I have never read "Parable of the Sower" so I took this month's club reading assignment to finally read it.
Here are some things that were of interest to me:
What exactly is the US government during the period of "Parable of the Sower"?
I got that it was mainly a plutocracy in which massive corporations "employed" (read: enslaved) (non)drugged addled people, and their descendants with corporate credits which they must spend in corporate towns. We are never really told what impact these corporations have on power in Washington DC. Bankole tells us that the federal system still exists but he did not know that his sister's home had burned down...
The police are a fee for service organization/make things worse: ""But... couldn't we call the police?" "For what? We can't afford their fees, and anyway, they're not interested until after a crime has been committed...""(80) "And they knew the cops liked to solve cases by "discovering" evidence against whomever they decided must be guilty. Best to give them nothing. They never helped when people called for help. They came later, and more often than not, made a bad situation worse." (122)
Earthseed: "God is neither good nor evil, neither loving nor hating. God is Power. God is Change. We must find the rest of what we need within ourselves, in one another, in our Destiny." (251) "The earthquake had done a lot of damage in Hollister, but the people had not gone animal. They seemed to be helping one another with repairs and looking after their own destitute. Imagine that." (262)
Why does Lauren Olamina see her sharing/hyperempathy as her weakness? Why does she not see her sharing as connection? Does her sharing play into her evolving understanding of Earthseed?
I think the concept presents a challenge for building solidarity because there are always people who feel unrepresented, and those who are represented work to create in-fighting among the unrepresented people to prevent them from organizing (which in some ways is what we're seeing now). But I think the bigger problem is how difficult the concept of solidarity is for many people when they aren't personally impacted (or when their identity group isn't impacted). When I think of solidarity, it's a shorthand term for "solidarity with and among all oppressed people" - if we can get to a point in society where more people realize that the only group who is "represented" by government is elite white people, regardless of who is in elected office, and everyone who is not represented in that system works together, then we'll really have solidarity.
I have never read "Parable of the Sower" so I took this month's club reading assignment to finally read it.
Here are some things that were of interest to me:
What exactly is the US government during the period of "Parable of the Sower"?
I got that it was mainly a plutocracy in which massive corporations "employed" (read: enslaved) (non)drugged addled people, and their descendants with corporate credits which they must spend in corporate towns. We are never really told what impact these corporations have on power in Washington DC. Bankole tells us that the federal system still exists but he did not know that his sister's home had burned down...
The police are a fee for service organization/make things worse: ""But... couldn't we call the police?" "For what? We can't afford their fees, and anyway, they're not interested until after a crime has been committed...""(80) "And they knew the cops liked to solve cases by "discovering" evidence against whomever they decided must be guilty. Best to give them nothing. They never helped when people called for help. They came later, and more often than not, made a bad situation worse." (122)
Earthseed: "God is neither good nor evil, neither loving nor hating. God is Power. God is Change. We must find the rest of what we need within ourselves, in one another, in our Destiny." (251) "The earthquake had done a lot of damage in Hollister, but the people had not gone animal. They seemed to be helping one another with repairs and looking after their own destitute. Imagine that." (262)
Why does Lauren Olamina see her sharing/hyperempathy as her weakness? Why does she not see her sharing as connection? Does her sharing play into her evolving understanding of Earthseed?
I wonder if representative democracy is possible or congruent to the work of solidarity.
I think the concept presents a challenge for building solidarity because there are always people who feel unrepresented, and those who are represented work to create in-fighting among the unrepresented people to prevent them from organizing (which in some ways is what we're seeing now). But I think the bigger problem is how difficult the concept of solidarity is for many people when they aren't personally impacted (or when their identity group isn't impacted). When I think of solidarity, it's a shorthand term for "solidarity with and among all oppressed people" - if we can get to a point in society where more people realize that the only group who is "represented" by government is elite white people, regardless of who is in elected office, and everyone who is not represented in that system works together, then we'll really have solidarity.
Thanks for the reply