Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole
clarkesworldmagazine.com
clarkesworldmagazine.com
You can read it here: https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf
It has a wiki article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Om...
If others took something else away I’d love to hear.
What I mean is, take the trolley problem, do you pull the switch to kill the single man over the group? One might say "of course, the value of 3 lives is more than one", but another may ask "why are they on the track, who set this in motion?".
And the latter framing is very important IMO. We'll often question the decisions of politicians of leaders but dutifully ignore the reasons why things ended up this way.
For example, something that makes everyone mad is American intervention around the world and the subsequent blowback from those policies. When experiencing the blowback, often times the "what do we do?" conveniently ignores how our own actions set things in motion. We cannot stop, after all the trolley is already on its way, so we never think to stop the next trolley before this becomes a problem again. The terrorists simply hate our freedom, any other reason for their actions is unimportant.
This story introduces the accelerationist who forces people to confront the "why" of the scenario and is so hated by everyone they are killed.
It feels to me more like a critique that change is impossible.
I don't think the story is trying to say "change is impossible", but rather that your only options aren't "status quo" or "leave".
The scenario is one that has no "solution", and pattern-seeking readers then imprint the story with their own worldview (a prime example is the "accelerationist" reply to your comment).
Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a sceptical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?
Whether the short story by Le Guin, the extract from James, the dilemma as it appears in Brothers Karamazov, the sacrifice of Jesus on a cross, or any other variation told on the happiness of many at the cost of the suffering of one is a critique of anything as anything should be a matter of personal judgement.
Save yourself the eyesores, don’t click.
The Omelas narrative challenges the psychological maxim that someone must suffer for the common gain.
It is a short story, and like all short stories accentuates a tiny detail into a worldview.
In what way does Ursula roll in her grave?
Gaza, or #metoo, or thriving race hate, or the pedopolitics (here come scathing karma killers.)
To be silent in the face of a tyranny of evil is to be complicit.
Rest easy Ursula, you have been heard.
> don't click
> scathing karma killers
I enjoyed it, but even if I didn't, you haven't given a clue about where such vitriol is coming from. I'm assuming you don't like it in relation to the work it's referencing? To the point that you find it offensive (VERY offensive, apparently)?
This has been a controversial critique in terms of karma (up and down so many times it has leveled out.)
It’s a bit crass, though my reply was regarding the relevance in today’s world (dirty secrets we don’t confront) more than the author’s shake up.
Le Guin’s social commentary is still pressing in our day.
Isn't that what this criticism is all about? In the original story, you either accept the suffering—be complicit—or you walk away. But that's still being silent in the face of a tyranny of evil. It's just saying "well okay, I won't benefit, but I'm not going to make those people who are benefitting feel bad".
It's harsher on the city's arrangement. It seeks out and destroys whatever moral ambiguity might have been present in the original. To me it read like, "I read the Omelas short story and I just want to be clear that the correct interpretation is that Omelas is bad, see, look how bad."
I don't see how it misses the point of the original. It just kind of shouts in agreement with the original in an unnecessary way.
> In what way does Ursula roll in her grave?
Who said she was rolling in her grave? I searched the linked page for any mention of "roll" or "grave" or "Ursula" and found nothing.
Yeah, we must have read different stories.
The story doesn't say where the child is from, but it does say the child remembers its mother and how to speak.
The story ends saying that the ones who leave are going somewhere, we know not where nor why (it lightly implies the ones leave because the child is abused, but it could just as easily be they left because they learnt something).
Also, confinement is not an "act of omission" any more than punching somebody in the face and then leaving them alone forever after is an act of omission.
The story shows no proactive intent to try and hurt the child for the sake of hurting it.
Yes, obviously neglect and abuse will harm a child, and that is clearly mentioned in the story.
> Solitary confinement is commonly accepted to be a form of torture
Rubbish. Solitary confinement is used in quarantine, mental health and penal settings without being "commonly" accepted as being torture. The purpose isn't to cause harm, although that may be the outcome. Unfortunately many people seem to think that solitary in prison is acceptable, and too many people wouldn't call it abuse. Do people commonly call it torture? I'm sure most of us would call it torture if we had experienced it (I've only been locked up once - not solitary but threatened with it).
Of course if you intend harm, then solitary confinement can be a form of torture.
As Humpty so wisely said, you can make words mean whatever you wish. But using a definition at odds with your audience does hinder communication.
This is just abuse of the phrase "solitary confinement". Yes, people in quarantine may be confined in solitude, but "solitary confinement" as a phrase has a particular connotation that is not applicable to quarantine.
> ...and penal settings without being "commonly" accepted as being torture.
It is recognized as a form of torture, commonly. The fact that you keep saying otherwise doesn't make it not so[0].
> The purpose isn't to cause harm...
That's an interesting interpretation! Valid, I suppose, but certainly not something you can just assert in passing. The purpose of torturing enemy spies is to get information that might stop a war, which on net reduces harm. Really, is the purpose of anything to cause harm?
In my view, the treatment of the child is purposefully portrayed as unthinkably cruel. It stops short of being graphic; they don't flay the child or stick bamboo shoots under its fingernails. But they do actively confine it; it's strongly implied that they will not permit it to simply leave, or even die. They don't make any effort to clean its living space! They kick it for no reason!
Go re-read the passage that describes the child's living conditions again. I don't know how the author could make it more clear that the arrangement is cruel. It's not like the people were given some absurd set of requirements for prosperity involving a confined child, and then did everything in their power to at least make it easy on the kid. Or, perhaps they have done everything in their power to that effect, but the requirements include cruelty itself. Either way, I'm not seeing how you think it is so incorrect to describe it as torture that you felt the need to directly contradict my use of that word.
If I described the conditions on the transatlantic slave ships as "torture", would you go out of your way to reject my use of that word because of the lack of intent to cause harm? Or would you accept the combination of the abject human misery, the sores, the starvation, the wallowing-in-excrement, the confinement, along with the fact that these conditions were inflicted by fellow humans, as sufficient basis for that descriptor? Because all of those things are true of both the Omelas child and the slave ships, and in neither case is it clear that the sole intent was to harm.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement#Torture
I think this new story is important, because as a society we do often rest on the idea that a certain level of suffering cannot be avoided. This idea allows one to rest, no longer worrying about what could be done for those suffering, because after all, it can't be avoided anyway.
This new story confronts the comfortable idea that nothing can be done, it says out loud, "what if leaving isn't the only alternative to forgetting?".
This harshly confronts comfort, and makes people upset. Similar to how highly "politeness" is held in modern politics, such that you could have a rude man like Trump and a polite man with his same views, and those who despise Trump would then approve of the man with identical opinions but a quieter mouth.