#arguably a searing critique of moderate liberals

[rustchild]

one of the wild things about people’s stubborn insistence on misunderstanding The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is that the narrator anticipates an audience that won’t engage with the text, just in the opposite direction. Throughout the story are little asides asking what the reader is willing to believe in. Can you believe in a utopia? What if I told you this? What about this? Can you believe in the festivals? The towers by the sea? Can we believe that they have no king? Can we believe that they are joyful? Does your utopia have technology, luxury, sex, temples, drugs? The story is consulting you as it’s being told, framed as a dialogue. It literally asks you directly: do you only believe joy is possible with suffering? And, implicitly, why?

the question isn’t just “what would you personally do about the kid.” It isn’t just an intricate trolley problem. It’s an interrogation of the limits of imagination. How do we make suffering compulsory? Why? What futures (or pasts) are we capable of imagining? How do we rationalize suffering as necessary? And so on. In all of the conversations I’ve seen or had about this story, no one has mentioned the fact that it’s actively breaking the fourth wall. The narrator is building a world in front of your eyes and challenging you to participate. “I would free the kid” and then what? What does the Omelas you’ve constructed look like, and why? And what does that say about the worlds you’re building in real life?

#ursula k le guin #omelas #There are so many ideas in this story that simply do not get engaged with! #I’ve heard it argued that a central element of anarchism #as a political philosophy #is the expansion of the imagination: what is truly possible if we forget the structures we are raised in? #if we forget what we have been told is or is not possible? #le guin wasn’t an anarchist but her work is heavily inspired by anarchist thought #Also the idea that the compassion of citizens of omelas is possible only because they are able to see themselves in relation and contrast t #the kid #very interesting stuff there #arguably a searing critique of moderate liberals #who feel compassion from on high but rationalize the ways in which those who suffer cosmically deserve it #in order to maintain structures of suffering #This short story is breaking the fourth wall Constantly to grab you by the collar and ask #what do you think is possible in the world and what do you think is good and what do you think is necessary #If you want to free the kid then what! What does that mean! #ALSO if omelas is a place being constructed as an idea #are the ones who walk away meant to be literally deserting a place #or are they rejecting an idea #hmmm much to think about