Parting Shots
Amy Sturgis on Jul 28th 2007
Well, everyone, I’ve tried to pack in quite a few posts this week, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your hospitality. Thanks to everyone at Positive Liberty for having me as a guest blogger!
I’ll leave you with a couple of parting recommendations.
First, The Libertarian Futurist Society (the organization that bestows the annual Prometheus Awards to recognize and promote libertarian science fiction) has a new blog here. Of recent note is the controversial revelation that science fiction authors have joined the war on terror.
Second, I am happy to say that in the last year an excellent new English translation (by Natasha Randall) has appeared of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1921 classic and still all-too-relevant SF dystopia, We. Banned by the Soviet censors and not published in Russia until 1988, We tells the story of a totalitarian One State that controls its citizens’ lives with mathematical precision. Led by the Benefactor, the One State seeks to explore space in order to bring the rest of the universe under the dominion of the powerful government apparatus. Yevgeny’s descriptions are chilling in their timeliness. For example, the One State’s status quo is maintained the Welldoer (implying, of course, that everything the government does is good, and those who challenge it are Evildoers). Moreover, individual privacy is nonexistent. The very walls of the buildings are made of transparent materials so that everyone, everything, is always visible to the penetrating and all-seeing eyes of the state. Surveillance is not only a matter of government policy, but an intrinsic part of neighborly relations. Against such pervasive control, Yevgeny holds out little hope for dissent. The story is a powerful and haunting one, and We has rightly been hailed as the ancestor of 1984, Anthem, and a number of modern SF dystopias.
Even among the ancients, the most mature among them knew that the source of right is might, that right is a function of power. And so, we have the scales: on one side, a gram, on the other a ton: on one side “I,” on the other “We,” the One State. Is it not clear, then, that to assume that the “I” can have some “rights” in relation to the State is exactly like assuming that a gram can balance the scale against a ton?
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Filed in The Basement
I second that recommendation. But which is better: We or the Wii?
Cheers, Amy. You’ve probably already read it, but as a going-away (not for long, I hope) present, here’s one of my favorite short stories by my favorite sci-fi guy, Robert Silverberg—”Sundance,” a futuristic Native American riff:
http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/silverberg2/silverberg21.html
Sometimes, it’s a good day to die. Sometimes, it’s a good day to read Silverberg.
Jim - What a great link! I’m going to have to share that. Thanks for the laugh.
Tom - That’s a great story. Thanks so much. Sometimes, it is a good day to read Silverberg, indeed.