Ursula K Le Guin was kinda Woke

Le Guin is singular among the SF greats for making the leap to new generations, based only on her writing. And her TikTok fame.

So. Ursula K Le Guin was kinda Woke.

Which is also why she emerged as kinda the most famous of the great 20th century science fiction writers.

Kinda.

Fame over time means being adopted by new generations. The vast majority of science fiction writers won’t make that leap.

So the huge names of the past Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke etc are dropping off the map.

Frank Herbert has new life because of the movies, and also some of what I’m about to say for Le Guin also applies to Herbert.

But I think Le Guin is singular among the SF greats for making the leap to new generations, based only on her writing. And her TikTok fame.

And this is because Ursula was Woke before Woke was a thing. And her science fiction is a masterclass in the fundamental principals of Wokeness.

Yes. Woke is a pejorative used on the right for anything they don’t like.

But it also points to something real. And the best critiques of Woke come, not from the populist right, but from the Marxist left.

Marxists hate the Woke more deeply than almost anyone else.

The Marxist critique is that Woke is a form of radical idealist liberalism, that weaponises ideas from idealist philosophy as tools of political action.

Woke pushes “social construction” far past its “agreed” limits even among liberals. So Woke doesn’t just assert that gender is a construct, but biological sex. It makes the case that physical sciences are constructed. And all power structures.

I come not to promote Woke, or to critique it. But to note that the science fiction of Ursula K Le Guin is a primer in the philosophy of Woke…hence it’s enduring and growing readership.

Because if you think Woke was dangerous up until now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

I did however take the time to make a video essay on the dangerous philosophy of Ursula Le Guin, which is working its way to a million views on youtube.