And then, if you do take into account the Book of Revelations, Nostradamus, various 20th-century evangelical ramblings, and the 1976 historical documentary, The Omen, the people who are most likely candidates for antichrist are Trump, Thiel, Musk, Ellison, etc.
Maybe Thiel is worried about who his father really is.
sanguis bibimus corpus edimus
No disagreement here. I wasn’t necessarily advocating the idea, but it was interesting to explore it and “try it on” for a while when reading the book. I think there is some value in attempting to steer society in better directions, but disagree with rewriting history or purging culture to do so.
Just finished reading The Dispossessed and was going to comment similarly. It was fantastic read and surprisingly modern considering it was written in the 60s. Some of her contemporaries don’t have the same sort of timeless readability as Le Guin.
The key anarchist takeaways from The Dispossessed are the use of syndicates in lieu of corporate or government structures, no private ownership or equity, and the absence of law, elections, and criminal punishment. Committees exist for public discussion, but the outcome of that discussion is non-binding (although one may find themselves an outcast). Le Guin presents anarchy like libertarianism mixed with socialism: you are free to do as you please, but you are obligated to recognize your role in the social organism.
Le Guin also recognizes that anarchist thought is in some ways extremely foreign to all of our modes of thought, philosophy, and language. So she devises a world where the anarchists invent a new language to correct and remove “egoist” ideas. The society she develops revolted against a hyper-consumerist society, referred to as “propertarians,” and this drives much of the plot and dialogue: what does it mean to not be an egoist while still being human?; what is the limit of personal possession before becoming a propertarian?; what happens when your personal freedom and needs are trampled on by the social organism?; and how long can a non-hierarchical society last when it inevitably creates systems that begin to self-organize into hierarchies and bureaucracies?
The protagonist realizes that any revolution must remain perpetually in a state of revolution lest the people settle into inviolable customs that then calcify into law.
I mean, yeah. My point was that the people who believe in fantastical boogeymen are the most likely to support the people who are the closest to being the actual Antichrist if any of that were real.