Observations about ambiguous utopias in “The Dispossessed” but also in the real world

I’m currently reading “The Dispossessed” by Ursula K. Le Guin for school (I’m reading it in Turkish since it’s my first language, so some terms within the novel may not have been translated perfectly). For those of you who don’t know what the novel is about but still want to keep reading, I will give you a short summary touching on the relevant aspects of the plot related to my blog post. (If you would like a deeper summary, here’s one I really like.)

The novel consists of two primary locations: Anarres -a small planet with an extremely harsh climate and limited technology/resources in which everything belongs to everyone and there is no such term as “possession” (peaceful anarchism). There’s no discrimination, no money and therefore no social status.- and Urras -similar to the Earth we know today: capitalist societies in which the primary driving force in people is competition and greed, and discrimination (primarily towards women) but better technology, more livable climates and smarter, more curious people.- Shevek, the protagonist of the novel, is an ambitious and extremely intelligent man who lives on Anarres. He is working on the General Temporal Theory, a theory which aims to bring together two very contradictory theories about time: the Simultaneity -that time is simply a human construct and there’s no past, present or future- and the Succession theories-the theory which we have adapted to today: that there is indeed a past, present and future and time is a constantly progressing measure-. Although his work is brilliant, it’s not appreciated in his hometown Anarres, because (and Shevek comes to realize this later in the novel) people value conformity more than they do discovery. His exploitative mentor, Sabul, tells him to contact some people on Urras, so he does. Next thing he knows, he’s on a spaceship to go to Urras, where he will be given tons of resources and better technology to be able to develop his theory. Although this is only the beginning of the novel, it’s more than enough explanation to be able to understand my blog post.

At the very beginning of the novel, there’s a map of the two planets, and underneath it says “İkircikli bir Ütopya”, which translates to “An Ambiguous Utopia”. What does ambiguous mean, first of all? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the secondary definition -and the one that Le Guin means- is “capable of being understood in two or more possible senses or ways”. Although there are various interpretations about this phrase, I simply think it refers to the fact that complete and extreme perfection (like in “Utopia” by Thomas More) or complete and extreme imperfection (like in “1984” by George Orwell) is simply unattainable. Although there are many different interpretations of utopia, I will consider utopia to be Heaven for the sake of universality and easier understanding of my examples. Let’s say, in a hypothetical scenario, that I’m playing football with my friend in heaven; I’m a player, she’s a goalkeeper. I very obviously want to score, and she wants me not to score. Which one happens then? There are several proposed explanations to this, so let’s consider some widespread ones.

1. “She suceeds once and you succeed the other time so it’s equal”: What if scoring the first time was more important to me, and scoring the second time is completely meaningless? What if we simply don’t play a second time, ever? Yes, these are simply probabilities and not certain outcomes, but the possibility of them hapenning still exists, which goes against the entire notion of absolute idealism in utopia.
2. “There exists two different realms, one of which in you score, another one in which she keeps, so you both get what you want at the same time”: This suggests that we live in different realms of possibility, and since choices and situations such as this will inevitably keep on occurring, that means my reality looks very different than any other person. This means I’m living in a very alone lie, which is not included in most peoples’ definition of heaven, or utopia.
3. “This is heaven, you won’t face such a situation”: That means that, whether I’m aware of it or not, I’m unable to do certain things -many things, when you come to think of it, because most things you want goes against what some other person wants (to give another very basic example: you want a promotion but another person also wants that promotion). So either there’s no free will (which I don’t think most people would like about heaven), or there is free will but the amount of activities you can do and the things you can want is so limited that it simply would be better if there wasn’t.

In either of these scenarios, the definition of a utopia is corrupted. I don’t want to bore you and do the same thing with dystopias now, so I will simply give an example from “1984”: although it’s one of the most extreme forms of dystopia ever published, the protagonist Winston and the main love interest Julia are still able to secretly spend time with one another, make love and buy forbidden items like real coffee, without being detected. -I will now give a spoiler so read at your own risk- And although they end up getting caught, this shows that there still exists the possibility of love in such a dystopic world, which goes against the definition of a true dystopia.

So, let’s circle back to the phrase in the novel: “an ambiguous utopia”. Within the novel, I think it means that achieving an ideal society, which both planets work so hard on doing, is simply impossible. However, when combined, Anarres and Urras create both a dystopia and a utopia: Anarres perhaps gains Urras’ technology, livable climate and intelligent, independent people, whereas Urras gains people free of competition and greed, as well as supportive communities. And then the bad aspects combine to make dystopias: harsh climate, greedy, competitive people, people conforming without critical thinking (“sheep”), limited technology and resources. But these two worlds don’t merge, and don’t create utopias or dystopias. Not only can they physically can’t (two different planets with tons of distance between), it’s unsustainable, and the people in both planets don’t like the other because of very old unresolved tension between the two populations.

Within the real world, it means that instead of striving for perfection, you should strive for what works best for you. The definition of ambiguous within the quote is that what counts as a utopia is open to interpretation from person to person. So for example, instead of making a pros and cons list for Urras and Anarres to decide which one is “better”, or more ideal, you should listen to yourself. Perhaps Anarres has more cons, but living in a peacefully anarchist society carries so much weight in your heart that all the other cons in Anarres, and all the other pros in Urras, become significantly less meaningful to you, and so you decide that Anarres is better.

I know this was not the fundamental message to derive out of a novel such as this one, but this is an eclectic blog and I try to include a positive twist in each of my blog posts! The message, although unusual, deserves considering: It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else, only to you. 🙂

This discussion further begs the question: “so if you’re saying that achieving a utopia is impossible should we just stop trying to make the world a better place?” No, because not only are we very far from coming near perfection (we are closer to a dystopia than we are to a utopia), we should simply never stop trying to come near it. The world needs goodness. Also, I personally believe that having as much good means having as little bad. (I believe that there’s scale of perfection or imperfection, like a measuring cup. If you fill half of it with “good”, the other half will be “bad”. If you fill 75% of it with “good”, only 25% will be “bad”, and so on.) So although I don’t believe we can ever reach 100%, we should strive for something as close as possible, and abolish as much “bad” as possible.

I hope this blog post was a nice brain exercise, and I hope I was able to spark some curiosity in you and perhaps inspire you to read “The Dispossessed”. It truly is an exceptional novel that I think everyone should read, as it sparks discussions such as this one and makes the world a more interesting place. Feel free to comment your thoughts!