I Walked Away from Omelas

I was introduced to Le Guin’s fantasy fiction books through friends, but can see how some can be caught off guard, not expecting morality through fiction with the collection of non-fiction articles introduced in this course. It’s an allegory presenting the moral perspective of walking away from “utopia.” The question is whether the happiness of a society can exist at the expense of the freedom and happiness of an individual, innocent child.

Kyes:

"After the narrator has the reader thinking that this city couldn't possibly exist because of all of the "smiles, bells" and "parades," (Le Guin 951) the narrator asks the reader if they believe in the city and in the joy. The narrator suspects the reader will say no, so she decides to describe one more thing that will cause the reader to question the believability of the city. By describing the child who is locked in the dark cellar, the author is telling the reader that this town has its dark secrets too."

I view society from a voluntaryist position, so I see the moral vacuum created by building a utopia on the suffering of an innocent, that the society can not be said to be moral as a result. Rather than continue to be a part of the society, those who see the moral deficiency of the society choose to walk away from it. They choose to withdraw their consent and their support for that society. It’s an evil that can only be allowed to persist if society chooses to ignore it, to force it into the shadows where the atrocity can not be seen.

A society such as that is quite backwards. Can we live in a society at the expense of others? I think that this ties in to the area of positive liberty, where society promotes “equality” through forced redistribution and strong laws by a representative body, rather than through consensual or voluntary interactions and exchanges. This relies on the presence of a state which has the power (and often uses it to the detriment of society) to infringe upon natural, individual rights. If we know that our neighbor is being robbed to provide for services which we want, yet we choose to take advantage of those services anyway, we place ourselves in the position of being both the members of Le Guin’s Omelas as well as the innocent child in the dark cellar.

Ursula Le Guin - The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (PDF download)