{"id":198,"date":"2009-02-11T02:40:04","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T07:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/?p=198"},"modified":"2009-02-11T02:40:04","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T07:40:04","slug":"order-vs-chaosa-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/?p=198","title":{"rendered":"Order vs. Chaos…A Draw?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Early in his\u00a0book entitled “The Condition of Postmodernity,” David Harvey addresses a key\u00a0identifier of the movement from modernism to postmodernism.\u00a0 Paraphrasing from McHale, Harvey explains that the postmodern novel “is characterized by a shift from an ‘epistemological’ to an ‘ontological’ dominant.\u00a0 By this [McHale] means a shift from the kind of perspectivism that allowed the modernist to get a better bearing on the meaning of a complex but nevertheless singular reality, to the foregrounding of questions as to how radically different realities may coexist, collide, and interpenetrate” (Harvey 41).\u00a0 While reading this section of Harvey’s argument (and a number of other parts), I was\u00a0continually\u00a0brought back to Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven<\/em>.\u00a0 Indeed, her novel deals with the very basic concept of reality, and its subsequent manipulation.\u00a0 George Orr, the appropriately named protagonist, has dreams, and these dreams tend\u00a0to alter his and the world’s\u00a0reality (or perhaps the world is stuck in a cycle of Orr’s dreams).\u00a0 Whichever the case, Le Guin is reasserting the common question of dream vs. reality.\u00a0 What is reality, and what is dream? If these dreams alter reality, then is the new reality merely a dream? etc…until confusion ensues for both the reader and the characters in the novel.<\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The juxtaposition between George and his psychiatrist, William Haber, further illuminates the postmodern qualities\u00a0in Lathe of Heaven<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0If George Orr’s mind\u00a0represents a sort of\u00a0fragmentation <\/em>and\u00a0chaos<\/em>, Dr. Haber serves as the overarching order<\/em>attempting to ‘right’ the ship.\u00a0 According to David Harvey, however, “postmodernism swims, even wallows, in the fragmentary and the chaotic currents of change as if that is all there is” (Harvey 44).\u00a0 Quoting Foucault, Harvey’s argument suggests that postmodernism “prefer[s] what is positive, and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems.\u00a0 Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic” (44).\u00a0 And indeed, it is\u00a0with a representative image of this\u00a0‘nomadic flow’\u00a0that Ursula K. Le\u00a0Guin chooses to begin the novel: “Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. […] in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways;” (Le Guin 1).\u00a0 When re-reading this opening passage, I am reminded of George (or perhaps more specifically, his world-altering dreams).\u00a0 Throughout the novel, George and his ‘power’ are continuously at the mercy of Dr. Haber, whom strives to use Orr’s dreams as\u00a0a tool (or\u00a0lathe<\/em>)\u00a0for sculpting a sort of Utopian society.\u00a0 George opposes Haber’s manipulation of his dreams, and\u00a0also opposses\u00a0Haber’s desire for perfection.\u00a0 Perhaps this opposition is\u00a0better understood\u00a0through George’s role as a postmodern character.\u00a0 George (chaos<\/em>) rejects Haber’s plans (order<\/em>) because his Utopianism is a kind of meta-theory, and this “broad interpretative schema” like all meta-based\u00a0‘pratice’\u00a0is rejected by postmodernism.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thus, in the end,\u00a0does Le Guin suggest\u00a0chaos over order?\u00a0 I don’t believe so.\u00a0 Consider George’s life pre-Haber; he was unable to function.\u00a0 The chaotic dreams had consumed his life and affected the lives of those around him.\u00a0 Instead, George settles for\u00a0(or is given)\u00a0a compromise through\u00a0synthesis.\u00a0 As Harvey might suggest, this synthesis comes in the form of collage, or a jumbled\u00a0patchwork of the varying realities created by Haber through George’s dreams, and at the end of the novel,\u00a0both George and Heather are left to live life\u00a0in this synthesized reality.<\/p>\n

\"Let
Let your feet balance the forces of order and chaos for only $29.99!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Early in his\u00a0book entitled “The Condition of Postmodernity,” David Harvey addresses a key\u00a0identifier of the movement from modernism to postmodernism.\u00a0 Paraphrasing from McHale, Harvey explains that the postmodern novel “is characterized by a shift from an ‘epistemological’ to an ‘ontological’ dominant.\u00a0 By this [McHale] means a shift from the kind of perspectivism that allowed the … Continue reading Order vs. Chaos…A Draw?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[37,16,28,8,35],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-4-le-guin","tag-foucault","tag-harvey","tag-lathe-of-heaven","tag-leguin","tag-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198"}],"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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}