Anarchism in the fiction of Zamyatin, Huxley and Le GuinTools McWilliams, Aron Mark (2025) Anarchism in the fiction of Zamyatin, Huxley and Le Guin. MRes thesis, University of Nottingham.
AbstractThis Thesis will explore the anarchist philosophies of three authors of dystopian and utopian fiction: Yevgeny Zamyatin, Aldous Huxley and Ursula K. Le Guin. It argues that all three thinkers should be associated with anarchism. The thesis will argue that all three authors employ a view of human nature, and the relationship between the human subject and power, which is very similar to that of classical anarchism. Taken broadly this means that the authors each regard human beings as comprising a multitude of faculties which contain within them significant positive and negative, moral and immoral potential. The State and power are then seen as suppressive of the positive facets of human nature and exaggerative of the negative, in line with classical anarchism. It will also argue that the authors reach their anarchist conclusions via a logic similar to that of Tolstoy. Tolstoy developed a form of anarcho-pacifism, that adhered to a staunch deontological ethics based on a belief in the immanence of God within human beings and nature. Likewise, each authors shows an aversion to violence, whilst Huxley and Le Guin are both influenced by Eastern philosophy, and a belief in a form of divinity inherent in nature and human beings, which in turn, constitutes a part of their anarchism. Lastly the thesis will contend that each of the authors display some aspects of postmodernism in their analysis of power, which could be consistent with ‘postanarchism’. Though the thesis rejects the notion that the authors should be considered postanarchists, and instead argues that their analysis of power is accommodated within a broad classical anarchist framework.
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