Ursula K. Le Guin, Thinking in SF Mode

Abstract

In this chapter, I propose to correlate Le Guin’s “realists of a larger reality” and Haraway’s SF mode of thinking. This involves distinguishing the imaginary from the imagination. I will read “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” as a refusal to accept simple imaginary situations typical of the “thought experiments” of moral philosophy. Instead, imagination requires changing planes to envision thick worlds in which scientific facts are unable to claim the last word, as they are engaged in the weaving of passionate, diverging matters of concern. Le Guin’s fiction thus allows us to experiment with the imagination it takes to belong to a world, to learn how it can change, honoring the truths that situate us without lending them the imaginary power to tame contingency.