To come back around to my biggest issue with Noah's piece - Haber is NOT an "activist." Haber does not agitate for change in his society. Haber has dreams of heroism, sure. But only when a magic dude who can change reality falls in his lap does he go "I can make shit happen!"
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Replying to @zhinxy_vs_media @arthur_affect and
There aren’t any activists though in that world. Haber looks a bit like caricatures if activists I think. Like, he’s not MLK, but ppl said MLK was like him, and LeGuon doesn’t contest him with actual activists, but with perfect balance George.
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Replying to @nberlat @arthur_affect and
looking "a bit" like activists isn't much of an argument he's her comment on activism, though.
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Replying to @zhinxy_vs_media @arthur_affect and
He looks a lot like caricatures of activists, and there are no activists in this world to compare him to. So it seems reasonable to wonder what that says re her ideas about changing society.
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Replying to @nberlat @zhinxy_vs_media and
Like, our dreams are limited, bu my the limits have meaning, and here and in omegas part of the impossible dream is apparently that ppl like MLK exist.
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Replying to @nberlat @zhinxy_vs_media and
Haber's first big dream literally eliminates MLK from history I mean, this is extremely explicit in the story It's Heather's whole backstory -- her mom and dad met organizing for SNCC, her parents got together because of her white dad's efforts at performative allyship
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Replying to @arthur_affect @zhinxy_vs_media and
Does it? Or is MLK even there? It certainly seems like it’s Le Guin who erases him first...
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Replying to @nberlat @zhinxy_vs_media and
SNCC would not have existed if not for the civil rights movement And SNCC is central to Heather's backstory, and Heather is a major character
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Replying to @nberlat @arthur_affect and
If the activist efforts at change are a failure which shape Heather, and she’s gobsmacked by Orr’s quiet strength, and he rescues her from her anger through dreaming her as his wife...
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"Rescuing her from her anger" is not a positive thing -- Gray Heather, the version of Heather who is completely free of it, is a sign of the world becoming too unreal to function
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Replying to @arthur_affect @nberlat and
The "happy ending" of the story is one that restores Original Heather to the degree that she doesn't even remember meeting George, much less being married to him
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Replying to @arthur_affect @nberlat and
It's all authoritarian. This is why I don't like George. "Helping" isn't that same as "choosing on someone's behalf by eliding their capacity to do so."
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