what if you were a noblesse

who could oblige

In my younger and more vulnerable years (a month ago, when I was poking through the library archives) my father (Ursula K. Le Guin) gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. In a 1995 letter to Forum, the internal organ of the Science Fiction Writer’s Association, she said, after some discussion of changing the membership criteria (to which she was opposed):

I’d like to say, in response to Darrell Schweitzer’s plea to the “older famous writers in the field” to set an example, that I have never allowed and will never allow the franchising of my works/worlds/characters/universes, or the use of any of the above in any kind of electronic or other game; and that I don’t do readings or any kind of PR appearance at Borders or the other commoditybook chains. For anybody who gets decent advances, and so has the luxury of such choices, this seems to me a minimal commitment to literary values and writerly solidarity.¹

Now… the specifics of what Le Guin won’t do are not really useful to anybody working in 2026.² They are directed to the media ecosystem and publishing world of 1995. If Le Guin were still alive and giving readings I think she’d be happy to support any Amazon competitor, because that would be the situation in which she was now applying the underlying principle. Similarly, I read “franchising” as more about the kind of thing Marion Zimmer Bradley did with her Darkover books, where she had (for instance) anthologies of stories set in “the world of Darkover” that were written by other people.³ It’s not about the possibility of a TV show of The Dispossessed.⁴

Nevertheless, the quote has stuck with me because it clarified some things for me. Put bluntly, there’s an anti-commercial quality many people have that I don’t share. I have often joked to people that if some little demon or something appeared to me and said that the way to ensure Weird Sisters will sell hundred of thousands of copies is to partner with Funko Pops, there would not even be a dilemma. In this scenario I suppose I’m assuming I can write the book exactly as I please and am merely assured many sales because of Funko Pops, which is maybe not how it would work.⁵ Perhaps my idea of commercialism is itself strangely romantic and detached from reality.⁶

However, at some point, you know, a few books down the line, it would behoove me to say: it’s time to drop the Funko Pops. We have achieved cruising altitude. (Ignore the image this conjures up of a plane dropping Funko Pops onto a helpless populace below.) Or, in brief, I read this letter as an expression of the following principle:

• Up to a certain point, we all gotta hustle. “No blame,” as the I Ching says.

• Past that point, we have a responsibility not to hustle. “Blame,” as the I Ching must say sometimes though I’m always getting “no blame” myself, presumably because I’m a perfect innocent baby lamb.⁷

Le Guin’s term for this is “solidarity,” but another change that has taken place between now and 1995 is the way “solidarity” has become a frequently and vaguely invoked ethical and political imperative, such that I’m rarely sure what somebody means by it.⁸ For this reason, I would like to propose a different term for this attitude of understanding that “if you’ve reached a certain level of success responsibilities have accrued as well as privileges,” a term which has the advantage of appealing to people’s vanity: noblesse oblige.⁹

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There are drawbacks here. The first thing you have to say about “noblesse oblige” is that it is an inherently condescending attitude. As the line goes, whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. What “noblesse oblige” emphatically cannot be is a relationship that exists between equal people, and thus in certain situations it is really an evil way to regard others. The second thing you have to say about “noblesse oblige” is that some people absolutely do not want to say they are noblesse. The idea of being across some winning line is absolutely existentially terrifying to them. Finally, the world of 2026 being what it is, there are many markers of status one can accrue, particularly in the realm of “online,” that do not translate into material security. There are people you might think of as noblesse who are not really doing so hot.

On the other hand, I think some acts of oblige¹⁰ are available to people at basically any level. If for instance an editor contacts me about a piece I don’t have time to write, I usually recommend one to three other people, with their contact information if I have it.¹¹ Sometimes the editors follow up with these people and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I have recommended other people and the editors have come back with a sweet talkin’ but we really want yooooooooou which I may simply not resist. (I like being flattered.) (Who doesn’t?) Recommending other people is an easy task; I imagine a lot of writers do this.¹² It doesn’t add to the editor’s workload since they are under no obligation to investigate your recommendations. The only cost is the five minutes or so it takes to type a paragraph and link to an example.

As stated above, a primary selling point of noblesse oblige is the appeal to vanity: it feels nice to be helpful. It feels nice to do something gratuitously thoughtful. Ideally, such actions do not come with the score-keeping mindset of keeping track of everybody you’ve ever done something nice for to make sure they are properly grateful.

Still, it would be nice to have a way of thinking about this stuff—by which I mean first of all money and at a distant second status—that is not “getting paid is a radical act” or “here’s my ten paragraph explanation as to why this money doesn’t contaminate me actually” or “here’s why everybody else is a neoliberal puppet sellout.”¹³ And ultimately the big problem with most of our public ethical and political stances, lines drawn or crossed in the sand, etc., is that they are driven by anxiety rather than trying to work out what you feel is your actual responsibility. Anxiety does not encourage generosity of spirit, doing favors, or even simple fairness; it is the affective state that causes people to freak out over the idea of being successful.

A final objection to noblesse oblige is simply that it’s about the individual, as opposed to solidarity, which is about the group. As with the other objections, I think this one is true, but, if we’re just talking about writers of articles and books, I am not sure how much it matters. Ultimately the calls made on people are individual, and so are the consequences. There is no community support on call for the person who burns a professional bridge for principled reasons. Shaming by strangers is unpleasant, but pleasing those strangers won’t do anything for you (and they won’t even really be pleased). So in this rather limited context I think appealing to the individual and the individual’s public spiritedness and magnanimity is simply what you have. And you gotta work with what you have.

1. Le Guin, Ursula K., 1975-2004, Box: 6, Folder: 7. Vonda N. McIntyre papers, Coll 508. University of Oregon Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives. Quoted with permission.

2. I don’t have a copy of the Darrell Schweitzer letter, which would probably also clarify the terms Le Guin is using.

3. She might also have been thinking of Star Trek and Star Wars novels, not in the sense of “writing them,” but in the sense that people who wrote those novels were not treated very respectfully by their employers. (Since Le Guin was close friends with Vonda McIntyre, who wrote novels for both franchises, I can imagine this being on her mind.)

4. Electronic games, well… Ged won’t be showing up in Super Smash Bros., I’d imagine. But if we’re honest with ourselves, he wouldn’t be much fun to play. Like what would he even do. Ooooooooh he talked about the balance.

5. And in point of fact it wouldn’t work at all now because I don’t want Le Guin’s ghost to get mad at me.

6. Previously.

7. baaaaaaaa

8. Solidarity is also invoked, in a writerly context, in ways that end up a little one-sided: I have witnessed multiple situations where freelancers were asked to stand in solidarity with staff writers by pulling work if staff went on strike… but I have never seen something reciprocal, where staff writers have threatened to go on strike over treatment of freelancers. Am I missing an event here? It feels possible. Anyway, this has always been theoretical for me in that the timing has never coincided with me actually having a piece to pull.

9. You might think: if the details of the letter don’t apply, and the word “solidarity” you find sort of useless, why are you quoting it? But reading it set me off on this train, so here it is.

10. it’s important that throughout you are pronouncing this, to yourself, as ohbleej

11. If I think it is a piece nobody really needs to write, I will probably not do this. I also used to do the inverse of this when I was an editor—if somebody had a good piece we couldn’t take I would try to recommend places to take it. But I was definitely less consistent about it there.

12. The next step up from just saying “here’s somebody who might do a good job” is actively putting writers and editors in touch—which I have also done, but which is more of a judgment call on my part because it involves my own credibility.

13. Previously.