in a civil fashion that required little law enforcement? You may ask well how could this be?
One day out of the every year every citizen is able to wreck havoc amongst the country; you can rob, steal, kill, fight, burn up a town if you like! You will not suffer any consequences for the crimes you commit, all of the anger you may have had for the entire year can be released on anyone or anything and no one could reprimand you. All for the sake of peace, tranquility, and prosperity throughout the rest of the year. Your only goal is to stay alive during this period and make it to the next day; twenty four hours of mayhem, in order to live a great life for 364 days. Would you choose to live in such a society, would the pros our way the cons?
This is actually a movie that will be in theaters next month. But what if American society did function as such; one night of suffering for a year of happiness. This reminds me of “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, in order to maintain a great lifestyle, someone had to suffer. As long as the person is not you and your loved ones, would you live there for the sake of a great life throughout the year?
Check out the movie trailer: The Purge, and tell me what you think!