When we think of the libertarian tradition, we tend naturally to think of political philosophers and economists of the past. But one part of the libertarian tradition belongs to novelists and other fiction writers. FULL ARTICLE by Jeff Riggenbach
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/12136/yevgeny-zamyatin-libertarian-novelist/
Yevgeny Zamyatin: Libertarian Novelist
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I love the book “We” by Zamyatin. Thanks for the article. Very few people I know have read it, but it is a great libertarian read.
Old fiction is great for historical perspective, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the society we are today, and where it is headed. 1984 told us about Nazism and Communism, it doesn’t tell us anything about the machinations of “the party” today (there is no party). It takes the great novelists of our time to reflect our society back at us, and give us the perspective to imagine liberty in our present and future.
By far the greatest novelist alive today who can do this is Neal Stephenson. This is my Amazon review of The Diamond Age, and this explains why I think his novels are more relevant than ever.
Stephenson would be a good novelist, if only he learned how to *end* a novel. He has apparently hit on a solution to this problem, though; write a never-ending series of novels, like a soap opera, and then eventually die before having to come up with an effective denouement.
BTW, still missing the preview button, web guys!
He’s just not a “they lived happily ever after” kinda guy. His stories end when there is nothing left to say.
I actually like Stephenson’s habit of not ending on a not of resolution. It drives home the point that his novels are descriptions of fantasy worlds that just happen to have a story-type plot in them, and not the other way around; a story that has a world built around it. In my opinion it makes his worlds more authentic that there isn’t a traditional story arch thing going on, at least not a full one.
Never heard of this writer. But, after reading this article, I purchased a copy yesterday. I look forward to reading it!
Yikes, no. Zamyatin was far from a libertarian: are you familiar with his other work? His short stories? His essays? His letters or autobiographical works? Zamyatin wasn’t taking a libertarian tack, but a Nietzschean one: We is an allegorical retelling of The Birth of Tragedy, and a warning against a civilization that would ignore Dionysus.
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