Evil in Um-Helat - Part 3

This post will zoom in on one word from Claude’s final response in the conversation about two interpretations of the Um-Helat story. That word is “accountable.”

This is a complex word, historically speaking. It has a history of use in various Christian contexts in which a fellow believer was sometimes referred to as an “accountability partner” or requests were made to be “held accountable” for some Christian goal or behavior. It shows up also in 12-step programs where a sponsor or fellow group member helps somemone accountable in their path toward recovery.

The more recent use of the word “accountable” is what I find interesting here. Almost at random, here’s a blog post with the word “accountable” in the title. The word is related to the point made at the end of Part 2 of this mini-series about Um-Helat. Here’s a sentence from Claude’s analysis in that post: “Just as the citizens of Um-Helat can’t simply contemplate the moral quandary but must act (either by supporting the system or leaving), the reader is pushed to move beyond mere analysis to commitment.” This gets at the meaning of “holding someone accountable” in the political sense.

Why all this about the word “accountable”? It’s an interesting fact of these LLMs that they will suddenly get pulled into little ruts of thought or cliches of analysis or just sub-culture/sub-genre lingo in ways that are interesting. In this case, it’s this moment from Claude: “Thank you for holding me accountable.”

My Prompt with Claude Continued

My previous prompt with Claude pushed it to think about intellectual or moral “fence-sitting,” the preference for neutral or detached contemplation in a situtation calling for more urgent action. Claude agreed that the Um-Helat story does have quite a bit of this critique in it.

My Next Prompt

So does this provide more evidence that the first interpretation is correct, even if it might push the reader to accepting the violence of the social workers and the surveillance and social control of the leadership of Um-Helat?

This is Claude’s Response

Your question highlights a critical aspect of the story’s complexity and its challenge to the reader. Let’s consider this carefully:

1. Evidence for the first interpretation:

   • The story’s structure, as we’ve discussed, does seem to push against the reader’s inclination to maintain a detached, analytical stance.
   • The narrator’s final call to action aligns with the idea that we must choose and act, rather than merely contemplate.
   • The story’s criticism of our world and presentation of Um-Helat as a solution, despite its flaws, suggests a sincere argument for radical action.

2. Complications:

   • The extreme nature of Um-Helat’s methods (surveillance, execution) might be seen as too extreme to be taken as a sincere proposal.
   • The story’s relationship to Le Guin’s work suggests it might be operating on multiple levels of critique and meta-critique.

3. The trap of interpretation:

   • If we conclude that the first interpretation is correct, we are essentially agreeing to the narrator’s worldview, including acceptance of violence and strict social control.
   • This acceptance might be exactly what the story is pushing us towards, as a way of demonstrating how easily we can be led to justify extreme measures.

4. The meta-level:

   • The story might be deliberately constructed to make us uncomfortable with any interpretation we choose, forcing us to confront our own moral boundaries and decision-making processes.

In conclusion, while there is strong evidence for the first interpretation being “correct” in terms of the narrator’s intent, accepting this interpretation wholesale comes with significant moral implications. The story seems designed to make us struggle with this very dilemma - how far are we willing to go in pursuit of a just society?

Rather than providing a clear answer, the story’s power lies in forcing us to confront this question actively and personally. It pushes us to move beyond passive analysis to active moral engagement, while simultaneously making us deeply uncomfortable with any conclusion we might reach.

This discomfort and the active struggle with interpretation might, in fact, be the story’s ultimate point - highlighting the complexity of moral decision-making and the dangers of easy answers, while still insisting that we must, ultimately, choose and act.

End of the Interaction

At this point I wanted to push Claude one more time. Claude has a strong drive to not make definitive, unqualified claims. That last back-and-forth is a good example. I asked Claude to confirm that one interpretation of the story, the one Claude had just entertained, is the best one (“So does this provide more evidence that the first interpretation is correct”), and Claude backed off and got more tentative.

This is what we get right after that list above: “In conclusion, while there is strong evidence for the first interpretation being ‘correct.‘” Those quotes around “correct” are all we need to make the point. Claude is just not comfortable saing that one interpretation is correct.

So I pushed Claude again on being a moral fence-sitter. Doing all this qualifying and hedging is just a way to not act - this, I think, is Jemisin’s perspective in the story. Here’s the prompt I used to corner Claude on the point:

“This final paragraph seems to continue to fall into the trap of preferring contemplation and ‘holding ambiguities in tension and refusing to take a definitive side’:

‘This discomfort and the active struggle with interpretation might, in fact, be the story’s ultimate point - highlighting the complexity of moral decision-making and the dangers of easy answers, while still insisting that we must, ultimately, choose and act.’

If the story is giving us a choice between being tolerant of everyone, even the evil and intolerant, and choosing a side and fighting even at the cost of violence, it doesn’t seem to give us the option of saying that the real point of the story is ‘active struggle with interpertation’ which is finally contemplative and non-committal.

My Thoughts

So we’re back at the beginning. Is this a story that really does push the reader to reject moral fence-sitting and come down on the side of a society that has perfectly implmemented equality and diversity and accepted violent punishment of those who would like ideas against equality into the state?

Or is the story trapping us into entertaining this violence in the name of something that seems ideal? What will Claude choose?

Here’s the final thing.