Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?
Interpretation
Utopias struggle with inclusion and dealing with those who do not conform.
This quote by Margaret Atwood highlights a fundamental challenge faced by ideal societies, particularly in literature. It questions how a utopia can address the existence of individuals who do not conform to societal norms, suggesting that perfect societies may inadvertently exclude or marginalize those who are different, thus revealing the complexities of human nature and social organization.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about social inclusivity at a community meeting.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
Your true character Is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do 'Nothing' for you
A city with all the personality of a paper cup. (On Los Angeles)
I’m me, and at the same time not me. That’s what it felt like. A very still, quiet feeling.
I know the place. It is true. Everything we do Corrects the space Between death and me And you.
History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.
We should also leave behind discrimination, because it is narrow-minded and ignorant, denies contact and warmth; and corrodes mankind's belief that we can better ourselves. The only way to avoid misunderstanding, war and bloodshed is to defend freedom of expression and to communicate with sincerity, concern and good intentions.
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