“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick
Empathy, religion, war, and social hierarchies in Dick's 1968 sci-fi classic.
Nov 20, 2024
Angelica Walker-Werth
Angelica is a fellow at Objective Standard Institute, an assistant editor and writer for The Objective Standard, and an Ayn Rand Fellow with Foundation for Economic Education’s Hazlitt Project. Her roles at OSI include managing the internship and Active-Mind scholarship programs, course administration and development, and editing On Solid Ground. She writes nonfiction articles and speaks; you can see her work at walker-werth.com. She is a voracious reader of fiction in her spare time, and writes about the ideas in fictional works at fictionosophy.substack.com.
Angel Walker-Werth: To Say ‘I Love You’ One Must First Know How to Say the ‘I’
What is the nature of love? Is love really selfless? Angel Walker-Werth answered these questions at NICON 2023.
“Speaker for the Dead” by Orson Scott Card
Speaker for the Dead uses some bizarre sci-fi concepts to explore important moral issues—hitting the nail on the head on some, but muddying the waters on others.
Self-Concept in Thornhedge
This fun fantasy novella offers an opportunity to reflect on identity and self-esteem.
“The Testaments” by Margaret Atwood
This spinoff to The Handmaid’s Tale, set in the same tyrannical theocracy (the Republic of Gilead), alternates between the perspectives of three very different women. Aunt Lydia, the only character who’s in both this novel and the original, was coerced into helping...
“How to Stop Time” by Matt Haig
How would you handle the fear of loss and create a purpose if you lived fifteen times longer than everyone around you?
Dystopian Fiction: Worlds without Rights
I discuss how dystopian novels can demonstrate the importance of individual rights, using Lois Lowry’s "The Giver" as my primary example.
Self-esteem in “Ender’s Game”
Can you imagine a threat serious enough to justify (in anyone’s mind) training children in combat?
What 1984 Got Wrong and Right (Philosophically)
George Orwell’s iconic 1984 certainly contains some important insights, but its view of authoritarianism has a few notable flaws.