I feel your story misses the thing that made the original so painful, though—that the joy of the group is supposedly only possible and conceivable due to the suffering of the child, and the fact that the child wants out and begs for it and could be released, but is denied for the sake of the other members, as an active choice against its even most basic human rights:
“The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes—the child has no understanding of time or interval—sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked; the eyes disappear. The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother’s voice, sometimes speaks. “I will be good, ” it says. “Please let me out. I will be good!” They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, “eh-haa, eh-haa,” and it speaks less and less often. 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.
They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, 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. (...)
Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were not there sniveling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer. (...)
This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child. No matter how well the matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.
The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.
Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or years. (...)
Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. ”
And most importantly… the whole point of the original story is the ending—those who do not want to accept a system in which a bargain for torture is the only option, and act on it.
“At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent for a day or two, then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman.
Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow- lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.”
I feel your story misses the thing that made the original so painful, though—that the joy of the group is supposedly only possible and conceivable due to the suffering of the child, and the fact that the child wants out and begs for it and could be released, but is denied for the sake of the other members, as an active choice against its even most basic human rights:
Yes, I reject this part because I don’t think that we live in the least convenient possible world, where cities like Omelas can only be accepted or rejected, never gradually improved.
And so I wanted to ask: could this sort of suffering still happen in a world where things aren’t magic, where you can make incremental changes? And I think the answer is yes, for the reasons in the story—which I personally find much more poignant than the original.
On that point, we very much agree. Them walking out, for all its beauty of rejecting such a choice, always felt something of a cop-out to me—they aren’t actually dealing with the difficult situation, and they are leaving the kid behind in its misery. It’s one of the parts of left-wing thinking that has always bothered me, when people reach for revolutions or isolated communities as the solution when systemic incremental reforms are hard, disregarding how much harder revolutions are to pull of well, especially if you lack a precise idea of your goal, which, if you had it, you should also be able to work towards with reforms.
I feel your story misses the thing that made the original so painful, though—that the joy of the group is supposedly only possible and conceivable due to the suffering of the child, and the fact that the child wants out and begs for it and could be released, but is denied for the sake of the other members, as an active choice against its even most basic human rights:
“The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In
the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten.
It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through
fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or
genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of
the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there;
and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever
comes, except that sometimes—the child has no understanding of time or interval—sometimes
the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may
come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at
it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is
locked; the eyes disappear. The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has
not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother’s voice, sometimes
speaks. “I will be good, ” it says. “Please let me out. I will be good!” They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of
whining, “eh-haa, eh-haa,” and it speaks less and less often. 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.
They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are
content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them
understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, 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. (...)
Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not
free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its
existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the
profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They
know that if the wretched one were not there sniveling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player,
could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight
of the first morning of summer. (...)
This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they
seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young people,
though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child. No matter how well the
matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at
the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger,
outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child.
But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile
place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were
done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and
be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in
Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the
chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.
The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.
Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child
and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or years. (...)
Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. ”
And most importantly… the whole point of the original story is the ending—those who do not want to accept a system in which a bargain for torture is the only option, and act on it.
“At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go see the child does not go home to weep or
rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent
for a day or two, then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the
street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the
beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth
or girl, man or woman.
Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow- lit
windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards
the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they
do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than
the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem
to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.”
Yes, I reject this part because I don’t think that we live in the least convenient possible world, where cities like Omelas can only be accepted or rejected, never gradually improved.
And so I wanted to ask: could this sort of suffering still happen in a world where things aren’t magic, where you can make incremental changes? And I think the answer is yes, for the reasons in the story—which I personally find much more poignant than the original.
On that point, we very much agree. Them walking out, for all its beauty of rejecting such a choice, always felt something of a cop-out to me—they aren’t actually dealing with the difficult situation, and they are leaving the kid behind in its misery. It’s one of the parts of left-wing thinking that has always bothered me, when people reach for revolutions or isolated communities as the solution when systemic incremental reforms are hard, disregarding how much harder revolutions are to pull of well, especially if you lack a precise idea of your goal, which, if you had it, you should also be able to work towards with reforms.