19 Dec 2025

Another thorny utopia, Lowry’s Community practices a different kind of strategy to the Hideous Bargain: ethical evasion, a too tempting strategy for all of us. Political? Yes. But also a YA fantasy vision of what some of the latest writers and thinkers believe we’re doing already.

Texts from this episode:

• Lois Lowry, The Giver, 1993
• Rabih Alameddine, Comforting Myths, 2024
• Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, 2025

Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/

CHAPTERS

00:00     Choosing Ugliness
05:45     Intro Theme
06:19     Evasion Modeling
11:40     Meaning and Politics in The Giver
20:58     Price Tags for Blissful Ignorance
25:00     At Stake: The Sanitation of Memory
33:30     Where To?
36:44     Closing Credits

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Transcript:  https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/6-20-the-great-societies-the-giver/

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Literary Nomads is the primary program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas.

Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses.

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CREDITS:

Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/)

Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski

USING THIS WORK:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution.

MLA CITATION:

Chisnell, Steve. “6.20 The Great Societies: Lowry’s The Giver,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 19 Dec 2025, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/.