Common Place Book

Le Guin's blog: http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Blog2013.html#New

This takes place in her Hainish universe (has an entire series regarding this universe)

genetically we would all descend from the same group of colonizers, and then there was a huge intergalactic war that destroyed Hain - the Envoys are Hain reaching back out to their previous colonies

Feminism in her work

rather than giving us man and woman and telling us about their equality, she makes this society both unbelievable and believable by putting us in world that she constructs and she can make the point through keeping the reader as an ultimate outsider

she can include and invalidate common mysogynistic claims by debasing gender stereotypes

She's not trying to say patriarchy will end with androgeny, but more of what would bring a way about it through thought experiment -- overstating what men might do in a patriarchal society

huge commentary on how we view other people

Pronouns: the use of the masculine pronouns kind of hides just how easy it is to assign gender -- that "he" is the "less limiting" pronoun attributes more of the power and structure to the male figure and persona 

no females within the book

has a male narrators because she has male readers - playing into her readers and environments 

Shifgrethor:

taking away the power structure of gender means that they have to replace the power structure elsewhere -- shifgrethor replaces the power structure necessary

their way of relating to people 

our politics is intertwined with our gender

Environment and its role

cold you can always be warmer and he just isnt - shows the way he is treated by society; don't make the effort (either the society or himself)

our connotations of heat versus cold are very different - the hostile environment would be different; cold person is bad vs. warm person who is good

more probable to encounter a cold climate than a warm climate - makes the discomfort realistic

cold environment: action is required - in a warm environment, lethargy is encouraged

Trust

different systems of trust between Orgoreyn and Karhide? Orgoreyn's is a reversed system; Orogoreyn's are completely all show rather than action and Karhide seems less trustworthy but in action really is -- Karhide always speaks circles around the truth and never really gets to it

Orgoreyn pits the "truth" into what they want people to think, while Karhide is very transparent regarding their trust

Trust as currency: shifgrethor

Shifgrethor and its relation to Confucianism

Truth gives the people a certain degree of power both to do action and to point out the weaknesses involved in the governing bodies - would disrupt the society and the way they are interested in running it

Progress

Winter unconcerned with progress - values held more highly than progress; the mindset of survival prevents them from risking 

Progress is a product of comfort - rewards might not outweigh the risk within their society

Stove: technology is there but the Karhidians don't necessarily see the value of the use

Utopias seem to freeze society at its best point while Dystopic societies tend to be a product of progress gone wild --> a Utopia is supposed to be a "perfect place", implying that there's something better goes against the idea of a Utopic society, but dystopic societies seem to be at a standstill as well, preventing further progress (PARADOX - 1984, Blade Runner, etc)

Is it the idea of progress being made without being disseminated?

Progress = fear of unknown; appears a lot in Dystopic societies

(Class Discussion)

Technology --> 20th century

"Romanticism": late 18th century to mid 19th century, poster child was really 'Rousseau "Tabula Rosa" 

"Modernity" 

is this utopic or dystopic? Has strands of both -- arguing for a return to what is OR is not "natural"

What makes it "natural"??

kinship?

sex?

race? (possibly suggesting that race is something other than a biological phenomenon and more of an aspect to/creation of human interaction) 

art?

nation?

What do we want to talk about:

rituals of war? --> rape? (is this seen as something "natural" in terms of what the human is, thinking of it as this society making people more in touch with their animalistic senses? human supposed to be the ideal version in this society)

helicopter war

holistic health - thinking of it especially with the idea of sex being a large factor of health (disability/eugenics)

education -- biology/physics/practicality 

family and kinship ties

community/neighborhoods and communal living

economics

Is there a relationship between Utopia and Dystopia? Kind of depends on how you look at the society and in what framework you view it. 

The Second Coming (Yeats) intertextual reference

How the human body plays into their lifestyle

very up front about their humanistic needs of violence and sex

Marissa: Person or symbol?

kind of both - used her almost as justification for some of his humanistic development; uses her as a second reinforcement for his actions

their differences highlight the differences between Ecotopia and America

Gender:

Vera Allwen as President - interesting for him to face her after coming from such a sexist background

Vera vs. Marissa show the large spectrum of femininity 

Race and political stability

all the minorities seem secessionist; all about being their own nation which supports their general nationhood, but their practices support small communities closing themselves off

soul city, moving the black people pretty much to Monterrey; making Jewish Americans their own thing; is it because of a comfort aspect to human nature? 

against the Apartheid society of South Africa - segregation clouds the future of their nation etc 

devaluing a lot of the things like sex, violence, race -- looking at things at face value? or is it the opposite of Protestantism that dominated the American values for so long

the conglomeration and distribution patterns - a typical pattern of ecology; have seen patters of human behavior that compartmentalize and join together over and over again

Art's place in this society:

Ecotopia-inspired retake on future San Francisco

"I love her for her freeness, even when it hurts" (82) 

Class Discussion: If this is the utopia and the way in which technology plays into life, what are the dystopic factors that mirror it? How does San Francisco play a large role in the creation of such a utopic society?

have a world view that technology will always provide an answer to the problems that we face in life; influence of Silicon Valley etc

Packer makes the claims that in 1970, there was just a 10% of African Americans and now there is just an African American population of 4% - demonstrates the increase of the white nerd population who is more concerned about creating tech start ups rather than things like the public education system

cultural values being expressed are hyberolized values; utopia societies are incredibly homogenous - the culture embodied by the Pacific Northwest is embodied through Ecotopia and almost universalized and extremified throughout the society

"'Do you want to make love with me?' .... her assertiveness unnerved me a moment. She's not at all submissive or attentive." (56)

"there seems to be no agenda: I feel no compulsion to fuck her, though she is enormously desirable to me. She never says in words whether anything pleases her or not. It's as if the whole American psychodrama of mutual suspicion between the sexes, demands and counterdemands and our desperate working at sex like a problem to be solved, has left my head." (59)

These two quotes, and many, many more, represent the juncture between "american" gender relations portrayed in Ecotopia with the Ecotopian male and female interactions. The relationship between Marissa and Will is obviously out of tune with what the common patterns of female behavior have been laid as expectation for those in America. Are the submissive and seemingly fleeting female roles truly beneficial for societal goings on? It seems as though Marissa, being the first steady and desired woman in Will's life, sets the standard for the independent and efficient woman that serves as the status quo throughout Ecotopia. What about the break from the United States served as the freeing point for women within the rebel society? Was it really just that they felt their needs were left unmet for the 200 years of American independence? What about the break between the two countries solidified the muddled relations between men and women in the United States? 

These two quotes also reveal the different role that sex plays in this utopic society, seeing as we have read texts that nearly portray sex as a tool of manipulation or power. In this sense, sexual relations are not tied with anything other than the carnal need for interaction. Will, as an American, is used to wading through complicated social interaction and communication before beginning advances with a woman. In this society, however, the two genders are set on a much more equal playing field, and I think that drains some of the 'power' women typically find in sexual relationships. Because the two genders are more balanced in their initiations of sexual interaction, the male does not have to so ardently pursue the female - they pursue each other and therefore interact as equals. 

We may be a little on this one, but we saw this graphic novel/comic strip today that compares the future predictions of Aldous Huxley's "Bra...

The book

question that gets failed to be asked is "Why" (rather than "where" like in Utopia) - refusal to provide an answer might be the frustration of the book; what is not represented and why is it excluded?

Winston writes "i understand the how but not the why?"

Gender

Love? - are they in love?

seeking humanity in each other rather than actually be in love how we interpret 

meaninglessness is jarring in their reunion because they had previously sought out individuality, humanity, and risk within each other - they have been almost broken by society into not even wanting those ideals anymore

are they the most able to love as their emotional competencies will allow? In love with the concept of Julia, but Winston does highlight the fact that she's "just a rebel from the waist down" ; he feels like he might just be the next notch on a bed post, but then there is the tension where she is the one demanding access to Winston

deconstructing their relationship: not a relationship of love, but more of an opportunistic relationship for both partners 

Winston - conscious of himself, questions of rebellious nature

wasn't about doing the actual act of sex, more of the idea that they were able to think -- it was a political act; affirming the notion that everything in the mind exists rather than within the outside world

sex was not for the relationship or pleasure but for the risk

118: relationship between parents and children; parents still love their children but children do not care for their parents

What is the best way to survive and succeed in this society?

being both smart and stupid at the same time; balancing your intelligence is knowing when to turn your brain off 

fully accept the concepts that are being indoctrinated

does anyone really accept the society?

Language: how does language shape the way in which we think and vice versa?

Newspeak is limiting in its emotional conditioning and control

would that allow greater emotional control or less? would that help limit emotions or spur hate?

if you can't express something with words is it still there? O'brien says there isn't

Time: meaninglessness of time -- very much so a large, incomprehensible concept outside of a controlled setting; government manipulating the context and concept of existence 

delegitimizing the idea that you do in fact exist since you determine your existence by understanding that you exist in a particular time and place

Is there a concept of what humanity is? Is there a "you" without the Party?

concept of individual - they also go a long way to get rid of the individual in utopia and dystopia; any kind of control over society means that you need to dismantle the individual

does imperfection source from the mind or body? or both? 

is it human nature to assume the future of the Party onto oneself as their personal hope, or should they be looking for their own personal goals/futures?

Does progress have to stop in order to get a Utopia?

Erewhon - reverts back in their progress

- Film noire: dystopias really became popular in the 1970s 

- Roy killing Tyrell; a possible allusion to Oedipus - killing his creator (mother and father) and poking his own eyes out in a way (commenting that Tyrell embodies Roy's self considering Tyrell has put himself within each of the Replicants)

Emotionality: how the robots are almost more emotional than the human characters

- End chase scene: Roy goes animalistic for a little while and that period is almost the most human aspect of his existence (birth/death at the same time)

Eyes: metaphor for all the different ways to see the same thing in a different way; draws upon the manner in which replicants see themselves and how people view the different replicants. Also mirrors the issue with memory and how the eyes strongly connect to the soul and the being ("you don't know what my eyes have seen") 

Role of mothers: what does the family mean in the Utopia?

- When discussing his rank, why is Bernard even capable of making such astute social analysis? He can clearly feel isolate, and wasn't sentiment (or rather its prevention) the primary motivation behind the processes of conception?

- Bernard and Hemholtz relationship is the clear highlighting of isolation/isolationist tendencies (can carry over into the contemporary social structure that is typically seen where "outsiders" always seem to link up) [pgs ~66]

- LET'S TALK ABOUT DRUGS

- "Not the mind, but the yearning bowels of compassion" (page 80) could be the second runner up for the commonplace book quote -this simple sentence shows the almost devious air to the humanity-plugs the society attempts to pull off through Solidarity services, and how vilified feelings are; Second Solidarity Hymn plugging the idea of sacrifice for the betterment of the general population

Source: Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

Source: Brave New World - Aldous Huxley Page 34-35

This excerpt struck me due to the high regard most societies we know of have for their historical foundation. Instead of seeing history as a culturally and societally enhancing mechanism, this society sees history as a threat; unnecessary to the goings on about life at this point. They regard the past as simple and inane, not two pages prior making fun of the barrier against sexuality in children. It is remarkable the items mentioned that have become so pivotal to in the formation of what we know and feel as our culture that have been actively wiped from societal memory.