"The woman's skin was yellow-brown, like ferrous earth, and hairless, except on the scalp; not shaven, but hairless. The features were strange and childlike, small mouth, low-bridged nose, eyes with long full lids, cheeks and chin rounded, fat-padded. The whole figure was rounded, supple, childlike."
The woman is Ambassador Keng, from Earth. She is on the Planet Urras, located 11 light years from Earth. The time is several centuries into the future. She is speaking to Shevek; an Odonian physicist and an anarchist, from the desert world, Annares. Annares was founded as an Anarchic State, 150 years previous, by revolutionaries who voluntarily left Urras to live on their desert planet free from rule. In the passages below, Ambassador Keng is rationalizing injustice and social inequality.
"Let me tell you how this world seems to me. To me, and to all my fellow Terrans who have seen the planet, Urras is the kindliest, most various, most beautiful of all the inhabited worlds. It is the world that comes as close as any could to Paradise."
"...I know it's full of evils, full of human injustice, greed, folly, waste. But it is also full of good, of beauty, vitality, achievement. It is what a world should be! It is alive, tremendously alive---alive, despite all its evils, with hope."
"...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. There are no forests left on my Earth. The air is grey, the sky is grey, it is always hot. It is habitable, it is still habitable, but not as this world is. This is a living world, a harmony. Mine is a discord. You Odonians chose a desert; we Terrans made a desert... We survive there, as you do. People are tough! There are nearly a half billion of us now. Once there were nine billion. You can see the old cities still everywhere. The bones and bricks go to dust, but the little pieces of plastic never do---they never adapt either. We failed as a species, as a social species."
"...[we] saved what could be saved, and made a kind of life in the ruins, on Terra, in the only way it could be done: by total centralization. Total control over the use of every acre of land, every scrap of metal, every ounce of fuel. Total rationing, birth control, euthanasia, universal conscription into the labor force. The absolute regimentation of each life toward the goal of racial survival. We had acheived that much, when the Hainish came. They brought us a little more hope. Not very much. We have outlived it. We can only look at this splendid world, this vital society, this Urras, this Paradise, from the outside. We are capable only of admiring it, and maybe envying it a little. Not very much."
"...We forfeited our chance for [Justice and Social Equality] centuries ago, before it ever came into being."
Shevek's response:
"You don't understand what time is. You say the past is gone, the future is not real, there is no change, no hope. You think [Social Equality] is a future that cannot be reached, as your past cannot be changed. So there is nothing but the present, this Urras, the rich, real, stable present, the moment now. And you think that is something that can be possessed! You envy it a little. You think it's something you would like to have. But it is not real, you know. It is not stable, not solid---nothing is. Things change, change. You cannot have anything. And least of all can you have the present, unless you accept with it the past and the future. Not only the past but also the future, not only the future but also the past! Because they are real; only their reality makes the present real. You will not achieve or even understand [beauty and vitality] unless you accept the reality, the enduring reality, of [Justice]. You are right, [Social Equality] is the key. But when you said that, you did not really believe it. You don't believe in [Justice]. You don't believe in me, though I stand with you, in this room, in this moment. My people were right, and I was wrong in this: We cannot come to you. You will not let us. You do not believe in change, in chance, in evolution. You would destroy [a world] rather than admit our reality, rather than admit that there is hope! [Justice] cannot come to you. [Justice] can only wait for you to come to [it]."
"...there is nothing here but States and their weapons, the rich and their lies, and the poor and their misery. There is no way to act rightly, with a clear heart, on Urras. There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and the wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is 'superior' to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother to other people, you must manipulate them, or command them, or obey them, or trick them. You cannot touch another person, yet they will not leave you alone. There is no freedom. It is a box---Urras is a box, a package, with all the beautiful wrapping of blue sky and meadows and forests and great cities. And you open the box, and what is inside it? A black cellar full of dust, and a dead man. A man whose hand was shot off because he held it out to others."
The quoted passages above are from "The Dispossessed" - a 1974 science fiction novel by Ursula K. LeGuin. (The brackets indicate my interpretation of metaphorical equivalents where the original would lack context.)
This week, after finishing the book, I have come back to these and other passages to further absorb the disquieting prescience, and to explore the idea of Revolution, how it associates with Happiness, and how this may relate to us. The remainder of this week's written thought is this examination and exploration, (including some additional paraphrased interpretation), that may branch beyond this moment's intent.
According to Shevek, "the separation of means and ends is false." According to Shevek, "there is no end." In the larger context of the entire novel, I believe he defines Revolution as the means with no end, or the process that connects the past with the future. To seek mere pleasure or (lower-case) happiness is to come to an end and begin again; it is a circular moment that works within, thereby against, time. To seek Wisdom and Truth and Authenticity, (i.e. upper-case Happiness), is to consider the past and the future and realize there is no end; it is a continuum that works alongside, thereby with, time. Revolution then, works with time and offers an individual the opportunity to work toward Wisdom and Truth and Authenticity. REVOLUTION IS AN INDIVIDUAL ACTION COMPELLED BY INDIVIDUAL THOUGHT. REVOLUTION REQUIRES PAIN. Conformity and bureaucracy and wishful thinking and quiescence are all circular moments.
Revolution is necessary for progress, but Revolution scares the powerful. The powerful prefer to encourage conformity, and to add to bureaucracy, and to energize wishful thinking, and to maintain quiescence; and they call this progress---and we frequently believe them. We believe them because we don't understand the difference between power and expertise; (see PRIVILEGED HAPPINESS 8/5/17 and IMPROVING HAPPINESS 8/26/17). We believe them because we are told to be nice at the expense of truthfulness; (see HAPPINESS FRACTURED 5/7/16). We believe them because "the future is not my concern;" (see HAPPINESS STRANDED 1/27/18 and HAPPINESS STRANDED PART 2 2/3/18). We believe them because we believe subservience is cooperation. We believe them because it is easier. To seek and to find pleasure and (lower-case) happiness is easier today than ever before. Thus, to seek Wisdom and Truth and Authenticity has become more Revolutionary today than ever before; and, (it's worth repeating), Revolution requires individual thought and pain.
In this new age of technological wonders, government is failing us; capitalism has failed us; our social and spiritual leaders have failed us; education is failing us; we are failing us; I am failing us. REVOLUTION IS NECESSARY to rid ourselves of institutions that have outlived their usefulness, and to redirect those stuck in circular moments toward the future to again work alongside time.
In this moment, we are slightly less than 1.6 billion individuals from the 9 billion projected in our (fictional?) dystopian future as presented above. At our current rate, we will reach 9 billion in less than 20 years. I (want to) believe that we have more than two decades of "blue sky and meadows and forests and great cities," but I also believe that if we do not consider Revolution NOW, we will risk our blue sky. Simply put, we will replace the possibility of propitious with the inevitability of bleak.
