The Problem of Evil
religion
January 18, 2004, 01:25 AM
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Everything has its balance, even archetypal good and evil; it is impossible to understand one without the other. It is important to remember that we can never create Utopia, for the very act of achieving it destroys the concept. That which we call good is often bound inseparably to that which we call evil, and to be able to recognize happiness and misery, to be able to accept pain with ecstasy, is not only the human condition, but the only condition that makes any sense in this world.
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Whispers of Elegance
personal, religion
May 23, 2003, 10:07 PM
"If you can see a thing whole," he said, "it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives.... But close up, a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful life is, is from the vantage point of death."
The correlation between beauty, wholeness, and distance resonated with me. I'm not yet sure what it means.
Posted by cindylouwho on May 27, 2003 at 11:50 PM
i really like that quote, robin!! i'd tell u in person, but u arent online. where are u?!?!?!?
:-P i miss u :-P
Posted by Geoff on May 31, 2003 at 01:04 AM
Like most of LeGuin's writing, beautifully said. And I think there's a lot of truth to it. But is it the whole truth? My most aesthetic moments always come when I contemplate wholeness, but they also usually come when I feel most intimately connected to the beauty I'm contemplating; when I sit in a forest, or a garden, or watch people while drinking coffee in a cafe on a busy street. But it's true, distance can sharpen the aesthetic sense as well as connectedness.
I'd be interested to hear if you've had any more thoughts on the subject since this post.
Posted by Rob on June 01, 2003 at 02:21 AM
Sadly, I haven't had any profound insights into what the quote means to me, just the feeling that it means something profound and important.
I agree that it certainly isn't the whole truth, like everything this quote has to be taken in context. I'm not sure I really believe in a "whole truth", at least as something humans can reach. But it reasonated as part of the way I understand the world, which is why I mentioned it here.
Le Guin's writing often seems to strike me in this fashion. Maybe its because, what with her Taoist leanings, she encounters the world in a similiar manner as I do, and expresses it better than I could ever dream of doing :).
Posted by Ben on February 09, 2007 at 08:08 PM
I was reading "The Dispossessed" and this quote caught me. I'm glad to see it struck someone else too.
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Posted by Dan on January 18, 2004 at 08:15 AM
Does it not stand to reason, then, that Utopia itself is an evil? Perhaps even the idea of a Utopia is an evil, for it leads us off the Way?
Posted by Rob on January 18, 2004 at 09:35 AM
I wasn't thinking evil, but more like a nonsensical concept. Good and evil are two notions that go hand in hand, and do not exist as separate entities in the world. To imagine a world where there is good without evil, or vice-versa, is to imagine an impossibility.