![\"\"](\"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/readrespond\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/456\/2020\/08\/parable_of_the_sower.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A decade and a half after her death, Octavia Butler is having a moment. NASA has named the landing site of the agency\u2019s Perseverance rover, which is searching for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars, after the African American science fiction author, and just a few months earlier her 1993 novel Parable of the Sower<\/em> finally made the New York Times<\/em> best-seller list.<\/p>\n One reason why this book has struck a chord is that it conjures up a nightmarish vision of an America burning itself down that many contemporary readers find all too recognizable. The first in a two-book series, Parable of the Sower<\/em> offers a prescient glimpse of California in the 2020s. Written as a response to and critique of the neo-conservative assault on the welfare state, and published less than a year after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the novel depicts a dystopian future where society has largely collapsed due to global warming, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed. Poverty, crime, and exploitation are rampant outside a few gated communities such as the one on the outskirts of LA, Robledo, in which the protagonist\u2014Lauren Olamina\u2014grows up. Strictly speaking, Parable of the Sower<\/em> is not a post-apocalyptic novel, as it is not concerned with sudden endings. Butler extrapolated from current trends, taking them to their logical extremes, without resorting to abrupt transitions or definitive catastrophes. As Lauren puts it, \u201cthings are unraveling, disintegrating bit by bit.\u201d<\/p>\n Parable of the Sower<\/em> also resonates in this time of Black Lives Matter protests and the ensuing societal reckoning with the racist foundations of the US because of its thoughtful engagement with practices of enslavement both past and present. In many ways, the novel is a neo-slave narrative: it tells the life story of a young African American woman through journal entries, her journey north in search of freedom and safety recalls that of fugitive slaves travelling along the Underground Railroad (as well as evoking Latin American immigrants illegally crossing the border into the US), and the many citations of and allusions to the Bible echo classic slave narratives, as does the importance placed on literacy and the quest for education. Moreover, twenty-first-century forms of economic servitude and social oppression, such as debt bondage to multinational corporations and sexual trafficking, are explicitly interpreted by the characters in terms of a continuation of or variation on antebellum chattel slavery. Thus, the novel challenges redemptive accounts of US racial history and discredits self-congratulatory proclamations of the triumph of capitalism.<\/p>\n An additional reason for the recent resurgence of interest in Parable of the Sower<\/em>, besides its frighteningly realistic \u201ccollapse of civilization\u201d story and its timely reflection on the enduring legacy of slavery in America, is that the novel provides a narrative blueprint for a sustainable future, achievable through processes of societal transformation prefigured by the community Lauren founds on the principles of a religion she has created herself. She realizes early on that nostalgia is not a viable solution to the problems ailing society. Ruefully observing that \u201cPeople have changed the climate of the world. Now they\u2019re waiting for the old days to come back,\u201d she knows that the old order is broken beyond repair. Embarking on a perilous northbound journey on Highway 101 after her Robledo community has been destroyed by drug-crazed intruders, she gathers a diverse group of people around her whom she tells about and teaches the religion she has invented, \u201cEarthseed,\u201d a belief system whose basic tenet\u2014\u201cGod is change\u201d\u2014emphasizes flux and impermanence.<\/p>\n Acknowledging that the world is in constant change, and that people can and must adapt, Earthseed rejects individualism, private property, and discrimination based on race, gender, class, or sexuality; it embraces diversity, interconnectedness, and interdependence with the human and non-human world. Through Earthseed, the novel offers a utopian vision that can serve as an alternative model to the unjust and moribund system which led to the political, economic, and environmental crisis. Towards the end of the narrative, Lauren and her followers found the first Earthseed settlement, called Acorn, in Humboldt County in northern California. Earthseed\u2019s ultimate destiny, though, as prophesied by Lauren, is to \u201ctake root among the stars\u201d: she imagines the future of humanity in terms of interstellar travel and the establishment of Earthseed communities in solar systems beyond planet Earth.<\/p>\n Empathy plays an important role in facilitating the creation of Lauren\u2019s progressive community. Butler contrasts the callousness and indifference to human suffering of the existing social (dis)order with her protagonist\u2019s extreme sensitivity to the pain of others. Born with \u201chyperempathy syndrome,\u201d a genetic defect caused by her mother\u2019s drug use while she was pregnant, Lauren can feel the pain and (less often) pleasure of others. She vacillates between seeing hyperempathy as a disability, since it makes her more vulnerable, and an asset, \u201csomething that might do some good,\u201d as it could become the basis for a more compassionate and caring society. In fact, Parable of the Sower<\/em>\u2019s attempt to imagine utopia from the ashes is reminiscent of Rebecca Solnit\u2019s A Paradise Built in Hell<\/em>, which describes the \u201cdisaster communities\u201d constituted through mutual aid and collectivity that spring up in response to breakdowns of the prevailing social order, giving the lie to the commonplace notion that disasters reveal the worst in human nature.<\/p>\n However, the feasibility of Butler\u2019s utopian vision as articulated in the novel is a moot point. For one thing, the ending is ambiguous. It strikes a hopeful note, but it is unclear whether Acorn can actually survive in a hostile wider environment marked by violence, anarchy, and climate catastrophe. In any case, as a relatively isolated agrarian enclave, it does not obviously pose an effective challenge to global capitalism. Moreover, as a fictitious genetic mutation, hyperempathy syndrome\u2014the \u201cnovum\u201d in this otherwise realistic science fiction tale\u2014may seem like tenuous ground for real-world socio-political change; besides, it sometimes leads to decidedly unethical behaviour. In addition, Earthseed\u2019s focus on an interstellar destiny can be seen to undermine its commitment to bettering life on this planet. Even so, Parable of the Sower<\/em> stands out for envisaging ways that could lead to a radically improved world, thus giving contemporary readers a refreshing break from the relentless horror show of the Trump era and the standard doom and gloom that tends to predominate in speculative fiction.<\/p>\n Climate change is a central topic of our time, and we are living through increasingly drastic changes that impact our way of life. Octavia E. Butler\u2019s Parable of the Sower<\/em> takes place in the U.S. It is set in an imagined near future, but climate change-induced disasters such as hurricanes, floods and drought are part of America\u00b4s very real recent history. Butler\u00b4s novel anticipates climate disasters now happening worldwide. Violent storms, monsoons, and slow-onset climate change, such as dry areas getting drier, have cost millions of lives, livelihoods and homes.<\/p>\n In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggested that climate change would have \u201cthe greatest single impact\u201d on human migration, with several million people having to move due to increasing water levels, increasing drought and heat or other factors that make agriculture impossible to sustain. Estimates on the number of climate change refugees vary greatly, from a \u201cmodest\u201d 25 million up to a billion \u2013 though the most commonly cited estimate is 200 million people displaced by 2050, according to the International Organization for Migration<\/a>.<\/p>\n This graphic<\/a> by the New York Times<\/em> illustrates the global reduction of livable land areas. The article that follows the graphic, entitled \u201cThe Great Climate Migration,\u201d goes on to discuss the ways climate change is affecting families in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Many from these countries are currently being forced to move in the hopes of finding a living because an increasing drought has made agriculture unsustainable. As a consequence, what food is being produced becomes more expensive, and many people can no longer afford to provide for themselves and their families.<\/p>\n Many Central Americans migrate north, hoping to find work in the US. This route is dangerous. Nearly half of immigrants trying to enter the US from Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador report that they lost a relative to violence<\/a> along the way. \u00a0But hundreds of thousands of Central Americans and others in similar situations worldwide choose to face similar risks saying there simply isn\u2019t an alternative anymore due to climate change.<\/p>\n Within families, deciding who should migrate and who should stay behind can be extremely challenging. Some people migrate alone or bring only part of their family, planning to search for a job in order to support the rest of their family, perhaps one day hoping to return. Others bring their entire families, hoping to start fresh somewhere else. One example of the former is Delmira de Jes\u00fas Cortez Barrera, who brought her infant son with her when she moved from the rural west of El Salvador, but left her two daughters in the care of her parents. Over a fourth of Cortez\u2019s income was sent back to her parents to make sure her daughters were fed. Alternatively, families may bring all of their children, or children may migrate alone. UNICEF reports that 50 million boys and girls<\/a> have been internationally or internally displaced due to climate change.<\/p>\n In Octavia E. Butler\u2019s Parable of the Sower<\/em> the situation is not so different. Though our protagonists travel a shorter distance, \u201conly\u201d within state lines, they are also migrating because climate change has contributed to making their homes practically unlivable. As in Central America, the weather in Parable of the Sower <\/em>is not the only one to blame. The gated communities of South California encourage inequality and amplify the effects of climate change-driven financial insecurity.<\/p>\n Lauren and the other protagonists migrate in the hopes of finding a better place and making something new, something better and most important of all, sustainable, in a world where that is becoming increasingly difficult. Their journey, while shorter, is still not without its dangers.<\/p>\n In Parable of the Sower<\/em>, Octavia E. Butler depicts a future, eerily similar to our own time, where the United States is struggling with socio-economic inequality more than ever. Inequality is sometimes an invisible human rights issue. At the communal, national, and global levels, wealthier people often do not see poorer people whose daily labour makes their more comfortable life possible. But inequality is a major, global human rights issue, in itself and as a driver for political conflict and crime. According to the Center for Economic and Social Rights<\/a>, all people are entitled to \u201cthe human right to work, the right to an adequate standard of living, including food, clothing, and housing, the right to physical and mental health, the right to social security, the right to a healthy environment, and the right to education.\u201d The Parable of the Sower<\/em> portrays a world in which these rights are under threat.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Inequality in the United States<\/strong><\/p>\n In the United States, both wealth and income inequality have steadily increased in recent decades. A 2017 report, titled \u201cBillionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0found that the three wealthiest individuals in the US, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett, hold more than wealth than the bottom 50% of American citizens combined.<\/p>\n Compared to other Western countries, the US is worse off in terms of both wealth and income inequality. In 2018, the first World Inequality Report was published; summary\u00a0<\/span>here<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0By analysing the income share of the top 1% of the populations compared to the bottom 50%, the report found significant differences in development between 1980 and 2016. Whereas Western Europe and the US<\/span>\u00a0had similar levels of inequality in 1980,<\/span>\u00a0this had changed by 2016. In Western Europe, the<\/span>\u00a0inequality levels remained relatively stable, whereas the gap widened significantly in the US, as shown by the graphs from the report.<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic has only served to make issues of social and economic inequality in the US more apparent. More than half a million Americans have died because of the virus and millions have lost their jobs. And yet, some of the wealthiest Americans have flourished. According to \u201cUpdates: Billionaire Wealth, U.S. Job Losses and Pandemic Profiteers,\u201d<\/a> despite the aforementioned tragic consequences of the pandemic, by the end of February 2021, American billionaires had experienced an increase in their combined wealth of $1.3 trillion, or 44%, since the middle of March 2020.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Inequality and Race<\/strong><\/p>\n Inequality and race have always been deeply intertwined in the US, and this is still true today. Black citizens consistently come off worse in social and economic statistics than both the white population in the US and the population as a whole. The gap is most visible in terms of wealth (as opposed to income), as can be seen by this graph from Institute for Policy Studies.<\/p>\n Alongside wealth disparity, income disparity is also growing. The Pew Research Center<\/a> points out that: \u201cThe difference in median household incomes between white and black Americans has grown from about $23,800 in 1970 to roughly $33,000 in 2018\u201d and that \u201cMedian black household income was 61% of median white household income in 2018 [\u2026].\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gated Communities<\/strong><\/p>\n Similar to the fictional future in which Butler\u2019s novel takes place, the number of gated communities has increased since the 1980s, both globally and in the US specifically. Numbers are uncertain because many gated communities are privately owned, which you can read more about in a 2012 article from Forbes,\u00a0\u201cAmerica\u2019s Most Exclusive Gated Communities.\u201d<\/a> The article references the American Housing Survey from 2009, which estimated that almost 11 million American households were part of gated communities, an increase from around 7 million in 2001. Although gated communities are normally created to offer a safe environment for those living inside the gates, there are also negative side-effects. This form of segregation leads to increased social stratification between rich and poor.<\/p>\nHistory<\/h1>\n
\nHuman Rights<\/h1>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/readrespond\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/456\/2021\/03\/1.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/readrespond\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/456\/2021\/03\/2.png\")