TO the hundred plus people who’ve passed through my First Year Seminar classes and/or my Religion and Science Fiction course and read (or pretended to read) The Left Hand of Darkness, the thing we talked about is now portrayed on a United States postal stamp and Ursula K. Le Guin, one of our realists of a higher reality, is being rightly honored by the government of “We, the people.” If you haven’t read this book, I’m sorry. Please get started as soon as possible. It appeared among us in 1969, and it is, I think, as good as literature gets. I want to avoid spoilers, but one of the characters portrayed in the above image is called Estraven, one of the most beautifully developed characters in the earth’s long chronicle. Estraven says extraordinary things like this:
How does one hate a family, or love one? I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know living rooms, disorganized kitchens, back yards, birthday parties, and nights in the emergency room. I know watching a father and mother age, but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's family; is it hatred of one's un-family? Then it's not a good thing...
Mangling it like that, I'm not sure what it means anymore, or if I agree. Simone Weil said friendship is loving a particular person the way one wishes to love all humanity, and maybe loving a country is kind of like that? Maybe humans need a home, some more than others, because truly universal self-giving accepting love for all humanity is kind of hard. The place where the logic also lost me in Le Guin's quote was where it suggested that loving your home might mean hating what is outside its boundaries. I feel uneasy with the idea of being a "patriot", especially these days, but I still like having a foster home this side of the Kingdom.
Another quote along this line, that I have used for years as a yardstick for my own interiority is from Roy Masters, "Loving what is right is different than hating what is wrong and feeling right about it." I have benefitted greatly from allowing this quote to unfold within, which of course affects my mind traffic, and my outward actions, and the quality of my loving.
Shout out to Windsor Ontario public library collection. I'm first in line for the left hand of darkness.
Now I see why you have cited her so much. Time for a book hunt.
How does one hate a family, or love one? I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know living rooms, disorganized kitchens, back yards, birthday parties, and nights in the emergency room. I know watching a father and mother age, but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's family; is it hatred of one's un-family? Then it's not a good thing...
Mangling it like that, I'm not sure what it means anymore, or if I agree. Simone Weil said friendship is loving a particular person the way one wishes to love all humanity, and maybe loving a country is kind of like that? Maybe humans need a home, some more than others, because truly universal self-giving accepting love for all humanity is kind of hard. The place where the logic also lost me in Le Guin's quote was where it suggested that loving your home might mean hating what is outside its boundaries. I feel uneasy with the idea of being a "patriot", especially these days, but I still like having a foster home this side of the Kingdom.
Another quote along this line, that I have used for years as a yardstick for my own interiority is from Roy Masters, "Loving what is right is different than hating what is wrong and feeling right about it." I have benefitted greatly from allowing this quote to unfold within, which of course affects my mind traffic, and my outward actions, and the quality of my loving.