https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas
Utopia requiring the perpetual suffering of a child.
Actually pretty fucked up they didn't credit her, it's almost the same story
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas
Utopia requiring the perpetual suffering of a child.
Actually pretty fucked up they didn't credit her, it's almost the same story
The Giver is also based on this premise and came out after Le Guin's version.
Didn't realize it was a common trope.
Always felt like the giver had this very anti-communist bent. Like "hey look what you'd give up in this egalitarian society! All those gritty aspects of life is what makes it worth living!". Maybe I'm just wrong
Yeah it was definitely anti-communitarian and pro-individualism.
It is literally the foundation this capitalist world order is built upon :parenti:. The wealth of the western world is gained from the exploitation of the global south, and this philosophy of "equal exchange" in life: that one must suffer so other may prosper; is nothing more than a cowardly attempt to justify this system.
I find this incredibly funny personally because my mom tried to team up with the mom of this incredibly sheltered kid who was also evangelical to try to get us to not read this book. The entire time she didn't realize the book essentially reinforced her beliefs.
Banning books based on vibes is a whole trope by itself.
Most intellectual reactionary
it undeniably reflects the liberal politics of the author, but to me it reads as more incidental than a pointed anti-communist allegory, since the society as presented doesn't really make sense, and it's not made clear why the elements of total central control are necessitated by the elements of stability and material comfort. i think it works better at a baser emotional level in its depiction of a single, secret point of cruelty shattering the protagonist's understanding of his apparently harmonious world. i know it definitely affected me greatly as a kid.