the conversation went on for half an hour. it was the first time shevek had been asked, on urras, to describe anarres. the children asked the questions, but the parents listened with interest. shevek kept out of the ethical mode with some scrupulousness; he was not there to propagandize his host's children. he simply told them what the dust was life, what abbenay looked like, what kind of clothes one wore, what people did when they wanted new clothes, what children did in school. this last became propaganda, despite his intentions. ini and aevi were entranced by his description of a curriculum that included farming, carpentry, sewage reclamation, printing, plumbing, roadmending, playwriting, and all the other occupations of the adult community, and by his admission that nobody was ever punished for anything.
"though sometimes," he said, "they make you go away by yourself for a while."
"but what," oiie said abruptly, as if the question, long kept back, burst from him under pressure, "what keeps people in order? why don't they rob and murder each other?"
"nobody owns anything to rob. if you want things you take them from the depository. as for violence, well, i don't know, oiie; would you murder me, ordinarily? and if you felt like it, would a law against it stop you? coercion is the least efficient means of obtaining order."
"all right, but how do you get people to do the dirty work?"
"what dirty work?" asked oiie's wife, not following.
"garbage collecting, grave digging," oiie said; shevek added, "mercury mining," and nearly said, "shit processing," but recollected the loti taboo on scatological words. he had reflected, quite early in his stay on urras, that the urrasti lived among mountains of excrement, but never mentioned shit.
"well, we all do them. but nobody has to do them for very long, unless he likes the work. one day in each decad the community management committee or the block committee or whoever needs you can ask you to join in such work; they make rotating lists. then the disagreeable work posting, or dangerous ones like the mercury mines and mills, normally they're for one half year only."
"but then the whole personnel must consist of people just learning the job."
"yes. it's not efficient, but what else is to be done? you can't tell a man to work on a job that will cripple him or kill him in a few years. why should he do that?"
"he can refuse the order?"
"it's not an order, oiie. he goes to divlab—the division of labor office—and says, i want to do such and such, what have you got? and they tell him where there are such jobs."
"but then why do people do the dirty work at all? why do they even accept the one-day-in-ten jobs?"
"because they are done together... and other reasons. you know, life on anarres isn't rich, as it is here. in the little communities there isn't very much entertainment, and there is a lot of work to be done. so, if you work at a mechanical loom mostly, every tenth day it's pleasant to go outside and lay a pipe or plow a field, with a different group of people... and then there is challenge. here you think that the incentive to work is finances, need for money or desire for profit, but where there's no money the real motives are clearer, maybe. people like to do things. they like to do them well. people take the dangerous, hard jobs because they take pride in doing them they can—egoize, we call it—show off?—to the weaker ones. hey, look, little boys, see how strong i am! you know? a person likes to do what he is good at doing... but really, it is the question of ends and means. after all, work is done for the work's sake. it is the lasting pleasure of life. the private conscience knows that. and also the social conscience, the opinion of one's neighbors. there is no other reward, on anarres, no other law. one's own pleasure, and the respect of one's fellows. that is all. when that is so, then you see the opinion of the neighbors becomes a very mightly force."
"no one ever defies it?"
"perhaps not often enough," shevek said.
"does everybody work so hard, then?" oiie's wife asked. "what happens to a man who just won't cooperate?"
"well, he moves on. the others get tired of him, you know. they make fun of him, or they get rough with him, beat him up; in a small community they might agree to take his name off the meals listing, so he has to cook and eat all by himself; that is humiliating. so he moves on, and stays in another place for a while, and then maybe moves on again. some do it all their lives. nuchnibi, they're called. i am a sort of nuchnib. i am here evading my own work posting. i moved farther than most." shevek spoke tranquilly; if there was bitterness in his voice it was not discernible to the children, nor explicable to the adults. but a little silence followed on his words.
"i don't know who does the dirty work here," he said. "i never see it being done. it's strange. who does it? why do they do it? are they paid more?"
"for dangerous work, sometimes. for merely menial tasks, no. less."
"why do they do them, then?"
"because low pay is better than no pay," oiie said, and the bitterness is his voice was quite clear...
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