Ursula Le Guin, last night

Punctuated Equilibrium - basically, the theory that evolution happens in "spurts" between long periods of little or no change.

Apparently the connection between Ursula Le Guin and "stuff" was rob perceiving a similarity between the language she used (referring to "alternate ways of living") and the language used by defenders of Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Also, Le Guin is apparently advocating communism and artists giving their work away for free because she wrote The Dispossessed. This proves something something Amazon something something trade publishers.

Hope that clears everything up. There will be a quiz.

The part of her speech that talked about the turning of art into a commodity really spoke to me and I took something a bit different away from it too.

Since ebooks have come onto the scene, publishing has in a lot of ways sped up dramatically. I read about authors putting out a full length book a month and the push can be for more, faster, now. It's something I feel pulled towards sometimes and it almost always impacts the quality of my work.

I have nothing against an author making money, not even scads of money. I just think that the art aspect aught not to be lost in the push for speed. Books can be so much more than words on a page.

Patrick.S said:

Since ebooks have come onto the scene, publishing has in a lot of ways sped up dramatically. I read about authors putting out a full length book a month and the push can be for more, faster, now. It's something I feel pulled towards sometimes and it almost always impacts the quality of my work.

I have nothing against an author making money, not even scads of money. I just think that the art aspect aught not to be lost in the push for speed. Books can be so much more than words on a page.

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The speed/commodity is one thing that still really bothers me with self-publishing. Maybe it's present in trade publishing as well but we just don't hear about it as much, but a prevalent marketing strategy in SP seems to be have more books out there, that you have to keep putting out books to get noticed. I know there are prolific writers, but to make quantity an almost integral part of the 'success equation' just doesn't set well with me.

I voted "hissssss" because I am secretly a cat.

Also because I still can't tell what she's actually saying.

Amadan said:

Punctuated Equilibrium - basically, the theory that evolution happens in "spurts" between long periods of little or no change.

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Thanks.

Apparently the connection between Ursula Le Guin and "stuff" was rob perceiving a similarity between the language she used (referring to "alternate ways of living") and the language used by defenders of Marion Zimmer Bradley.

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As evidenced by at least two posts in this thread, mine and another, there are myriad ways to live an alternative life. Only very few involve "stuff" or defending it. That's like saying some cats have stripes, therefore all cats are tigers. Or something. I dunnow, I'm still boggling at the suggestion tbh

Also, Le Guin is apparently advocating communism and artists giving their work away for free because she wrote The Dispossessed. This proves something something Amazon something something trade publishers.

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Haha -- what?

Hope that clears everything up. There will be a quiz.

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It had better be multiple choice or I'm buggered.

Alessandra Kelley said:

She is not.

Not in any way, shape, or form.

No one has ever plausibly suggested such a thing, nor has there been any back room gossip of any kind, the way there has been for more doubtful characters.

There is no evidence that she has ever been anything but an earnest, well intentioned, possibly utopianist fantasist leading an entirely lawful private life.

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Thank crap. I think it would just about do me in if that were not the case.

And what's always the big deal with communism? (I was asked a while ago by an American tourist if the NHS was commie, and wasn't I worried about that? Lol what?) I mean yeah it doesn't seem to have worked that well in practice but what system does? Capitalism isn't exactly a bed of roses for most people either...as long as people aren't advocating for gulags/the really hard line stuff, it's not exactly something to clutch your pearls over. Is it?*




*Please note, thinking is a little befuddled right now due to new meds. I;m making sense to me, I may not be doing so to anyone else.

had thought "the red scare" was ancient history
seems it isn't

Kallithrix said:

*nods sagely*

*has no idea what you're talking about*

*feels dumb*

*goes back to looking at pictures of bunnies*

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Sorry--it's a fairly modern idea or theory relating to evolution (Stephen Jay Gould was one of its early champions). Namely, that species tend to change mostly in small, subtle ways for long periods of time, but new species tend to appear fairly quickly, usually when something splits or disrupts the ancestral population and places a small number of individuals in a new setting or provides them with a new resource. Also, on a larger scale, life on Earth is characterized by a few periods of extreme upheaval, where a great number of new forms appeared fairly quickly in the fossil record and vast numbers of old ones go extinct. The argument is that a mass extinction, or the appearance of something radical and new, would destabilize the status quo and most of the individuals that were well adapted in the previous milieu would go extinct.

Something similar seems to happen in human endeavors when new living space, resources, or innovations appear, or when something destabilizes the system in a way that changes the rules of the game.

The question with regards to writing is, can authors encourage these periods of upheaval and innovation by purposely writing stuff that isn't commercial, or do the outliers simply benefit when something else (like, say, the invention of the internet) inserts chaos into the system and changes the rules of the game?

Glad to hear there's no connection between UK Le Guin and Bradley, though. I'd never heard that there was. And I don't think MZB and her friends coined the term "alternative lifestyle" to refer to their own behavior. They merely co-opted the concept and used it to their advantage to get people off their back.

I've heard socialism is the good form, but you use communism specifically when talking about the kind of government that disappears people. So maybe it's like that?

Not me. I call that kind of government totalitarian, or tyrannical, but I don't use the word "communism" that way.

Because Le Guin was stating an opposition to the profit motive and the corporate model as the sole determiner of what books get made, and perhaps as too much an influence on writers, that raises all the specters of ill-considered communalism or idealistic something something.

Well, I don't have any experience with communism either way, so all I know about it is what I've been told. And obviously history is written by the winners, and all. (My mom's a socialist, for what that's worth.)

I think a problem I'm having with visionaries and stuff is Pokemon Black and White. Wait, hear me out!

One of the main characters is a guy named N. He's out to change the world. Except... he's portrayed as a brainwashed puppet. And also he wants to change the world in a way that's supposedly bad, even though honestly I thought he had a point. So far every interpretation of him shows him as delusional, arrogant, self-righteous etc.

Then there's this guy called Ghetsis. He talks like Le Guin does here, the world needs to change and we need to do it. Which is good except... everyone who listens to him in the game is an idiot who doesn't think for themself.

Idk. So many people say things like "think for yourself", but what they really mean is "agree with me, not that guy". And that makes me hesitant to have an opinion on anyone's opinions, which is a very uncomfortable place.

I think that, even if it's an uncomfortable place, it's a good place. I keep a lot of things in a "no opinion file" -- I wait and see how things prove out over time. It's pretty hard to tell for certain what makes good change, what doesn't, what people, even trusted people, really mean by what they say.

My takeaway from Le Guin's remarks is mainly that she is encouraging a kind of creativity that can stimulate further creativity, because really, we don't have solutions to the big issues, but we can be pretty certain that continuing on the same course won't yield those solutions. So, writers, visualize, build worlds, explore how things might be different, both good and bad, help us find our way here! And don't let convention limit your visions.

That's my sense of it.

I voted meh. Not because I have anything against Ms. Le Guin, or her beliefs and politics, whatever they may be. No, it's because I have a fundamentally different way of looking at my writing. I'm not an Artist. Or a visionary, or leader of society, or guide to a new understanding of... okay, my pomposity bone just broke.

I'm a storyteller. When I envision my readers, I see people gathered around the campfire, listening with (I hope) interest in the picture I am painting in their minds. I want them to have the same experience I do when I read, because I read to be part of a story. I want to cheer for the characters I like, and boo at the ones I don't. I want to cry at their tragedies and feel joy along with their triumphs. The story is all that matters. What I don't read for is to be 'enlightened', or transformed, or guided, or any other goal.

I hate to say it, but the first thing I thought of when I read her statement was the Wheel of Morality gag from the old Animaniacs cartoon. "Wheel of Morality, turn, turn, turn, show us the lesson we should learn." It made fun of the little 'brush your teeth, kids' messages that cartoons were forced to put at the end to add supposed educational value. Her message felt like a repeat of that policy. Heaven forbid anyone should write to provide entertainment. How dare I want to provide something for people to enjoy, to lift them out of their lives for a time? I should be whacking people over the head with my philosophies on the betterment of humankind. Sorry, Ms. Le Guin, but I will continue to write my unimportant market commodities, and if I make money at it, I consider that a darn good thing.