This reminds me of a related quote from Ursula K. Le Guin: "The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering ha

This reminds me of a related quote from Ursula K. Le Guin: "The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain." Of course, that particular story later turns out to be a classic, boring dystopia, but only because we, the readers, refuse to accept the narrator's original premise of a prosperous and just society free of tradeoffs or caveats. This is why I like her books so much, though. I don't know if the worlds she created are truly optimistic or possible at all, but at least she makes us imagine alternative ways for society to be organized.