The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

Here's the full story for those interested.

Essentially, it's how we live already, but substitute the child in the basement for a third world country whose slave/child labor we benefit on. Part of the story, if you're too lazy to read, is that everyone knows the child is there and many go to see it while they are still young, so they are faced with the inhumanity by which they thrive. Most stay and most never return to look at the child, but some, as is said above, walk away from the town never to return. Most in the city are content to just know it exists without ever looking at it. It is fully explained to them, they understand, they move on.

It's interesting, really. And, like i said, it's really the state of the world on a grander scale. We benefit from the pain of others, often unseen or never seen, but fully acknowledged [though, is it fully understandable without seeing it with your own eyes?] and understood, but we move on and keep on living.

So, would i stay or would i go? I think we've all already answered.

Never heard of it, but I'd sure as hell like to visit!

(Kids love filth.)

Shit, that's pretty crazy. I guess you're right! Ugh.

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Sometimes i wonder who, then, are the people who leave, because they must go somewhere, and somewhere must exist, mustn't it? And they don't free the child, which is what the Mother Theresa's of the world try to do, but they just leave. It's like the Giver. Where is this elsewhere and what is it?!

In my Ethics class, we had a discussion about whether or not this is justifiable in any way shape or form, and i guess that's an interesting question of sorts. I mean, should the suffering of even a single person be traded for the sublimity of the whole?

Even discounting the fact that on a macrocosm, we already exist this way. Let's just say that this city exists and is anomalous, both in its level of happiness and in its singular form of child abuse. Is it actually wrong? And is that even the right question? Presumably, without this child, the city would return to a state of normalcy, the state we exist in every day. What is the price for a life of complete happiness? Is one person's life too much a price? What then is justifiable? Would it be different if the person, at a certain age, chose to be the sacrificial human that kept life going? Let's say an old man is the one who happiness is traded for. I think this would disturb people less, having a person nearing death to be locked up and beaten, but is his life any less valuable than the child's? I mean that in a metaphysical way, not in a pragmatic way.

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if there were such a society, and the choice could be made, i guess I would be one to just accept it. I mean, I guess when put the question, is all of society's happiness worth this? I'd say yes. Maybe that makes me less, or a hypocrite, but I suppose I'd just have to live with that secret. that there was suffering going on in our perfect word. I think one secret is worth it.

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you couldn't though. In the confines of the world, you could not make it better. Or you'd be killed, or cast out, or whatever.

Well, the child doesn't die, which is part of it. Your ongoing happiness is caused by it's ongoing suffering.

Part of the situation is that you realise that this is going on. You also know that everyone's life is better than it was before. So it's not simply a matter of trading, but discontinuing the trade. The people that walk away choose to no longer accept this trade, which is different than discontinuing the trade. So it's not simply a question of is it okay to do this, but a question of can i live with myself knowing that i'm benefiting from the child's suffering, which, to me, is an important difference. The ones who walk away cannot.

Helping the child ceases any benefit from the child. I'm not sure if you're familiar with cases where people've been locked in their rooms for their entire lives, but that's essentially what this is. The child cannot speak, cannot walk, cannot really do anything. In a sense, there's no saving this child or making it into what it should have been allowed to be. By freeing the child, you may improve its life by giving it reprieve from torment, but it will always be tormented by its inability to ever relate to another human, to ever really even be human in the way that we understand what a human is. Even with intense therapy that lasts for the rest of their life, their mental and physical abilities will not increase in any significant way.

So, in saving the child, you only remove it from a room and put it in a different one, because whatever humanity the child could have had is trapped in a brain that never matured.

And then, what if they just repeated the process? If you treat the new child kindly and try to improve its miserable living conditions, you lose the benefit. So the people of the city are the ones who need to be changed, not the child's condition. Clearly, they think it's justifiable. How would you change their minds since they've already picked their choice?

But, yeah, is it enough to walk away? Does anyone gain anything from you walking away?

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ive read this a couple times. it seems like college professors love this. likely because its a portland (oregon, anyway) author that gets put into anthologies. however i dislike the story. maybe from a writing standpoint, by which i mean it may as well be flash fiction. it's entirely expository and has no arch. yuck. i also dont feel like it asks the question appropriately. if you kill someone, or at least destroy their life, for a utopia, would you? where the story fails is that the ensuing generations dont make that choice, which seems to be the crux of the debate in the story. rather than make the choice for themselves, it is forced upon them. if they dont like it they can.... fuck off?