Daniel Alexander Apatiga
Professor David
11/7/2014
Midterm paper#2
Opposition
to Institutions, Corporations, and Governments in The Left hand of Darkness and The
Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
In
the novels The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
and The Left Hand of Darkness, the
authors both characterize their protagonists as holding political and economic
beliefs that cause them to oppose various institutions and subsequently run
into conflict. The human protagonist in
the LHD, Mr. Ai, is subject to the laws and governments of Winter. He finds himself in opposition to them
because he’s at the mercy of people in power: Karhide (because Estraven is
considered there a traitor), the Orgoreyn Commensals (they sentence him to
prison), and border guards who shoot and kill Estraven before making it across
the border. In the TSPE, Barney is
opposed to a corporate institution, P.P Layouts, for its immoral, escapist product,
Can-D, which has hallucinatory effects on its users. Mr.
Ai’s and Barney’s opposition to their respective “bosses” is key to
understanding each hero’s ideology. Through
understanding LeGuin’s and Dick’s protagonists, we will be more empathetic to what
they value.
The
characters’ political preferences within their respective structures can thus
be deciphered: in the LHD, the Ursula LeGuin portrays the alien species, the Gethenians,
as only needing the bare minimum (each other, food, their temples, and
marketplaces) despite having complicated technology that at one point,
historically, they manufactured. Technology,
such as vehicles and sophisticated castle-like structures, require a process of
design and a desire to do so that requires creativity and imagination that the
Gethenians appear to have foregone, and Barney lives in a sea of technology. Development for the Gethenians cannot occur
without a demand for such items; but there is demand. Demand implicates the existence of a market
and the intelligence to design things. The
portrayal of technology in the LHD, however, takes a back-seat to more
interesting concepts to LeGuin that is characteristic of non-hardcore, New
World science fiction. In TSPE, Barney
and Anna desire to destroy corrupted corporations: Palmer Eldritch’s Can-Z
company; (less so, Barney, wants to leave Bulero’s P.P. Layouts because of
their inability to promote him). Frederic
Jameson claims, and I agree with him, that “world reduction” is when the “sheer
teeming multiplicity of what exists of what we call reality, is deliberately
thinned and weeded out through an operation of radical abstraction and
simplification“ (Jameson, page 271). This is the case in many of the examples
pertaining to each protagonist’s respective economic ideology. Communistic sharing, essentially, in the Mars setting
of TSPE, is reduction of true communism principles; and, capitalistic
greediness from CEOs in the LHD as the norm is a reduction of the good things
that come out of capitalism.
The
corporations that Barney oppose are both examples of a radical “world reduction”
because they resemble an unregulated form of capitalism and all positive facts
about corporations are elided. The
various trade networks between different kingdoms in the world of Winter in
LeGuin’s novel are also examples of a “world reduction” since they are hardly
explored more in depth. The Martian
setting differs from the markets of LeGuin’s Winter world as the markets are in
the process of growing as it does in free market capitalism (also partially
regulated).
In
Dick’s novel, “world reduction” occurs in terms of Barney’s opposition to evil
corporations that is an allegory for activism against real-world corporations
that harm people, during his time. We
see corporations as being inherently evil.
For instance, tobacco companies have poisoned and altered humanity, but
none have attempted to influence us through alien drugs: "It should be a
purifying experience. We lose our fleshly bodies, our corporeality, as they
say. And put on imperishable bodies instead, for a time anyhow. Or forever, if
you believe as some do that it's outside of time and space-" (Dick, page
41). In reality, not all corporations want
to use alien technology, obviously, to mislead the public on a sinister quest
to betray the human race by alien domination, because we have not met any
aliens before, officially. But in Dick’s
novel, the notion of a moral corporation does not exist. In what seems to be a capitalist society,
morality is sliced out, like a heart from a captive, into the hands of a King;
in other words, his novel is a criticism of consumerism and capitalism. The omniscient narrator says, “The communal
world is gone” (Dick, Page 182). By communal, we assume that he means
communism has disappeared, where the ideal living arrangements are through
sharing, and thus, communals. The
narrator seems to take a dire tone about communism, and its history has been
elided. In today’s context, different
cultural communistic experiments have been failures. Though, further evidence suggests that the
tone of Barney paints a corrupted form of capitalism through unpleasant
imagery: “What we have here, he realized, is not an invasion of Earth by
Proxmen, beings from another system. Not an invasion by the legions of a pseudo
human race. No. It's Palmer Eldritch who's everywhere, growing and growing like
a mad weed (Dick, Page 186). Palmer
Eldritch, who is the head of a corrupt corporation, is a symbol for the
franchising of harmful stores that perhaps is a contemporary issue with
capitalism. Furthermore, corporations,
in TSPE, it’s a fact that corporations are run by immoral people seeking to
establish an unethical monopoly upon one another, creating a demand for
escapism through supplying it with the drugs to do so. This sounds a lot like tobacco companies that
have addicted many of their victims to smoking that affects their corporeal
health. In contrast, both novels, in
terms of society, institutions, and economics, holds few examples where there
are no parallels to the world today, the main of which is the inclusion of
extraterrestrial society.
Various
institutions are inherently absent from both novels, which is another example
of Jameson’s notion of “world reduction,” that the aliens are against. Since manufactories are not mentioned,
according to Jameson, in LeGuin’s novel, one can only assume that this was
elided over. Mr. Ai was more interested
in the social complexities of Gethenian life rather than the institution of the
factory: their “aspects of ambisexuality which we have only glimpsed or guessed
at, and which we may never grasp entirely” was what interested him (LeGuin,
page 75). And again, while from the
perspective of Mr. Ai, he thinks, “Being so strictly defined and limited by
nature, the sexual urge of Gethenians is really not much interfered with by
society: there is less coding, channeling, and repressing of sex there than in
any bisexual society I know of… this was the first case I had seen of the
social purpose running counter to the sexual drive” (LeGuin, page 144). Because of the complicated nature of gender
roles in humans—traditionally, men would go hunt and women would take care of
their children—and later, men would go to work and women would stay home and go
shopping; and more lately, men and women would go to the same work so that they
can see each other. The separation of
spheres is in the process of disappearing in reality, and so these opposites
that I think are byproducts of gender differences never occurs in Gethenian
culture. How then did the Gethenians
perfect technology to the point that upkeep is unnecessary? Do they have unlimited, sustainable power
through far more advanced means? Technology
is pertinent to progress. The world had
no progress, however. And progress,
according to Jameson, could only occur through industrialization. The institution of the factory, for instance,
was something that the Gethenians appear to be in opposition towards in favor
of a more rudimentary lifestyle. Were
there factories producing complicated goods (I assume that there are primitive
factories for castle building), the protagonists would live in a very similar
world to earth. On the stylistic choice
by LeGuin, there would be no defamiliarization needed to make the novel enlightening. Gethenian kingdoms all enjoy complicated technology
through the institution of trade, which Mr. Ai, in the world of Winter, was
only interested in fermenting between humans and the Gethenians. So in a way, the institution of trade was
absent. In the dénouement, Mr. Ai sets
up trade between them, finally.
Gethenian
law-enforcement is another institution that was absent, but in its stead, the
culture of “prestige” existed that Mr. Ai and Estraven were opposed to. Mr. Ai is in opposition to Gethenian’s way of
treating alien guests. They send him to
jail. He escapes from jail with the help
of Estraven, who has nothing to lose but everything to gain because he can get
his prestige back. In that way, there
are parallels to today’s society. And he
is central to the plot, as the lone human (most of the time throughout out the
story, except in the dénouement) who attempts to establish trade, in what
seemed to be a sincere undertaking on his part, by the humans to help the
Gethenians through economic inclusion.
His preoccupation, however, takes an unanticipated turn that leads him
to Estraven again, an exiled Gethenian, whom he has a romantic affair with when
Estraven is in Kemmer. (The combination
of the genders into a single, reproductive creature holds back Gethenians from
progress). But before, they escape from
jail “[making] a show of laboring to haul the dead load [which was Mr. Ai], for
the dothe-strength was full within me…”, and then they seek to correct
society’s injustice towards Mr. Ai (LeGuin, page 155). They attempt to redeem Estraven’s prestige
that is so important to him: “Strange how hard it is, for it’s an easy name to
call another man, [being called traitor]; a name that sticks, that fits, that
convinces. I was half convinced myself,”
Mr. Ai says (LeGuin, page 59). Crime and
punishment are inherently different than the real world: “The Ekumen as a
political entity functions through coordination, not by rule. It does not enforce laws; decisions are
reached by council and consent, not by consensus or command” (LeGuin, page
110). The structure of the plot places Mr. Ai and Estraven in opposition to the
institutionalization of “prestige” that governs the actions of others.
The
reason why Gethenians are not able to make progress is because of an obsession
with prestige that Mr. Ai finds himself in opposition with. Gethenian culture does not understand the
alien concept of progress due to their unique racial predicament: “When he
looked at me with his clear, kind, candid eyes, he looked at me and way of life
so old, so well established, so integral and coherent as to give a human being
the unselfconsciousness, the authority, the completeness of a wild animal, a
great strange creature who looks straight at you out of his eternal present”
(LeGuin, page 57). By implication, Mr.
Ai assumes that pushing for trade is in their best interest. And in contrast, Dick’s novel portrays the institution
of trade in a realistic light, though it’s hardly ideal in capitalist
societies.
The
economic implications of the existence of a jail is that law enforcement is
somehow paid, or there is some kind of exchange, and thus there is economics
though in an alien way we are not able to understand. But there is an absence of money—prestige
rules this transaction instead. There
are no parallels to today’s civilized world. This is just like how Mr. Ai is
not able to understand why they are in a perpetual dark age, “The Palace of
Erhenrang is an inner city, a walled wilderness of palaces, towers, gardens,
court-yards, cloisters, roofed bridge ways, roofless tunnel-walks, small
forests and dungeon-keeps, the product of centuries of paranoia on a grand
scale” (LeGuin, page 9), an age that has no progress. By inductive reasoning of the Winter world,
people steal, people violate other people’s space, people break all sorts of
laws, and thus, some form of mercantilism must exist or a Marxist mode of
radical, communistic sharing. But in a
sci-fi novel, alien is alien.
In
Dick’s novel, the lack of police is similar to that of the lack of police, as
we understand it, in LHD. In TSPE, the
law is through a new totalitarian like government, because of the draft that
Barney opposes that sends citizens to Mars.
The novel has many motifs from the free market. The UN is there to regulate it since the UN
requires human test subjects to take the drug, if I remember correctly. Corporations regulate themselves through the
lawlessness like it is in the Wild West film genre. Barney’s success, in the dénouement, of
toppling the Palmer Eldritch Corporation was bloodless, like it is usually when
a corporation goes under. This moral
suggests the free market and nonviolence can save humanity. However, there doesn’t exist a real-life
parallel of an alien being who procreates through the infiltration of the human
economic system.
Barney
finds himself in opposition to the institution of drug addiction; he only uses
Can-Z when bribed. Capitalism or
mercantilism, in the TSPE, is a central theme throughout it that centers on the
trade and entrepreneurship of businessmen trying to sell hallucinatory,
drugs—one of which is alien, Can-Z, the other, Can-D, not so. However, Barney works for Leo Bulero’s
corporation nonetheless, unethically: “While translated one could commit
incest, murder, anything, and it remained from a juridical standpoint a mere
fantasy, an impotent wish. Can-D had made this possible; they continued to
require it. In no way were they free” (Dick, Page 49). Dick’s novel does not portray anything
similar to what has happened in today’s context in any country; drugs cannot or
do not have such a powerful, escapist effect that one can travel to different
places and come out of the experience feeling normal; there is no parallel to
hallucinatory drugs without adverse effects.
Can
Z and Can D, which when used, are metaphors for drug addiction that Barney are
opposed to, in Dick’s novel. They are
symbols for similar drugs in contemporary society, such as: cocaine, heroin,
marijuana, LSD, caffeine (in high doses), alcohol (which isn’t so bad).
However, the degree to which they cause hallucinatory effects greatly dwarfs
contemporary examples as I have never heard of anyone becoming schizophrenic,
and biconditionally, able to live in a dream world, as a direct result of the
use of cocaine, LSD, etc. The
stereotype that people moreover, and statistically liberals, love drugs, aka. Marijuana,
etc. but they do not care about the negative health effects that it has on
one’s life is a moral stance that Barney and Anna, more or less, fall in line
with: “Once you've taken Chew-Z you're delivered over. At least that's how
dogmatic, devout, fanatical Anne Hawthorne would phrase it. Like sin, Barney
Mayerson thought; it's the condition of slavery. Like the Fall. And the
temptation is similar” (Dick, Page 189).
Barney questions the morality of taking drugs from his boss Leo Bulero,
who represents a giant corporation, despite the unethicality of working for
him. This important fact is not enough
to cause Barney to question his own firm belief in the morality of not taking
drugs. He contradicts his own beliefs
when Palmer Eldritch meets him and expects him to take Can-Z in order to promote
his drug by bribing him that if he does not do what he asks, he will make him
stay in Mars forever.
The
notion of the “invisible hand” of economics in Gethenian society is a central
theme to LeGuin’s novel that Mr. Ai opposes.
LeGuin draws upon conservative notions of economics, which is in a way,
dystopic of the real world, when progress is at a standstill. It is also a
demagogue-like mode of thought that seeks to justify top-down capitalism as
being positive for society, in the real world.
Capitalism that assumes supply and demand are the governing forces of
economics without any regulation will not lead to the general well-being of an
individual without some upper regulation.
Some
institutions that Jameson forgot to mention are not examples of “world
reduction” according to Jameson and are ambiguous as to whether Mr. Ai was
opposed to or simply trying to understand them.
For instance, in terms of economics, the Gethenians possessed an “Orgota
Naval Trade Commission in Erhenrang” on page 67; there are markets in the world
of Winter: “the Great Markets of South Mishnory” on page 65; “Orgoreyn had
gradually built up a unified and increasingly efficient centralized state. Now Karhide was to pull herself together and
do the same; and the way to make her do it was not by sparking her pride, or
building up her trade, or improving her roads, farms, colleges, and so on; none
of that; that’s all civilization, veneer, and Tibe dismissed it with scorn” on
page 83. Was he interested in submitting
the Karhidians, the subjects of Orgoreyn, and Erhenrangians to human economic domination? His actions implies he has no malintent, yet
he is sentenced to prison because they do not believe him. Moreover, economically, Jameson’s “world
reduction” quote applies to economics and society of today’s histories and
religions. The difference between the
Gethenians and Mr. Ai, who is a representative of humanity, pushes Mr. Ai’s to
oppose the Gethenian prestige-based, law-enforcing institutions.
Dick
paints an outlandish, divided solar system to symbolize the opposition that
Barney has to society, (since he was drafted to go to Mars), since part of the
setting is on Mars. There isn’t a stark
contrast between the settings of Dick’s novel with LeGuin’s Winter world—both
are “rude environment[s and] inhospitable” (Jameson, page 269). Mars is like a desert. Also, Mars is a place where people live in
small, enclosed hovels, because the UN must make people move out of Earth due
to limited space and heat, in the novel.
This horrendous fact is another example of a setting, like in LeGuin’s
Winter world, that serves as a catalyst for opposition to Barney’s corporation
institution. Here, everyone knows each
other because of the similarity between Martian life and rural life.
The
opposition to the systems of economics, prestige-based law enforcement, being
unethical, and injustice in general are all central to LHD and TSPE. Both novels try to address real problems in
the real world, which is in line with Jameson’s essay about LeGuin as an
author: “such is our entry into the other world of The Left Hand of Darkness, a
world which, like all invented ones, that awakens irresistible reminisces of
this the real one” (Jameson, page 267).
A lot of what Jameson suggests in his essay also applies to Dick’s
novel: “SF [is] a form [that] precisely [has] this capacity to provide
something like an experimental variation on our own empirical universe” (as an
observation of LeGuin’s novel, LHD) (Jameson, page 270). Examples of excellent SF prose that share no
parallels with contemporary society are present in LeGuin’s LHD and Dick’s TSPE.
Bibliography
LeGuin, Ursula. The Left Hand of Darkness. London:
Orbit, 1969. Paperback.
Dick, Phillip K.. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
Boston/New York: First Mariner
Books,
1965. Kindle file.
Jameson, Frederic.
"World Reduction in Le Guin." Archaeologies of The Future: The
Desire
Called
Utopia and Other Science Fictions. Verso, 2005, pages
268-280.
