I posted some time back about Ursula Le Guin, and her acceptance speech at he acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
So if you haven’t seen or heard the quote below, I suggest you hop on over to my post: Ursula K. Le Guin’s dangerous imagination—because it’s way more coherent than this post which is more or less a collection of interesting videos.
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”
Ursula Le Guin
This “Dangerous Philosophy of Ursula Le Guin” is an interesting take on her work. And works well with the Anthropocene video below
The following video gets interesting at around 47-48 minutes in with some fantastic question.
Absolutely delightful.
Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?
“For fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy.”
Ursula K. Le Guin
Anthropocene: Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet with Keynote speech by Ursula K. Le Guin
This is an interesting, kinda academic video clip. At about 1hr 3minutes in:
Ursula: “A house without windows is unthinkable”
Donna: “it’s a supermax prison”
Ursula: “It’s one of those big stores that don’t have any windows. Those are horrible places. They really scare me.” Yup, I’m with ya. They really are soulless monstrosities filled with frowning unhappy people.
It’s an interesting piece. My favourite Ursula Le Guin’s story is “The Word for World is Forest” and it’s great to see it being talked about with the same reverence as “Always Coming Home” Which is what I (and others) have called a more literary piece.
Also 1:18 where they touch on capitalism and run away like frightened rabbits.
And then again at 1:45 Where they’re discussing the idea of a “technofix” to societies current problems:
“And in that sense the technofix is another nightmare. It’s a kind of wet dream of the father whose technology has failed.”
[Ursula sniggers.]
And we need a few dragons.”
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Happy listening, and reading,
I hope you enjoy discovering your true dragon! 🙂
A.J. Ponder
Discover Ursula Le Guin’s books: https://ponderbooks.com/fellow-authors-books/ursula-k-le-guins-books/