Looking to ursula k. le guin's the word for world is forest to find ways to respond to the dilemmas of the anthropocene

Abstract

In The Word for World is Forest (1972), Ursula K. Le Guin imagines a dystopian future where humans (Terrans) are faced with the task of plundering other planets for the resource they have caused the earth to be depleted of: wood. On planet Athshe, Terrans find dense forests and a peaceful population of humans, and are quick to reproduce practices founded in the dualistic logic that sets humans (culture) against nature. These practices and depictions of the earth resonate with the dilemmas of the Anthropocene, the “age of humans,” where loss in biodiversity, climate change, massive deforestation, among other things are sounding an alarm that many associate with the end of the world as we know it. Athsheans, as I demonstrate in this paper, put up a resistance to Terran practices that are grounded not in violence (although they unwillingly apply it) but in holding fast to a worldview that is nondualist and dream-based that can serve to inform us in resisting the logic that has led us to the Anthropocene in the first place.