{"id":193,"date":"2009-02-10T23:33:01","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T04:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/?p=193"},"modified":"2009-02-11T00:17:04","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T05:17:04","slug":"193","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/?p=193","title":{"rendered":"Against Meta-narratives"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think Todd brings up some valid points about The Lathe of Heaven<\/em>\u00a0presenting a view that contradicts modernism and goes against meta-narratives. \u00a0I hadn’t even considered Haber’s incredulity toward Freud and Jung. \u00a0Certainly, looking at the institution of psychiatry as a whole, the work portrays the field as misguided. \u00a0Haber may not believe in the theories of Freud and Jung, but he creates his own belief system that has its own flaws. \u00a0In The Crying of Lot 49<\/em>, we say psychiatry represented in the absurd, cartoonish, unreliable, untrustworthy, and immoral figure of Dr. Hilarius. \u00a0In Le Guin’s work, Dr. Haber appears more realistic, but also more controlling, manipulative, and negative (I feel there is a certain irony in my saying that Haber is a negative force because it means that I’m comparing my meta-narrative against his and if all meta-narratives aren’t to be trusted, then…oh never mind).<\/p>\n

I tend to think of Dr. Haber as a modernist character, someone who has certain beliefs that cohere with a particular meta-narrative who seeks to bring about a world the resembles\/better coheres with his own system of beliefs. \u00a0I’ll admit that his intentions are noble; the elimination of war, overpopulation, hunger, disease, racism, and the invention of nine-foot tall turtles are all worthwhile endeavors. \u00a0However, in bringing about his vision of the world, he condenses and contains life into a small package to fit his equally small view. \u00a0<\/p>\n

For me, the most horrible byproduct of his plans for his meta-narrative’s domination is the elimination of races with the elimination of racism. \u00a0Le Guin makes it very clear that this lack of diversity is a terrible thing: “But now, never to have known a woman with brown skin, brown skin and wiry black hair cut very short so that the elegant line of the skull shoed like the curve of a bronze vase- no, that was wrong. \u00a0That was intolerable. \u00a0That every soul on earth should have a body the color of a battleship: no!” (130). \u00a0The very symbolism of the color gray, already a hue of somber connotation, now becomes a color of sterility and violence by associating it with a battleship. \u00a0Dr. Haber essentially achieves Hitler’s dream of a master race, but instead of killing a few billion people he has Orr disevent them. \u00a0I think that Le Guin is very aware of the connotation of Dr. Haber’s actions and how they relate to evil predecessors; she makes a point of writing near the end that after the Break there are still gray people and many of them reside in Germany<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I tend to think that had Orr not met Heather, then he might not have worked up the nerve to stand up to Dr. Haber and step away from the downward spiral toward one meta-narrative. \u00a0Orr’s actions and feelings and the novel as a whole, I think, respect and revel in the many varieties of reality, the spectrum of meta-narratives, and the diversity of humanity, even in the midst of its chaos. \u00a0The final scene of the novel shows a nine-foot tall alien armor turtle watching a black woman and a white man meet and reunite at once over a cup of coffee. \u00a0What could be more uplifting, absurd, and positive toward the vast array of meta-narratives in existence and yet to be thought of?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think Todd brings up some valid points about The Lathe of Heaven\u00a0presenting a view that contradicts modernism and goes against meta-narratives. \u00a0I hadn’t even considered Haber’s incredulity toward Freud and Jung. \u00a0Certainly, looking at the institution of psychiatry as a whole, the work portrays the field as misguided. \u00a0Haber may not believe in the … Continue reading Against Meta-narratives<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,26,35],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-4-le-guin","tag-lathe-of-heaven","tag-race","tag-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}