I appreciate that! I'll have to keep an eye out for it. I definitely agree with that perspective - I don't think it matters much how we organize the bits and pieces of the system if we don't have a shared value for life beyond our own. I do think it's harder to be intentional about our value systems when we pass everything off to the optimizing machinery of capitalism and the free market - in my mind, it's too easy for that machinery to optimize for pleasures that skirt our values. But I'm also not sure if it's tractable or "good" for a worldwide population to develop shared values - I think "valuing life" is something we should all practice, but who's to say how that actually renders out in the minds of 7bn people? Tricky stuff, and I have no answers haha. I was a CS major, and I'm sure freshmen philosophy majors could do circles around me on this.

Hoo - I remember that scene and the mix of feelings it brought up for me. It reminded me of an attachment to physical objects that I attribute to watching Toy Story growing up. I love the way she wrote, and I still have a long list of her books to dive into. Another scene that left its mark on me is from The Dispossessed when Shevek shares a moment with the pet otter at a dinner party:

The otter sat up on its haunches and looked at him. Its eyes were dark, shot with gold, intelligent, curious, innocent. "Ammar," Shevek whispered, caught by that gaze across the gulf of being – "brother."

From Shevek's perspective, he had never seen or known this kind of creature to exist, and he was staring at something alien to him and still finding a connection. I think in a way thanking the herbs was a lesson in looking across the "gulf of being", though the herbs didn't return the attention with a gold, intelligent gaze. Maybe it was something more like what Werner Herzog sees in chickens haha [1]. To me, when he calls a chicken's gaze "stupid", I don't think he's saying that in a negative sense but instead in a way that's recognizing their being as it is in human terms. The connotation that we put into the word "stupid" is what makes his perspective sound like a harsh judgement, but I think he's just being "brutally honest".

I can't help but mention the song "Spud Infinity" by Big Thief as well [2]! Definitely a song (and album) to get lost in:

From way up there it looks so small
From way down here it looks so small
One peculiar organism aren't we all together?
Everybody steps on ants
Everybody eats the plants

...

When I took another look
The past was not a history book
That was just some linear perception

...

When I say celestial
I mean extra-terrestrial
I mean accepting the alien you've rejected in your own heart

...

Kiss your body up and down other than your elbows
'Cause as for your elbows, they're on their own
Wandering like a rolling stone
Rubbing up against the edges of experience

I think the motif underlying each of these that matters to me is embracing "radical alterity" or "the other". "Accepting the alien you've rejected in your own heart" and recognizing the "edges of [your] experience" and where you can and can't know yourself. Adrienne Lenker frequently talks about how LeGuin is one of her favorite authors, and I think this song is definitely in conversation with LeGuin. There's so much in there! The whole album is worth a listen (and several more) if you haven't heard it already.

Thanks for reading!

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhMo4WlBmGM
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYFBNA7uaJQ

(Edited for formatting)