As we’ve seen in a number of different texts, man examples of utopian/dystopian literature utilizes the trope of separate worlds to represent separate spheres of thought and influence on their populations. This tool draws a more stark and intentional divide between main groups in utopian/dystopian literature and through the creation of a social/political/technological polarity allows the consumer to more easily develop an understanding with either “side” and eventually a sense of sympathy or empathy for one world or the other, or both.

We’ve seen this used in The Dispossessed, with the physical, social, developmental, and political differences between Urras and Anarres. But I’ve found this notion in two other forms of media that I find equally interesting, similar, and absolutely badass. The first is a sci-fi, futuristic, feminist anti-utopia. Yeah, go ahead and drink that in. It’s a comic book called “Bitch Planet” and completely lives up to both its name and aggressive, captivating writing style. It is set in the relatively near future, one where political dissidents–particularly female dissidents–are sent to a maximum security jail that is located on a nearby planet.

These women, who have proven to be politically active, to opinionated, too ethnic, or generally disagreeable, are labelled as “non-compliant,” and are subject to brutal and arbitrary treatment while in captivity. Here, though the message of “Bitch Planet” is clearly a feminist one, the writer and illustrator–Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro–utilize the archetype of separate planets as separate spheres to demonstrate profound difference in views not only between planets, but on each planet. The prisoners, unsurprisingly, view Earth as an oppressive, patriarchal regime, while those on Earth, even the women, disturbingly, pity the non-compliants and believe that their punishment is deserved for the betterment of society, hoping desperately for their rehabilitation and later return.

Another example is from another phenomenal comic book by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughn, called “Saga.” This story takes place in the much more distant future, where, for reasons yet unexplained, but shrouded in doubt of the brutal, aristocratic regime, a planet, Landfall, has gone to war with its own moon, Wreath. Here, the differences between the two worlds, not unlike in The Dispossessed, are physical, as well as political and social. The Landfallians are depicted with wings, and the Wreathians with horns. Wreath is also shown as a more of an impoverished and simple nation like Anarres, while Landfall is shown as affluent, and the home base for the oppressive Robot Kingdom, who has waged the war between the two, and are depicted as profiteering and morally challenged, not unlike Urras.

This structuring of worlds as separate spheres of thought is common in utopian/dystopian media, and I believe this to be the case because it is the starkest means through which to portray the creation of the “other.” Warring civilizations and politically disparate societies contain inherently differing ideals and mores. However, buy structuring two societies as literally worlds away from one another, the physical divide provides a dynamic all its own. More so than walls, which are another classic archetype of utopia/dystopia, separate worlds set a foundation of difference, of tension, on which to build two conflicting societies. I believe that, like The Dispossessed, “Saga,” and “Bitch Planet,” worlds featuring societies on separate and disparate planets are embedded with conflict and develop a story as much more utopian or dystopian than would be without this structure

. 

For this blog post, I will expand on the analysis of 1997-2002 MTV series Daria that I discussed for my long paper. In order to give some context, let me briefly describe the conclusions I drew in my paper dealing with the first 3 seasons of the series: essentially, I suggest that the creators of Daria have managed to create a critical dystopia through highly exaggerating social divisions between “brains” and non-brains. “Brains” are classified as intelligent and thinkers, something to abhor if one is a non-brain. The non-brains’ lives are dominated by appearances and material satisfaction. Daria asks its viewers to consider challenging the consumerist set of priorities set out in our society through educating our desires with the actions of the brains in the first season, pointing out the value in thought and the vacuous nature of prioritizing based on material consumption. However, as I argue in my analysis, the creators eventually begin to break down the societal barriers through depicting situations in which characters are forced to operate outside of their comfort zones. In doing so, the creators suggest to the audience that perhaps happiness is best found in breaking down social structures and accepting all for who they are. By the conclusion of Season 3, the viewer can feel confident that the series is attempting to display a wide variety of perspectives on day to day life in order to educate our desires for a world with less importance placed on consumerist living.

In the meantime, I have seen the entirety of Season 4 along with the Season 4 finale movie-style episode. At this point in the series, the walls of social structures have seriously been damaged; Daria’s ultra-non-brain sister Quinn attempts to get a tutor in the movie episode, “Is it Fall Yet?”, for example, demonstrating incredible character development while simultaneously educating our desires to seek and value knowledge. Quinn’s abandonment of attempting to impress her fashion-club friends in the pursuit of knowledge encourages the “non-brains” of the world to do the same; in other words, the movie encourages those who feel pressured to dumb themselves down due to social pressures to abandon their self-consciousness and engage in the pursuit of intelligence. Once again, Daria manages to educate our desires through breaking down social structures; however, by the close of Season 4, the technique is quite forward unlike the more subtle use of social dynamics in the first three seasons.

Furthermore, in my original analysis I suggested that the creators of the show also used the brains as a way to warn the viewer of the potential of self-imposed isolation with taking thought-based principals too far. Daria, while it attempts to dissuade a consumerist-based prioritization of life, also discourages a complete abandonment of reality: one must engage to a certain level in order to function. In Episode 13 of Season 4, “Dye! Dye! My Darling”, Daria commits an act that the viewer is surely shocked by: she kisses her best friend Jane’s boyfriend in the car! Daria, the foundation character of moral principle, the epitome of thought, blundered in a universally relatable way, committing the ultimate act of high school betrayal. However, the creators are careful not to create an evil image of Daria; in fact, Jane comes around and realizes her own denial with regard to the state of her relationship in fact could’ve led to the forbidden make-out session in the car. The viewer can then begin to realize the importance of forgiveness, even when someone commits a seeming act of betrayal; furthermore, it requires the viewer to come to terms with the possibility of failure, even if one does follow a “noble” path. Daria, who so often is depicted as a voice of reason in the show, was humbled in the most direct way possible: in one fell swoop, she betrayed a friend, acted on impulse, and engaged in hormonal driven romance. The takeaway: it’s okay, everyone is human, life will go on.

664 Words

The Hunger Games series is an excellent portrayal of a dystopian society, one in which a wealthy, central elite (the Capital) exploits peripheral districts into producing goods and services for the Capital’s consumption. The impoverished inhabitants of District 12 for instance, are required to engage in dangerous coal mining activities to only serve the Capital’s energy needs, without any expected social improvement for the district. By being forced into a de facto slavery, the inhabitants of the districts lose their self-determination and control over the direction of their lives. Such a situation inevitably leads to war and civil unrest, as clearly demonstrated by the series’ storyline. The conditions surrounding the unrest in the Hunger Games can be extrapolated to real society, evidenced by the enormous amounts of violence and instability experienced by countries recovering from a similar colonial oppression. What does this mean with respect to utopian theory concerning how to create the perfect society? It means that utopian societies must strive to allow for personal autonomy, letting their inhabitants to be free to pursue the direction of their lives as they see fit. Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: 2000-1887 demonstrates this line of thinking in encouraging people to pursue the work that best interests them, along with forcing everyone to participate in the mundane work that no one wants to do. This allows for both a healthy individualism and a collective unity that ensures a more balanced social prosperity. The opposite is seen in both colonialism and the Hunger Games. In these examples, social unity does not exist, while a clear subordination of one people over another does. While this may lead to short term prosperity for the dominating power (the Capital or colonial powers), it does not result in a lasting stability in which people can live in a manner true to themselves.

The two planets that are presented in The Dispossessed serve not as a comparison between a utopia and a dystopia, but as two separate approaches to achieve utopian space. If we look back at all of the novels we have read this semester, and as we have found, the drive to create an accurate depiction of the future can be exemplified through a multiplicity of theories. In What has occurred to many of us by now, is that there are similarities between The Dispossessed and Elysium (with bald Matt Damon). The separation of the Urrasti and Anarresti, and the effort put forth to maintain that separation, is directly analogous to the military forces used by the upper class citizens of Elysium to maintain and perpetuate the dichotomy between the rich and poor. In Elysium there is a clear notion of who is on top and who is on bottom. However, between Le Guin’s two planets there seems to be no enforcement of authority, more so just effort to maintain the alienation. They are both different means to the same ends, dichotomization and polarization. How does this fair for the readers/viewers of these accounts? What is the direction that human society is headed? When one considers the big scare around the environmental conditions in 2050, it seems plausible that the top 1% might end up acting in their own interests above the ‘less deserving’, OR that the middle and lower classes would try and establish some sovereignty for themselves.

In Elysium, the rich got their asses off of Earth after humanity had polluted it, and the poor were left to deal with the disparate conditions of slum life. This trajectory of the equity gap suggests that the two parties will continue polarize, that the result of the gap will ultimately be out of the hands of the commoner. Le Guin presents a trajectory in which the two income groups recognized the separation, and (through Odo) their paths split into two separate and distinct societies. What is common between the two upper class societies is that they hold no responsibility for the environmental conditions that their opposite parties live under. That is apparent today, the political West emits the highest levels of greenhouse gases as well as carbon emissions into the atmosphere, yet the global poor are the one’s who must deal with the indirect effects of economic globalization. In Chuck Collins’ article, he points out that the screenshots of Elysium were based off of Malibu beach homes and that scenes on Earth were shot in a populated garbage dump in Mexico City. That the two stark contrasts in living conditions are in fact real and tangible is a problematic thing to consider when trying to decipher the path that our society will take versus the path it should take in regards to income inequality. What I understand from the subtitle of The Dispossessed, An Ambiguous Utopia, is that utopia can be achieved through a number of means, and is all relative to how an individual or group of individuals responds to issues as it arises. The polarizing income gap is creating two different groups that hold different ideologies on a number of different issues, including how to respond to the very gap that exists… we’ll see which values prevail.

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Print.

Collins, Chuck. “A Documentary Antidote to a Future ‘Elysium'” Inequalityorg. Inequlaity.org Staff, 27 Sept. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

New developments in the business world have led to the emergence of companies which are communities unto themselves. These companies often provide more than just a paycheck and health care benefits to their employees. Their facilities include fitness centers, catered cafeterias, in house daycare and on site medical facilities.  For companies, particularly software companies, their major asset is all their employees whose skills and productivity have improved their products. Creating spaces full of free food and perks help these companies keep employees happy and satisfied and entice them to continue working for their current company.

At RTI International in Raleigh, North Carolina, employees have access to an on-site fitness center and a cafeteria with great food. SAS Institute in Cary, North Carolina offers both on-site fitness and on-site health care as well as offering employees the option to take paid time off to volunteer.  Genentech, a biotech company in South San Francisco, employees enjoy all these perks as well as paid sabbaticals and reimbursement for college tuition.  This company enjoys playing elaborate April Fools day pranks on its employees to build a sense of community and corporate culture.

Although companies like Google and Facebook are famous for their employee focused facilities, these work well on a smaller level as well. RTI International has around 3,700 employees worldwide to Google’s over 54,000. However, they still feel creating a compound which caters to all their employees’ needs is an important way to do business.  Their employees can join sports teams and take time out of their work day to compete in games. Their social life can be entirely focused around activities offered where they work. 

These workplaces seem to be a type of intentional community. Shifting corporate culture now encourages empowering employees and giving them these types of benefits will motivate them to be more productive and in turn bring benefits the company itself. Building a community in a corporate setting is an interesting proposition, since employees do spend a majority of their lives working.  More of these corporate communities are sure to emerge as business culture continues to dream of a way to improve corporate life and increase profits.

These workspaces raise interesting questions to consider.  Should workplaces be spaces for intentional communities to flourish? Or are they encouraging workers to spend too much time at their jobs and hurting work life balances? What does this trend say about the relationships Americans have with their jobs, and how can we make these relationships better? Should we try to make them better?

I was thinking the other day……What would someone from the past view our world as now? Would they view this as a Utopia or a Dystopia. Obviously with all of the war and fighting going on a lot of people would call this a dystopia but looking past all of that. Just looking at the things we view as normal. We don’t give it much thought today, but factory work as seen through the eyes of someone living before the Industrial Revolution would have seemed indescribably nightmarish. Prior to the 19th century, most people worked on farms or as artisans. The idea that humans could be automated and made to work as machines on assembly lines would have seemed completely inhuman.

Another thing that has changed a great amount in the past years is privacy. Privacy is dead. We like to think that it’s not, but it’s dead. It had been dying for quite a while, but the death blows came with the advent of the internet and the introduction of the Patriot Act a sweeping and reactionary piece of legislation that has made life considerably easier for law enforcement officials. As it stands, the FBI can unilaterally search email, telephone, and financial records without a court order.

I mean, just imagine if your great great grandparents came back and saw the world we live in, do you think they would view this as a Utopia or Dystopia. I believe this argument can go both ways. What do you think?

Ursula Le Guin opens her novel with the image of a wall. This wall is a real, material representation of a symbolic separation between the planets Anarres and Urras.  Le Guin reminds the readers that like her novel, the wall is all about perspective. “What was inside [the wall] and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on” (Le Guin 1).  Similarly, the look we get at Urras and Avarres in the first two chapters of The Dispossessed depends on which side Shevek is on- the perspective is different as Shevek-the-man arrives in Urras than Shevek-the-boy learning the values of his society and experimenting with his peers.

Through the eyes of Shevek-the-boy, we see Avarres first as a place where parents must leave their infant children to benefit society, which is easier for some than for others. As Shevek develops into a thoughtful young man, his experience causes him to arrive at some hard conclusions. “‘No society can change the nature of existence. We can’t prevent suffering. This pain and that pain, yes, but not Pain. A society can only relieve social suffering, unnecessary suffering’” (le Guin 60).  From the Avarres side of the wall, the goal is to eliminate suffering through community, as the other students mentioned. Their very society was driven by a desire to alleviate suffering through “mutual aid” (Le Guin 61). However, Shevek realizes quite early that no community, no matter how Utopian, can prevent all human suffering. It was, simply, a fact of life.

Mark Tunick argues that this is one of Le Guin’s goals in the novel. Neither society is presented as a one-size-fits-all cure for humanity’s woes. “The Dispossessed rejects one-sided and simplistic ideals that can lead only to hypocrisy. Le Guin’s text points, in its very structure, to the limits of the Odonian’s one-sided and conflicting ideals of an open society with negative freedom and no authority, and of brotherhood and community—or of the Urrasti’s equally one-sided ideal of “possessive individualism,” and to the need for reconciliation” (Tunick 142).  By clinging to their own ideas without considering each other’s perspective, the Urrasti and the Avarrasti are placing themselves on opposite sides of a wall.  Without realizing that their perspective depends entirely on where they are standing, each society continues promoting their own values as the best way to live.  Ursula le Guin prevents the reader from making the same mistake by telling us from the very beginning that where you stand informs your perspective while forces you to simultaneously face both sides due to the structure of the novel.  Many utopias are concerned with walls but the walls in Le Guin’s work are largely symbolic. The divide between the Urrasti and the Avarrasti stem from a refusal to see their world from the opposite side of the wall.

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula. The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Print.

Tunick, Mark. “The Need for Walls: Privacy, Community, and Freedom in The Dispossessed.” The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. By Laurence Davis and Peter G. Stillman. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2005. 129-43. Print.

How can language affect the way we think and live our lives? This is a question that Utopian thinkers such as Ursula Le Guine in The Dispossessed, try to answer. The values of people are reflect through the way we speak. In The Dispossessed, the language of us the Annaresi, Pravic, lacks language that refers to property. As property does not exist, referring to this as “mine” or “yours” does not exist. From a young age, children are taught to avoid things. In the opening passage of chapter two Shevek’s father scolds him “you can’t have things! What’s wrong with you?”. Speech regarding sex is also very limited. The word “copulate’ is used to describe sex as it is “something two people did, not something one person does or has”. The only other word used to describe sex in Pravic is “’fuck,’ [which] had a similar secondary usage as a curse, was specific: it meant rape”. These sensitivities towards speaking about sex portray the Annaresi value of equality of the sexes. Women are treated equal to men within society.

In Anthem by Ayn Rand, similar modifications to speech are made, yet in a dystopian context. The characters of Anthem speak only using plural pronouns (we and they). In Rand’s dystopian future the individual is no longer valued, only the collective. The novel resolves with protagonist Equality 7-2521 discovering the word ‘I’ and individuality while reading an ancient book.

In both novels the authors reimagine language in worlds drastically different from our own. While Le Guine pictures a world where language is used to promote equality for the better, Rand displays the same concept in an oppressive authoritarian context

Utopias are difficult to conceive.  We all have criticisms of the world in which we live and while it takes imagination and skill to successfully write a dystopia that captures the ways in which our current world is going awry the initial steps are easier – most of your readers will agree that something is amiss and many readers will delight in the exaggerations of the dystopian version of our world.  But utopias are harder.  Not because we do not all have visions of what a better world might look like, but because we recognize the ways in which one person’s vision of a better world in another person’s vision of a dystopia.   Beyond this stumbling block is the reader’s own immediate and likely constant questioning: this could never work! People do not act in these ways!  Nobody would want to live in that way!  This author’s failure to (properly understand waste management, appreciate early childhood education, endorse all varieties of sexual practice, abolish violence) means I can reject this book out of hand!   It is naïve!

These attitudes are easy to see in reading historical utopias – the visions of a better world of those living hundreds of years ago is not our own vision of a better world (although we might take ourselves to task when we still have not solved some of the problems of their own contemporary worlds).

This is a long introduction into what I appreciate about Le Guin’s The Dispossessed: the first thing I appreciate is that she has written a utopia (even if she labels it an ambiguous one).  Contemporary utopias are hard to find and her willingness to try and construct a radically better world that speaks to us is worth celebrating.   But it is not the mere fact of The Dispossessed being written (I also appreciate Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time or Sheri Tepper’s Gate to Woman’s Country – but I do not love those books as I love this one).   There are five features of The Dispossessed that will make me return to it again and again as a utopia (and a good read):

1) Le Guin is clear that the tension between the good of the individual and the good of the community is hard – Shevek struggles as an introvert in a world of people far more content with community living.  On the other hand Shevek is committed to the community in deep ways – he is not choosing between his own good and the good of Anarres.  He is (like a good Anarresti) seeing how his pursuit of his own good is functional for his community (even if they do not see it that way).

2) Le Guin has illustrated a world where the structures created by humans do not exist to denigrate, degrade or destroy.  Shevek notes to Efor (his Urrasti servant that while people on Annares have starved “nobody goes hungry while another eats” (285)).  And we struggle with this because we do know that when Shevek was on the train returning from his emergency posting in Southrising that the train was stopped to allow provision trains to pass and that during the stoppage the train sat for twenty hours with no food for the passengers.  The town at which it was stopped did not share its food.  This is presented as both rational and problematic “Ideally they would all share all half-eat or half-starve together” but to feed the 450 people on the train would deplete their food stores for days, not knowing when the next provision train came through.  And so, in this instance, one group on Anarres went hungry while another group ate.  But Shevek is not lying to Efor.  The cause of this was twofold: an accident up the line and one “overworked or underschooled dispatcher” (255).  In neither case is there a systematic structure in place that keeps one group down and another group up.  The incident is due to a combination of an accident and human error – but the incident is not a sign of how “the system” really works.  Could people in the town have acted better – absolutely.  But their acting badly is not a sign that Anarres is rotten.

3) By telling the story through the experiences of someone who struggles on Anarres, Le Guin gives voice to our own questions and concerns.  Rather than dismiss the overly “patriotic” member of the Anarresti community (this would be a difficult book were we to read it from Rulag’s perspective!) we are given space to be skeptical and then, ultimately to be talked into Anarres.  Shevek is slow to see the flaws in his community – the ways in which Sabul is small-minded and power hungry (in a system where positions of power are in short supply). We see those flaws before Shevek, but once he does see them, we work through those flaws with Shevek.  At no point does he abandon Annares.  Even in going to Urras, Shevek acts for himself and for his community.  He might well be wrong – the potential threat of Urras is real.  But Shevek’s reasons are not self serving.

4) The style in which Le Guin has written the book – alternating between chapters on Urras and chapters on Anarres gives the skeptical voice of the reader fodder for skepticism.  As in Omelas, where Le Guin is talking to the reader as much as narrating the story, so too here is Le Guin aware of her reader’s skepticism – and she manipulates her reader – the reader who is less skeptical about Urras (it is so beautiful! So familiar!) and always skeptical about Anarres (the teacher is mean to a child! The mother abandons the son!).   But Anarres is transparent – we see its flaws from the start and we see Shevek learning about those flaws and learning that he must act).  Urras is opaque (and opaque in ways that we should find familiar).  Urras is “wrapped up in cotton in a box in a wrapping in a carton in a plastic film” (343) (think  of the scene of Mr Bean in Love Actually wrapping Snape’s gift for his adultery producing girlfriend).  But just when we think we have seen Urras, just when we understand that it is a state run by the rich and powerful and connected who will shoot their own people simply for protesting high unemployment and a draft, we learn about Terra – our Terra: “My world, my earth is a ruin.  A planet spoiled by the human species.  We multiplied and gobbled and fought until there was nothing left, and then we died.  We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves.  But we destroyed the world first” (347).

5) Finally, The Dispossessed is an excellent love story – Shevek and Takver, Takver and Sadik, Bedap and Pilun, Shevek and Bedap, Palat and Shevek: friends, partners, children, parents, this is a book that delights in the positive interactions between and among people – and what could be more utopian than that?  The concept of Ammar – brother or sister (and it is our language, not Pravic, that fails to be gender neutral) is brought to life.  But this does not mean that Anarres is filled with sappy people who love everyone.  Instead le Guin is clear that to love is to love an individual for who that individual is.  There are certainly characters that seem pretty unloveable (Sabul, Rulag) but that is not a problem to be solved.

Che Guevara once said of revolutionaries that they were, by necessity, “guided by great feelings of love”.  Though Guevara was speaking of a more general and abstract love, a love for country or for “the people”, there is some value to confronting the relationship between love and revolution.  Both We and 1984 confront the influence of love, lust, and desire in the making of a revolution, and all indicate an importance to love and sex within the human experience that the dystopian societies the protagonists live in actively try to suppress. However, both also confront the fallibility of this idealistic approach to love and revolution.

D-503 is particularly interesting because his love seems purely animalistic in Zamyatin’s description of it, perhaps not deserving of the label, and his interest in the revolution seems less like “political awareness” as Horan claims it is and more like blindly following the magnetic seductress he’s attached himself to.  Meeting her allows him to begin dreaming, feeling, imagining, but all the while he remains resistant to these new experiences and only dragged along because of an inability to control himself physically.  At no point does he actually achieve political consciousness, which makes the betrayal of principles that D-503 commits via the Great Operation (albeit forcibly) feel less like a tragedy and more like an inevitability.

Thomas Horan, in his article “Revolutions From the Waist Downwards”, claims that the major dystopian authors (Huxley, Orwell, Zamyatin) “present sexual desire as an aspect of the self that can never be fully appropriated”. Certainly, sex is depicted as something that the One State and Big Brother have difficulty fully subsuming, choosing instead to regulate it as best they can in order to nullify it – in the case of We, through the registration for sexual partners.  But I take issue with this assessment of Zamyatin and Orwell’s depictions of sex/love as revolutionary given the ruin that their respective protagonists are brought to, capitulating entirely to the state regardless of how powerful their love supposedly is.  In fact, I would argue that these authors are in many instances making precisely the opposite point.  Perhaps what these authors are getting at is not that sex and love and faith and other elements that one could lump underneath the category of “the human condition” are the keys to revolution in a possible dystopian world, but instead just other elements of the tissue of daily life  that will inevitably be taken control of by the state – a form of dread creation rather than an example of hope.

Works Cited

Horan, Thomas.  “Revolutions from the waist downwards: desire as rebellion in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, George Orwell’s 1984, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.”  Extrapolation, 48(2), p.314.  Retrieved from GALE.