Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
Original text: The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, a short story by Ursula K. LeGuin.
Summary for everyone thinking TL;DR:
Omelas is a utopian city. The inhabitants are happy, yet "not less complex
than us" for that reason. Perhaps they have trains and temples if those make people happy, likely they do not have secret police or slavery. The joy of Omelas is maintained by a sacrifice of sorts, a scapegoat, a child kept in misery and darkness. "It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on
a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually."
And "the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of
their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery." Children growing up in Omelas learn about this child as soon as they are old enough to understand it, usually between the ages of eight and twelve.
Sometimes people look at the singular unhappy child and leave Omelas. They never come back. "But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."
---
So. Utilitarianism would no doubt list Omelas as a better society than ours. A lot of other ethical theories would disagree. The poll asks what you would do if you lived in Omelas and thought of the child. This thread asks for a wider discussion of what yardstick we should measure a society by (total happiness?) and how much scapegoating, if any, is acceptable.
Summary for everyone thinking TL;DR:
Omelas is a utopian city. The inhabitants are happy, yet "not less complex
than us" for that reason. Perhaps they have trains and temples if those make people happy, likely they do not have secret police or slavery. The joy of Omelas is maintained by a sacrifice of sorts, a scapegoat, a child kept in misery and darkness. "It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on
a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually."
And "the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of
their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery." Children growing up in Omelas learn about this child as soon as they are old enough to understand it, usually between the ages of eight and twelve.
Sometimes people look at the singular unhappy child and leave Omelas. They never come back. "But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."
---
So. Utilitarianism would no doubt list Omelas as a better society than ours. A lot of other ethical theories would disagree. The poll asks what you would do if you lived in Omelas and thought of the child. This thread asks for a wider discussion of what yardstick we should measure a society by (total happiness?) and how much scapegoating, if any, is acceptable.
