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Introduction
In an interview with Christopher Bigsby, Doris Lessing makes clear her aim to present “reality” from another angle, to encourage us to look at our individual and collective identities more objectively: “[…] we are taught all the time in this culture that we are not conditioned, that we are free, that we have made up our own minds all through our lives about what we believe […]” [The Shah] will simply say, “I am sorry but this is not so […]” (Doris Lessing: Conversations, 80). The ultimate goal of such insight is to cut through the performance, the received ideas, the habits and customs of our daily lives and be able to interpret our situation in a manner freed, at least to a degree, from the effects of manipulation and conditioning. Critical thought is exactly to question the status quo, the rhetoric of governors, the benevolence of the rich, and to question the foundation of a society based on systemic violence and our implication within that structure. Lessing insists that we pose such questions, still relevant since we have not created the peaceful, equitable stability which will spare us the necessity of asking critical questions.