schmevil

*spams* I'm apparently too tired to comment usefully on anything, so I'm just spamming your flists with excerpts. Whoops. Anyway, interesting retrospective review of Left Hand of Darkness.

The truth is self-evident: Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness isn't about gender, by Josh Wimmer

The Left Hand of Darkness is about a lot of things. It might be a (literally cold) cold war metaphor in some ways, with the semi-anarchic monarchy of Karhide, where Genly's story starts, standing in for the U.S., and the rival communist nation of Orgoreyn, where Genly almost dies, as the U.S.S.R. It plays with history as cycle, breaking up the primary narrative with Gethenian myths that are relived by Genly and the other main character, the exiled Karhidish prime minister Estraven. And it spends a lot of time on the harmony between dichotomy and unity — yin and yang, I and Thou, individual and group. The novel's title refers to light — the opposite hand of darkness — the point being that, pervasive Judeo-Christian and other religious metaphors notwithstanding, light alone isn't good, isn't any better than darkness alone. Life deals in both.

Genly's coming-to-terms is really about overcoming that obstacle in his thinking — internalizing the understanding that life is not about any single way. Maybe paradoxically, it's also about his recognizing the power of the solitary self. He's sent alone by the Ekumen on his mission not merely because of a Prime Directive–esque philosophy that one person can't do too much harm, but also because only a self can really connect with anyone else. Any group identity is a convenient fiction — there are similarities between students at the same school, or citizens of the same country, or followers of the same religion, but nearly any time you say, "[Group X] is..." you're flattening a complex four-dimensional reality into a less accurate Mercator projection (and the more people there are in Group X, the grosser the inaccuracy becomes). The only way for Genly to get over his feelings about the Gethenians is to engage deeply with a single Gethenian, Estraven — to touch another self.

Read more.

Today I want to talk about one of my pet peeves: equating anti-oppression efforts with political correctness.

Feminism, anti-racism, LGBTQ activism and all anti-oppression efforts are part of a fundamentally rights seeking, justice seeking movement. They are socially revolutionary, not reformist. There is a radical core to them that can't live and let live. Can a feminist shrug off misogyny as someone "looking at things differently"? Can an anti-racist shrug off racism? (Haters gonna hate). Of course not.

Anti-oppression efforts are not politically correct; most of the time they're politically wrong. Politics is fundamentally about expediency, it's a deal-making game. It's how we negotiate competing demands, needs, ideologies and somehow make a society work. Anti-oppression efforts are a call for justice. Anti-oppression is not about "getting something for yours". It's about identifying a lack, an injustice in the fabric of society: an unrepresented, oppressed group that must make a place for itself, make it's voice heard, however it can. Anti-oppression efforts are radical politics.

Political correctness is a measure of how "good on the issues" a politician (or ordinary citizen) is on the hot topics of the day. Are you with the prevailing consensus on labour unions? Then you're politically correct. It's got nothing to do with progressiveness, or anti-oppression. Both of those are too far afield to ever be politically correct because the epicenter of public opinion is the only 'right' place to be. It's about fashion. It is no longer fashionable to be racist, sexist or ableist. And so you are no longer racist, sexist or ableist, because it is the 'right' thing to do.

Anti-oppression efforts manifest in more and less radical ways. General strikes, civil disobedience, employment equity legislation: these are all tactics adopted by anti-oppression movements. Whether striking or bargaining, the core message does not change: There is a wrong and we're damn well going to right it. The core message of the fashionable radical is LIKE ME LIKE ME LIKE ME, and for that reason, is damn easy to spot.

You know those "I judge you" secrets on F!S? If you equate anti-oppression efforts with political correctness, I judge you.