Thursday, March 12, 2009

A World Apart?

How different is our society from Orgoreyn's? Is it better or worse?

Besides the whole gender topic, Orgoreyn seems to be a much more censored and controlled society than ours. Estraven mentions that there was no mention of Genly arriving on the radio and, most likely, not many, if any, of the common folk know that he is in Orgoreyn. Our society is practically run by the media and news stations, although there is still some secrecy. I do believe that we would have treated an alien life form in a very similar way, even if it looked very similar to us. People are very scared of the unknown and they would want to know everything they could about the extraterrestrial, with or without its consent.

I believe out society is better, but maybe not as productive. I mainly believe it is better because we enjoy many more rights and liberties than the Orgota. The Orgota seems to be much more productive and efficient but at the expense of their people's freedom. Our society is not perfect, however, and I despise the "every man for himself" mentality of free market capitalism.

2 comments:

  1. Safa, that's an interesting point you bring up about Orgoreyn being controlled. Many of your classmates have said the same about Karhide, and it seems like many of them are now changing their mind based on this new perspective we are given.

    I also agree with you about free market capitalism -- it will be interesting to see how our current economic situation will impact our ideals. On one hand, I'm not sure if I can remain that fully optimistic, but on the other hand, isn't optimism what drives us to improve our existence?

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