Le Guin’s “Nine Lives” Essay, Research Paper
?If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself ? as men have done to women, and class has done to class, and nation has done to nation ? you may hate it or deify it; but in either case you have denied its spiritual equality and its human reality. You have made it into a thing, to which the only possible relationship is a power relationship?
These sentiments, written by Ursula K. Le Guin, poignantly represent a powerful condition of mankind. Humanity is fraught with examples of power relationships, be it man?s repression of women?s rights, be it slavery of blacks, or relationships built on religious differences, the trend is clear: what man does not understand will be classified as non-human; with non-human invariably meaning sub-human. What would the relationship be if the entity in question were not ?sub-human?, but rather a super-human, a ?purpose built? actual person, who excels above and beyond the norm? The entity is most certainly human and unlike other power relationships, there can be no doubt of its superiority, but a disparity is still evident. Would the created rule the creator? Would the entity?s differences be enough to exclude it from empathy with the rest of society? How would t