1. If you were a citizen of Omelas, would you stay or would you walk? Please explain and justify your decision.
After reading Ursula K Le Guin's story, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", I had convinced myself that I would also be one of the people who would "walk ahead into the darkness" (Le Guin, 4) and leave the city for the sole purpose of the child's sake. As I came to that justification, however, I thought, are the people leaving Omelas cowards and just running away from their problems? Or is it because of something else?
I believe the fact that the people themselves know "that they, like the child, are not free"(4), makes it an intolerable setting to live in. The fact that the "joyous" town shines with all its' glory and pride is because of the child suffering. The people had known the child was the reason the city prospers and lives on, yet they cover up the "crime" they are doing to the child and go about their lives. "They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched" (1). The word "wretched", being the word that foreshadows the sorrows of the imprisoned child, exhibits the morbid behaviours covered up by society in order to maintain a standardized level of peace and prosperity. It seems that if people know there is a problem that ultimately benefits the majority of society, it is socially acceptable to ignore the problem and basically go about your own life.
Comparing this to modern society, we face a similar standpoint. We have Third World countries such as Indonesia and Turkey with factories filled with under payed labourers who work in horrible conditions, producing vast consumer goods such as nike/adidas shoes and our fancy name brand clothing that society's norms tells us to buy and wear. Yet we still go about our day, essentially looking out for our best interests, and even buying the products these labourers make. I myself have selfishly bought a pair of adidas shoes, blatantly supporting the child labor that's commonly reoccurring overseas without realizing just to be accepted in society. To some extent, staying in Omelas would be considered rational due to the similarities it has on our own society. The people have been socialized with a controlled variable and cannot possibly imagine life outside of Omelas. No one would be willing to give up their lifestyle for the betterment of a single child. This disregard for children and their basic rights of life and freedom is the exact reason why many including myself would leave the city. This drastic bargain had left myself in a paradox that society, as rash and egocentrically driven as we are, know and are fully aware of problems occurring today but still won't do the right thing to stop them. We wouldn't go over to these developing countries and stop each factory individually with employing children because realistically it would take ages, and it would stop the capitalistic interests of the companies.
On the other hand, if one choses to leave Omelas, why wouldn't they take the child with them? For the child to be set free, the society had "to exchange all the goodness and grace of every life Omelas for that single, small improvement"(4). The matter could have arisen that if the child was taken, society knew it had to replace the child with another or "wither and be destroyed" (4). Nevertheless, walking away from Omelas would be the superlative choice. Seeing the child being imprisoned without any restraint shows that the will inside one's self must overcome the rationality of society's norms. People choosing to leave Omelas one by one see the problem that is afoot, but they don't really do anything to solve it. They realize that they must bear the guilt of leaving the child there, while acknowledging that they are also overcoming their own will to stay - refuse and pretend that everything is fine in the "beautiful" city of Omelas.
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DRAFT
1. If you were a citizen of Omelas, would you stay or would you walk? Please explain and justify your decision.
After reading Ursula K Le Guin's story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", I had convinced myself that I would also be one of the people who would "walk ahead into the darkness" (Le Guin, 4) and leave the city for the sole purpose of the child's sake. As I came to that justification, however I thought, are the people leaving Omelas just cowards and just running away from their problems? Or is it because of something else?
I believe the fact that the people themselves know "that they, like the child, are not free"(4), makes it an intolerable setting to live in. The fact that the "joyous" town shines with all it's glory and pride is because of the child suffering. The people had known the child was the reason the city prospers and lives on, yet they just cover up the "crime" they are doing to the child and go about their lives. "They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched" (1). The word "wretched", being the word that foreshadows the sorrows of the imprisoned child. It seems that if people know there is a problem or wrong doing that ultimately benefits the majority of society, it is socially acceptable to ignore the problem and basically go about your own life.
Comparing this to modern society, we face a similar standpoint. We have third world countries with factories filled with under payed laborers who work in horrible conditions, yet we still go about our day, essentially looking out for our best interests, and even buying the products the laborers make. The shoes we wear, the clothes, almost everything was made from their blood sweat and tears. This blatant disregard for children and their basic rights of life and freedom is the exact reason why many leave the city. Thus, another question arose. Why didn't the people leaving take the child with them? For the child to be set free, the city had "to exchange all the goodness and grace of every life Omelas for that single, small improvement"(4). The matter could have arisen that if the child was taken, the city knew it had replace the child with another or "wither and be destroyed" (4).
Nevertheless, walking away from Omelas would be the best choice. Seeing the child being imprisoned without any restraint shows that the will inside one's self must overcome the rationality of society's norms and leave. We see that people who leave the city one by one see the problem that is afoot, but they don't really do anything to solve it. They realize that they must bear the guilt of leaving the child there, but also acknowledge that they are also overcoming their own will to stay and pretend that everything is fine in the "beautiful" city of Omelas.
