Here.
Please don’t read comments until you’ve read this. It is very short and fast to read. It is radicalizing. It is a good short story to send to your friend who needs to understand what capitalism is. LeGuin wrote this in 1973, cementing her status as Chad Supreme of Fuck Mountain. Bow before her might.
Let’s discuss in the comments below.
I’ve given this story to many a liberal and it’s always the same: “oh my god, I can’t believe they walk away at the end. if it were me, I’d tear the kid free with my own hands.” pointing out to them that it’s an allegory for our world and all the suffering they accept, they to a one grow uncomfortable and change the subject. I’ve never had one willing to discuss the story past that point except perhaps to go back to insisting that they’d free the kid.
to those in this thread lamenting that they walk away at the end: walking away is a rejection of the society, of both its utopia and its curse. those who walk away do so to build a new world. walking away is the rejection of the very premise of the society - an embrace of revolution. perhaps LeGuin’s point, one of them, anyway, is that it’s very easy to say what one would do when put in similar circumstances. it’s another thing entirely to actually act. sometimes, it’s all you can do to refuse. after all, freeing the child is tantamount to ending capitalism. none of us can do that alone. the only choice we have alone is to walk away. and it’s only from amongst those who have rejected this society that you will find the revolutionaries that can band together to do anything greater. but we must each first choose to walk away.