"[I]gnorance is a wrong, from which wrong will arise. So I come to learn." --Shevek, p. 75.
One of the main reasons why wars happen, and why they often last a relatively long time, is because people on both sides of a given conflict fail to see what the other side is arguing. Both sides often stubbornly refuse to see the other side's perspective, and therefore continue to fight their human kin out of a petty argument which has, over time, escalated into a self-perpetuating war. This human fault is demonstrated in the novel The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin.
In the book there was a planet called Urras which was very similar to the Earth, with its many social problems. When it became technologically possible for the inhabitants of the planet to escape to another planet, and create their own utopia, a small faction of people, who were led by a woman named Odo, formed a human colony on the moon, known as Anarres.
The original colonists of Anarres, as with all revolutionaries, were quite disenfranchised with the way Urrasti lived, which is the reason why they left the planet. However, this animosity carried through for several generations, though. The new settlers went out of their way to do every revolutionary thing they could to be different from the old regime on Urrasti. They created a new language, a new non-system of government, a computerized system for naming children, a new economic system (basically a communist one, the antithesis of the fiercely capitalist Urras) and, most important, they severed all ties with the old planet, save two -- they still maintained radio communications, though sporadic, and there was a freighter that landed on one specific city on Anarres about eight times a year. It is this severing of ties, more than anything else, that caused the perpetuation of conflict between the two planets.
Although the individual citizens of both planets may have not been hateful of the other, the governments of both were. The Urrasti government of A-Io was as scornful of Anarres as the Anarresti "government" was of the planet of Urras, yet there were people on Urras for whom a great compliment was "May you get re-born on Anarres" (p. 295). Also, some of the people of Urras who came in contact with Shevek regarded him as an ambassador of peace, some regarded him as a novelty, but nobody seemed to give him out and out scorn for coming to the planet. "They were not the gross, cold egoists he had expected them to be: . . . they were intelligent; and they were kind. They treated him like a brother" (p. 77). It should be noted, however, that Urras wanted his mathematical formula, the Principle of Simultaneity which they would be able to use against other planets, so there may be an underlying motive for their kindness, or there may not be.
However, it would be incorrect to say that the majority of people on the planets were in favor of peace between the two planets. Shevek, for one, was interested in going to Urras. He was in the great minority of Anarresti. He was seen as a traitor by his fellow countrymen because of his journey, who formed a mob around the spaceship he was going to depart from, and hurled rocks at him, and would have actually tried to kill him (p. 4). Many of these people possibly failed to think for themselves, never second-guessing what they had been taught as children. As a result, they remained ignorant of the culture on Urras, and chose to remain isolated. If they had been more enlightened, they could have pooled their resources and created a higher society, instead of keeping up their petty grudges from centuries before. This can been seen in many societies today.
One way the government exercised control over the will of the masses was through the school system. The Anarresti children were shown "informational" movies in school about the mother-planet, which were essentially little more than century-old government propaganda depicting the evils of Urras, the long term effects of which were to keep the Anarresti isolated out of self-will. Shevek, the protagonist of the book, came to realize how wrong his preconceptions of Urras were when he visited the planet: "[Shevek] had been taught as a child that Urras was a festering mass of inequity, iniquity, and waste. But all the people he met, and all the people he saw, in the smallest country village, were well dressed, well fed, and, contrary to his expectations, industrious." This was, however, during his honeymoon period on Urras, where he was shown only the best of everything. But it still demonstrates the power that the stereotypes had to keep people separate and fearful of one another. Although there were pockets of non-industrious festering masses, much of the planet was much better than he would have thought, indeed, it was much better than his own planet.
Another aspect of perceived cultural superiority is the fact that both societies tended to make everything relative to their own society. Le Guin makes the point that there are two different ideologies at work at the two planets, and that neither of them is perfect, and neither of them is superior:
"I never thought before," said Tirin unruffled, "of the fact that there are people sitting up on a hill, up there, on Urras, looking at Anarres, at us, and saying, 'Look, there's the moon.' Our earth is their Moon; our Moon is their earth."
"Where, then, is Truth?" declaimed Bedap, and yawned.
"In the hill one happens to be sitting on," said Tirin (p. 41).
Who is to say which one is right and which one is wrong. The questions of cultural relativity and perceived cultural superiority, which so worry Samuel P. Huntington, come to mind.
The situation on the two Cetian planets, particularly Anarres, mirrors the realist approach to international relations. The approach which emphasizes military strength and the balance of power, and de-emphasizes the importance of economics, trade, and the fact that human beings can work together to solve problems which affect the entire race, not a subset of it. Realism is the most bellicose approach to international relations, the one which advocates a "grab what you can" mentality in a zero-sum world. Hans J. Morgenthau, a leading realist, epitomizes realist theory: "All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war" (K&W, p. 73). Morganthau's philosophy is similar to that of Atro, Shevek's Urrasti acquaintance. "The law of existence is a struggle -- competition -- elimination of the weak -- a ruthless war for survival," he says (p. 143).
The situation on Anarres is one of participating in war. They were essentially involved in a cold war, one which evolved after a "hot" war on the surface of Urras during Odo's time. There could be an argument for interdependence theory between the two planets, as epitomized by the statement: "[T]he Free World of Anarres was a mining colony of Urras" (p. 92). However, the trade between the two was so limited that one could hardly be characterized as needing the other. Simple trading does not necessarily mean the two states are interdependent. They were on different planets, how much interdependence could they possibly enjoy?
In a realist world, it is possible for a country to get away with total isolation, which is what the Urrasti and Anarresti strived for: "We ignore you; you ignore us" (p. 75). The two races were almost totally isolated, and they wanted it that way because of cultural prejudices and biases. If they had decided to make some sort of peace initiative, and let by-gones be by-gones, they could have worked together and, through the economic principle of mutual benefits to trade, created one single, superior society. Instead, they both thought they were superior, but in fact, neither society was as utopian as it could have been if they been able to learn from each other. If the two societies had just opened up and let the other one influence them a little, they could have created one super-society which combined the best aspects of both socities, in which neither one thought they were better than the other.