The Great Societies: Lowry’s “The Giver”

19 Dec 2025 Episode 6.20 - The Great Societies: Lowry's The Giver 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 === New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what's going on here! I've got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Literary Nomads Mailbag: https://forms.gle/WKGp1YWrazNZ3TLt8  Transcript:  https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/6-20-the-great-societies-the-giver/ === 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. Website:  https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and LinkedIn:  @ Waywords Studio 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/.