"Orwell" Blair gave perhaps the definitive illustration of Sapir-Whorf in 1984's Newspeak. Words do not affect reality; they cannot affect reality. 2+2=4 in any language. But a tyrannical government can force people to affirm 2+2=5; can remove even the ability of the subject to express himself otherwise. In the early 2000s we had Jeff Goldstein at the ProteinWisdom blog to remind us of as much.
I was introduced to Ursula Le Guin at an Anglo/Jewish household in the early 1990s. I never quite got into her oeuvre, but since then I've learnt she has a following; I did get around to "Omelas" maybe a decade or two ago. Earthsea is her most esteemed work. This holds that words actually do affect reality / effect change to reality (pdf).
I do not think that Le Guin missed Whorf's point. I think she - deliberately - refused Whorf, and opposed Blair. She came out as a Bakhuninite toward the end. I don't know that she quite figured out how "anarchism" works with socialism; although she was more solicitous toward Tolkien than fellow extreme liberal'tarian Moorcock was and is. Her second-wave feminism might agree with Celtic Britain. I suspect her most pernicious legacy, unfortunately, lies more in The Secret.
Tolkien should have taught Le Guin that only the Valar may will something to being by voice, and that only when in harmony with Eru. Otherwise we are Sauron.
I don't know if I dare pray G-d have mercy on her soul, but I can pray G-d protect others from Le Guin's poor advice.
BACKDATE 2/14
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