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The “Hideous Bargain” is no longer just about one child’s pain . . .
We investigate the “Euclidean Mind” that seeks to flatten our messy humanity into a spreadsheet of “mathematically infallible happiness.” Unsettle the sterile peace of the OneState and the rigid hierarchy of Flatland to ask: Is your imagination a gift, or a disease the state is currently curing?.
An interrogation of the “Iron Cage” of rationality and the death of imagination in a social order of mathematical logic. We negotiate the intersection of Weberian sociology and Zamyatin’s thermodynamic dialectic—Energy vs. Entropy—to re-story the act of writing as an inherently subversive, antientropic resistance.
00:00 Certainty and Less Than
08:27 Intro Theme
09:03 The Monster “State”
15:23 The Geometry of Bigotry: Geometry
26:19 “We” and the Shattered Conduit
32:37 Glass Cities
41:08 The Treason of Writing
52:02 Aporia and . . .
55:30 Closing Credits
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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/
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Literary Nomads is the main 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.
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Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/)
Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski
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.
Chisnell, Steve. “6.30: Failures of Imagination: We and Flatland,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 3 April 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/.
No transcript available for this episode.