Why we need a crash course in self-resilience, & 4 tech trends to watch, insights with Margaret Atwood

Delighted to bring you this interesting interview with one of our favourite writers of the last half century, Margaret Atwood. She is a talented and prolific writer who has done a lot to deeply and seriously engage with important issues facing humanity now and in our near future.

Thanks Margaret for doing this interview with Irish Tech News, you have visited Ireland several times too?

Margaret Atwood – Yes. Thank you. My pleasure! Ireland was my last stop before Covid…

Like you, I read 1984 as a child. I felt like I was slightly led up the garden path into a more cynical and world weary perspective when, at almost the end of the book, suddenly it becomes clear the war will never be won, and instead the enemy has simply flipped over to the other guys. There will never be peace, and the status quo will seemingly continue.

And yet, the final coda suggests that this was all merely now a dark historical period in our past. You clearly were inspired by this partial offering of the future not being condemned to being unrelentingly negative. Similarly in The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, you offer us a similar olive branch of hope?

I am currently writing an introduction for a new translation of WE, the novel by Yvgeny Zamyatin – written while the Russian Revolution was still going on – that inspired 1984 directly. It, too, allows that the totalitarianism that thinks it has “won” has not in fact done so. Bad news in it for the two lover-protagonists (as in 1984), but good news overall. The aim of the leaders in WE is to mandate happiness, whereas in 1984 they just want power for power’s sake. It’s my (possibly naïve) view that such totally controlling systems do not last forever. Corruption sets in, and then cracks open in the walls for dissent to creep in…

Question, can we be optimistic for our future, and how can we build a road map to a more positive outcome, short of just keeping men in confined breeding pens or just resorting to turkey baster methods?

The roadmap already exists in part. You can find it on Project Drawdown. It’s about fixing the planet, without which any other fixes will be pointless. (Where did this ‘men in breeder pens’ come from? Apart from Sci Fi, which has provided various version of it, going back to at least 1949…) WE certainly goes in for selective breeding and it was a favourite of the Eugenicists and Hitler, with his Biological Wives for SS men….  Turkey baster? Is that because COVID means social distancing? Not once there is a reliable test. Though will some people lie about their virus status?  No doubt, since some people lie about everything else….

In Curious Pursuits you talk about the value, perhaps appreciated more in later life, of being sent into the garden to do veggie related chores. You have often articulated the unique values of growing up in Canada and your time in more outdoor, wilderness locations. Should we be, and how can we inspire greater self-resilience going forwards in the next generation?

Hmm not sure I promoted this kind of upbringing as desirable for all. I didn’t actually have a choice, so no extra stars for me. This remote childhood did underline the virtue of never throwing out a bendy piece of wire, but such habits are not much use to the average condo dweller. Greater resilience is always a help if and when the lights go out or you run your car into a snowbank or you can’t figure out how to amuse yourself, but my guess: the generation of young people going through this period right now are getting a crash course in resilience. I bet they aren’t throwing out any bendy pieces of wire themselves. Because, as we have just seen: You Never Know.

Hymns for our times: Orville Stoeber's music for the Hymns of the God's Gardeners on You Tube: find them all on his channel. Here is the first one: The Garden https://t.co/YSCp5o8jGI via @YouTube From #The Yearofthe Flood, in the #MaddAddam trilogy.

— Margaret E. Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) May 14, 2020

It can be argued that technology is always neutral, it is rather whether we as humans use it for good or not. You have been an engaged and active advocate for embracing new technologies. Question, what tech trends are you excited about that could improve our quality of life going forwards, and is it possible to increase ethical awareness of how we use them appropriately?

I haven’t exactly embraced new technologies. I’ve tried them out, and, like many, have speculated about how they work. Every human technology, beginning with fire and complex language, has always had a plus side (otherwise it wouldn’t get used by anybody for anything), a minus side (this can kill you, or other people), and a stupid side that wasn’t anticipated by its originators. (Internet: a) instant communication of scientific advances  b) scams, child porn, ripoffs, lies   c) cat memes.)

Tech trends I’m hopeful about:

1) getting your dead body composted rather than cremated  (much less C02)  See: Recompose. (Full disclosure: I was a seed investor for it) https://www.recompose.life

2) The search for a battery that is not made of lithium but would perform the same tasks:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180912111913.htm

Whoever can solve for this gets 1,000 stars.

3) New energy sources that are green…  such as:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/business/orkney-hydrogen-power/index.html

4) Remote techs that allow you to work at a distance while fulfilling (in non-annoying ways!)  all tasks that you formerly would have needed to do in person. For instance:  www.syngrafii.com  https://vizetto.com

Full disclosure:  I’m an inventor of record for the first and a seed investor for the second.

But a lot of the things I’m excited about are not tech as such but techniques that aid a return to a healthy biological balance on the planet.  So:  organic soils.  Seabirds encourage more fish.  Etc.

What would you say to young girls who enjoy reading and writing, what tips would you give to them going forwards to continue growing and learning as young creators and storytellers? 

If under 10, they will not need that much encouragement. If 11-18, they might try Wattpad. Reading, writing, and having an audience  (publishing, etc.)  are all joined at the hip. Wattpad can deliver an appreciative audience for young writers.

Here you go @cherie_dimaline … 😀 https://t.co/jEnBFjaUvm

— Margaret E. Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) June 10, 2020

You are a keen (well in actuality somewhat sloppy! – M.A.) bird watcher. Recently bird monitoring technology has shown us that the world is far more connected in terms of migratory patterns than we realised before. Can this be a positive route to inspiring us going forwards?

Yes, the world is stitched together by winds, ocean currents, tectonic plate movements, insect migrations, and … bird migrations. Though these tend to be symbolic rather than crucially operative. However, canary in the coal mine:  if the birds are dying en masse, it’s a sign that there’s something deeply wrong that will affect us in our turn, sooner or later.

MaddAddam: part 3 of The Maddaddam Trilogy, by Margaret Atwood, reviewed https://t.co/ausmkl0gLr via @irish_technews

— Simon Cocking (@SimonCocking) June 8, 2020

More about Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, went back into the bestseller charts with the election of Donald Trump, when the Handmaids became a symbol of resistance against the disempowerment of women, and with the 2017 release of the award-winning TV series. The Testaments, her long-anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, won the 2019 Booker Prize.

Atwood has won numerous awards including the Booker Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

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