The+Dispossessed

One of the protagonist's first experiences in the novel — aboard the ship bearing him to the ancestral, yet alien, world that his anarchist society literally left behind two centuries before — prompts a question in his mind which invites the reader to consider the assumptions that are implicit in the circumstances surrounding mundane actions, such as washing one's hands.

Shevek notices that aboard this spaceship the faucet does not automatically shut off after an interval, but must rather be manually shut off by the user. Shevek reflects that this is "a sign... either of great faith in human nature, or of great quantities of hot water." (14[?])

The authors of //Nudge// describe this as "choice architecture" and make the case that it is inevitable — that avoidance of direct consideration of it will simply result in a structure of default choices that is very unlikely to be optimal or even desirable, from anyone's perspective.

They therefore propose an approach to choice architecture that they call "libertarian paternalism." One premise of my larger argument about the value of anarchism for education in general is that anarchism (or at least the varieties of it which i wish to promote) is happily compatible with the libertarian paternalist approach.

inevitable

Sabul's adversarial mentality and status anxiety

Some Annaresti insults: //profiteer// //propertarian// //egoizer//

//Propertarian// might have more precise semantics than //bourgeois//, but idiomatically it functions as an epithet in much the same way: its particular or ostensible meaning is less important than the stigma it is meant to attach to the person at whom it has been applied.

The title itself is ambiguous: does it refer to the Annaresti, or to Shevek?

reminds me of one of the final lines of Albee's play The Zoo Story: "You won't be coming back here any more, Peter; you've been dispossessed. You've lost your bench, but you've defended your honor." Shevek loses his place on Annares, but opens the way for Annares to assume a place of honour among the known worlds. (invention, the Ansible)