Griggs’ Moderation Versus Le Guin’s Radical Imagination

Imperium in Imperio and The Dispossessed as Rhetorics of Revolution

Sutton Griggs’ Imperium in Imperio and Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed

While Sutton Griggs’ Imperium in Imperio sets up two main characters that ultimately become opposing forces leading to societal ruin, Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed finds the conflict within the ideals of a society as a means to empower revolution for the sake of constantly improving social organization. Le Guin’s exploration of the values and characteristics of an anarchic collectivist society, and the issues that plague it, in relation to its capitalist individualist parent society demonstrates to the reader the inherent conflict found in any society, even an ambiguously utopian one. This, paired with her argument for “permanent revolution”, offers readers a positive view on the salvation and redemption of any society, as opposed to the ominous warning of sure failure in radical revolution offered by Griggs. To further investigate these comparisons and Le Guin’s extension of Griggs’ ideas, we can look to existing scholarship’s exploration of the ambiguous ways in which Le Guin challenges yet accepts anarchy, as well as work that frames Griggs’ novel as one of necessary duality and conflict in revolution. Griggs and Le Guin both argue for the existence of complementary powers that, via a revolutionary force, work to balance a utopian society, but Le Guin moves past Griggs’ argument by envisioning conflict and duality as a way to prevent revolutionaries and organizers from becoming complacent.

To first build a framework for analysis, we can look to Hanna Wallinger’s paper “Secret Societies and Dark Empires: Sutton E. Griggs's Imperium in Imperio and W.E.B. Du Bois's Dark Princess”. Wallinger argues with this work for a sense of duality or conflict, which is that found between the characters of Belton and Bernard in Griggs’ Imperium in Imperio. Wallinger makes the claim that the two characters are meant to be representative of opposing opinions had at the time Griggs writes and that this conflict can help us see the need for both sides. This argument demonstrates how Griggs understands the inherent conflict found within organizing people and the way that conflict can lead to eventual revolution. In this way, Wallinger sets up a sense of duality in the conflicting characters of Bernard and Belton as they navigate the creation and eventual downfall of a revolutionary state.

Daniel P. Jaeckle’s “Embodied Anarchy in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed”, in a similar way, argues that Le Guin demonstrates the “complementarity” of Annarasti anarchism in that there is a conflict between individual freedom and social responsibility. This conflict is, in the main character Shevek’s perspective, indicative of a need for “revolution within revolution”, as he believes individual freedom is a necessary component of social responsibility. This drives him to work on moving Annarasti society back to its original promise of true anarchy and embodying the planet’s original vision of permanent revolution. Using Wallinger and Jaeckle’s perspectives together, we can begin to see the duality and conflict that exists in both utopian novels which sets up a framework for comparing the conflict of two opposing ideals on Anarres and between Urras and Anarres with the conflict of two opposing characters within the Imperium.

The two opposing characters written by Griggs, Belton and Bernard, plan to form a secret government, the Imperium, in the state of Texas with the goal of liberating, once and for all, the Black race in the United States. Belton, a dark skin Black man with humble beginnings, does not believe in lumping whole races and classes of people, even White people, together and believes there is a peaceful path to the liberation of Black people. Bernard, on the other hand, is a mixed-race man coming from a background of status and wealth and ultimately sees the only path to liberation as one marked by bloodshed and a distinct color line. Griggs uses Belton and Bernard as extreme examples of beliefs of power, caricatures that Wallinger argues is modeled after Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, two prominent Black activists of the time Griggs is writing. Washington, whose beliefs are represented by Belton, and Du Bois, who is seen in Bernard, held two opposing ideas about the path to black liberation and in Griggs’ reflection of them, he paints a picture of the two extreme sides of a movement that existed in the 1800s.

Le Guin’s The Dispossessed similarly depicts two extremes of a political spectrum with her use of the two planets Urras and Anarres. The part of Urras we see is characterized by capitalism, individualistic ideas, and repression while Anarres is described as an anarchist, collectivist, and wholly free society. This comparison can be seen simplified in Le Guin’s characterization and ultimate comparison of the women of both planets, with the description, “‘A body profiteer,’ Takver called women who used their sexuality as a weapon in a power struggle with men. To look at her, Vea was the body profiteer to end them all,” (Le Guin 212-213). Here, Le Guin uses two women prominent to Shevek, one on each planet, as a way to directly compare not just the sexual expression of both planets, but also to compare the societal and cultural norms and mindsets. The use of the phrase “body profiteer” elicits a sense that capitalism and the desire to own and make profit off things transcends mere economics and has a role, also, in the way people present themselves and interact with others. As compared to Takver, Shevek’s partner who, like most Annaresti women, is modest but sexually liberated, Vea is said to be the ultimate body profiteer who uses her repressed sexuality to control the movement of men around her. Although this is an example specific to women and the presentation of their femineity, this passage is a clear demonstration of the duality Le Guin envisions between the two planets and their conflicting ideals.

Another place we can experience duality in The Dispossessed is in the conflict Shevek finds within the anarchism employed by his home planet of Anarres. This is remarked upon by Jaeckle, who relates the logical problem that Shevek finds in the values of anarchy to the ideals of complementarity found in his physics work. Jaeckle describes this as, “Shevek uses the same logic of complementarity (that led to his theory of time) to solve his greatest problem, the seeming incompatibility of individual freedom and social responsibility within the anarchist society of Anarres,” (Jaeckle 79). This duality, although narrower and more specific than the conflict found between the planets of Urras and Anarres, is what takes Shevek to Urras in the first place as he searches for a way to reconcile this logical problem while finishing up his physics work. The fact that one form of duality forces Shevek to experience a wholly other and larger form of duality speaks to Le Guin’s vision of ambiguity in the novel and deepens this theme of complementing and dueling forces and how they function together to keep a society running well.

Through the duality offered by both texts, we get a sense of where authors find power does, or does not, lie and how power creates the need for revolution. We see this with Belton in Imperium in Imperio, who, when speaking on the Constitution and law of the United States, says, “‘The General Government says to the citizen: “…But while I am your supreme earthly sovereign I am powerless to protect you against crimes, injustices, outrages against you. Your state may disfranchise you with or without law, may mob you; but my hands are so tied that I can't help you at all,”’” (Griggs 124). Here, Griggs is naming, quite clearly, the power and power structures he sees in the United States government he writes amidst. He says, quite plainly, that the government is so “powerless” that even if the laws of our nation were perfected to protect every individual and their rights’, the people they sought to protect would still be woefully unprotected and subject to harassment and discrimination. This lack of power in the government, then, is what creates the original need for revolution and is what brings Bernard to his final, radical answer of an all-Black nation of Texas. This passage also reinforces the idea that power does not always come from structures such as governments, but rather power lies in people, which is why revolution is possible in the first place. The ability of the Imperium to start its original revolution lays the groundwork for the later revolution started by Belton as he seeks to return the Imperium to the values it was formed by at the outset.

Le Guin’s The Dispossessed also features a very clear rhetoric about revolution – what it means, who starts it, and how it is pursued. This makes sense, as Anarres was started via revolution and claims to keep the idea of revolution alive, even seven generations later. We see in many instances, however, that what Anarrestis truly believe and how they truly organize and act is not as straightforward as they claim it to be. Shevek and his friend Bedap explore the idea that Anarres is still governed by laws, although not the authoritarian laws of Urras, but rather social laws that shame and guilt members of society into acting a particular way. They also see discrepancies in the way that Anarres claims to be wholly decentralized and without hierarchy, yet the capital city Abbenay is very clearly the center of some of Anarres’ function and receives extra benefits, such as grass and more dessert, than other parts of the planet. A pivotal hypocrisy they discover in the way Anarres functions, however, is the Anarresti resistance to revolution, even though they come from revolution and claim to be still in perpetual revolution.

Shevek and Bedap’s dissent to certain Anarresti ideals, then, is nothing more than their true Odonian spirit, which comes to a head near the end of the book as Shevek considers traveling to Urras to finish his physics theory. When discussing with Takver the possibility of their being pushed even further from their community on his return, Takver proposes, “‘We’ll make a new community. If our society is settling down into politics and power seeking, then we’ll get out, we’ll go make an Anarres beyond Anarres, a new beginning,’” (Le Guin 379). This line designates Shevek, Takver, Bedap, and the likes as the most true Odonians of any Anarrestis, as they are so committed to a better, more free, less centralized society that they are willing to start a revolution within the so-called permanent revolution that is Anarres. This passage also reveals an argument being made by Le Guin about inherent power structures, hierarchy, and politics, all of which create the need for permanent revolutions and constant return to original visions.

Important to the revolution narrative of both novels is the character to act as a revolutionary and work to better the society by bringing it back to original or promised values. This is seen in Griggs’ Imperium in Imperio with the character of Belton, who, in the climax of his and Bernard’s conflicting political ideals, dissents from Bernard’s plan for violence and the seizure of the state of Texas for the Imperium’s secession from the United States. Belton’s position on the issue can be summed up by his statement, “‘I am no traitor and never shall be one. Our Imperium was organized to secure our rights within the United States and we will make any sacrifice that can be named to attain that end. Our efforts have been to wash the flag free of all blots, not to rend it; to burnish every star in the cluster, but to pluck none out,’” (Griggs 168). Griggs, in this moment, positions Belton as a revolutionary force within a revolution, arguing that no revolution is safe from further uprising and dissent. Also important to note in Belton’s choice of words when dissenting is his loyalty to the original promise and ideals of the Imperium, a departure from which he feels elicits the need for revolution. Although Belton is one half of the duality built by Griggs in Imperium in Imperio, he also embodies the revolutionary force that is born out of that same duality and conflict.

The idea of revolution within revolution and for the sake of returning to the original values of a society is seen in Le Guin’s The Dispossessed with Belton’s parallel character of Shevek. As already seen with Shevek’s concerns for the conflict found between individual freedom and social responsibility in Anarres anarchism and his willingness to form an “Anarres beyond Anarres”, he is clearly positioned by Le Guin as the revolutionary force of the novel. He also, similarly to Belton, incites revolution for the sake of returning to Anarres’ original Odonian values. This characterization of Shevek as the most true Odonian is epitomized by his trip to Urras, which he does in an act of defiance against those who say it is un-Annaresti to do such a thing. Yet, he goes anyway, despite his own hesitations and desires to stay with his family, demonstrating his willingness to sacrifice his own wants and desires for the sake of bettering his community and society, just as Belton was willing to lay down his life for the sake of steering the Imperium back onto the correct path.

It is thus established, then, that Griggs and Le Guin both find duality and conflict in their respective narratives of revolution, and both center a revolutionary within those revolutions as a means to bring the societies back to their original promise. The prominence with which these topics are seen in both novels demonstrates the authors’ similar beliefs about dueling forces as a given in revolutionary societies and the way those dueling forces can work towards the good of said society by encouraging dissent, individual thought and opinion, and, if need be, revolution. This is an idea echoed by Wallinger, who says about the opposing main characters of Belton and Bernard, “Despite all their differences in skin-color and ideology, both have to be seen as complementary characters, whose respective faults highlight the virtues of the other,” (Wallinger 199). Wallinger’s observation that the dueling forces of power and ideology are necessary to keep a society in balance is an idea that, given the similarities in themes of conflicting power and revolution, can also be applied to and understood in the context of Le Guin’s The Disspossessed. The same way Griggs writes Belton and Bernard as opposing forces to keep the Imperium from falling too far to either side of the political spectrum, Le Guin writes the opposing ideals of individual freedom and social responsibility and the opposing planets of Urras and Anarres as two necessary components of the balance that needs to be maintained between such conflicts. Both Griggs and Le Guin challenge the reader to consider the ways in which conflict is a good thing by demonstrating the development of society that can be born out of it.

Le Guin takes this argument even further, however, as her novel comes 100 years and many revolutions later. While both novels are fraught with ambiguity about what perspective is correct and what utopia truly means, Griggs’ Imperium in Imperio’s sense of ambiguity implies a push towards the middle, moderate path to liberation. As implied by Wallinger, Griggs’ use of two extreme political perspectives of the time and Belton’s position as a revolutionary for the sake of a moderate opinion and path suggest that the best move for a society looking to improve is to move slowly and nonviolently. Le Guin, however, embraces the ambiguity she creates in her work as a way to inspire and cultivate radical perspectives and solutions to societal issues. Le Guin’s ambiguity speaks to whether or not utopia can be attained at all, as demonstrated in her concept of “revolution within revolution” – even a young society or one already in the midst of revolutionizing can still be subject to improvement. This exhibits her belief that as societies and organized groups of people we should not seek to create utopia and then be complacent. Rather, what a good society is can be found in the ambiguity of good and bad and that ambiguity can encourage individuals to radically imagine new and important ways of transforming the world we live in via our radical ideas about how things could always be better.

Both Sutton Griggs’ Imperium in Imperio and Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed feature prominently the themes of duality and how revolution is born out of that conflict by a revolutionary figure. While Griggs sees this conflict and its ensuing revolution as necessary, he ultimately argues for a middle way found between the two opposing forces. Le Guin, however, furthers Griggs’ ideas about dueling forces by naming and welcoming the ambiguity that comes with complex human societies and sees the conflict as a driving force behind the betterment of such societies. Both Griggs and Le Guin see the inherent need for conflict and revolution, even within a revolutionary society, but the two authors envision two different outcomes and inspire two different mindsets about how revolution enacts the advancement of justice.

Works Cited

Griggs, Sutton E. Imperium in Imperio. Modern Library, 1899.

Jaeckle, Daniel P. “Embodied Anarchy in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed.” Utopian Studies, vol. 20, no. 1, 2009, pp. 75-95. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20719930. Accessed 01 May 2023.

Le Guin, Ursula. The Dispossessed. HarperCollins, 1974.

Wallinger, Hanna. “Secret Societies and Dark Empires: Sutton E. Griggs's Imperium in Imperio and W.E.B. Du Bois's Dark Princess.” SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature, vol. 10, 1997, pp. 197-210. E Periodica, https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=spe-001:1997:10::214#215. Accessed 01 May 2023.