Le Guin and empathy
*looks around shiftily* I really shouldn't collude in breaking copyright, but the story is up on someone else's website anyway, so I thought I'd put it up here for general discussion. But do be good creatures and buy the book if you like it! This is a follow-up to the discussion on telepathy as disability in the Sookie Stackhouse novels/True Blood. Where Sookie is shown as someone who has a superpower with disadvantages, this is primarily about someone substantially disabled amongst a group of people who are also "all of unsound mind". I should warn you that it's not the cheeriest of stories, and I'm unsure whether some people might find the treatment of autism to be offensive (though I think it needs to be read carefully), but anyway, read, enjoy, discuss!
Vaster Than Empires and More Slow
IT WAS ONLY DURING THE EARLIEST DECADES of the League that the Earth sent ships out on the enormously long voyages, beyond the pale, over the stars and far away. They were seeking for worlds which had not been seeded or settled by the Founders on Hain, truly alien worlds. All the Known Worlds went back to the Hainish Origin, and the Terrans, having been not only founded but salvaged by the Hainish, resented this. They wanted to get away from the family. They wanted to find somebody new. The Hainish, like tiresomely understanding parents, supported their explorations, and contributed ships and volunteers, as did several other worlds of the League.
All these volunteers to the Extreme Survey crews shared one peculiarity: they were of unsound mind.
What sane person, after all, would go out to collect information that would not be received for five or ten centuries? ...
Read the whole short story here, and imagine rather more full stops than the e-text has put in.
Ursula Le Guin, 1971, now found in her short story collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters.
Vaster Than Empires and More Slow
IT WAS ONLY DURING THE EARLIEST DECADES of the League that the Earth sent ships out on the enormously long voyages, beyond the pale, over the stars and far away. They were seeking for worlds which had not been seeded or settled by the Founders on Hain, truly alien worlds. All the Known Worlds went back to the Hainish Origin, and the Terrans, having been not only founded but salvaged by the Hainish, resented this. They wanted to get away from the family. They wanted to find somebody new. The Hainish, like tiresomely understanding parents, supported their explorations, and contributed ships and volunteers, as did several other worlds of the League.
All these volunteers to the Extreme Survey crews shared one peculiarity: they were of unsound mind.
What sane person, after all, would go out to collect information that would not be received for five or ten centuries? ...
Read the whole short story here, and imagine rather more full stops than the e-text has put in.
Ursula Le Guin, 1971, now found in her short story collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters.