The Ones Who Walk Away…
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas… is a philosophical fiction short by Ursula Le Guin that my beloved English teacher had me read 22 years ago and I have not been able to get it out of my head ever since. It’s about life in a blissful city called Omelas, where almost everyone was completely happy… except for a single child who was kept in perpetual filth, darkness and misery. People of Omelas learn about the truth when they reach a certain age, and some acquiesce to it while others do not, and leave Omelas.
While this is a fictional story, it evokes feelings of disgust, anger, deep sadness and despair as the image of a child that is left to suffer while everyone else goes about their blissful lives makes us very angry. This story wouldn’t be so unsettling if it didn’t have clear parallels in the real world. We routinely see people’s suffering and numb ourselves to it, in order to live our lives. We also know that some people purposefully instigate pain and suffering on others - similarly to those who have perpetuated the suffering of the child in Omelas. But the deep searing question is why???… Why is life this way? Why does there have to be suffering in the world, especially mindless, unnecessary suffering?
The idealist in me feels that of course it doesn’t have to be like that. And we will figure this out! Okay then…
To answer this question, I think we need to answer - why do people do evil things to each other for no reason? While this is a very complicated issue, and in every situation there is a unique dynamic and an interplay of internal and external factors, I think that at the very core of it is fear. Human species have evolved on the planet in a lineage that had to contend with a harsh external environment, and the primal seeking of safety became the most fundamental function of our brains. Our brains are extremely sophisticated and learned to assess for safety even through very subtle cues in body language or emotions. One of the major ways that humans have sought physical safety in the past was by belonging to a tribe. Being a part of a tribe was not just safety, but it equaled survival. No tribe = death. Belonging to and protecting your own tribe was one thing that happened, and the other thing was distrust and violence towards other tribes or those without a tribe, because that was deemed a threat... In the book Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson discuss the evolutionary psychology that has led humans (mostly males) to act violently towards others, mostly towards out-group members but many times to anyone and for no reason (like an emotional spillover of violent tendencies). Violence in prehistoric times had been a tool for survival. Now it’s a tool for self destruction.
Omelas to me illustrates the forces of good and evil in a bird’s eye view. It looks at a fictional life of modern humans showing the meaninglessness of suffering in an abundant world. It is not a story about tribalism or evolutionary psychology. But it certainly poses a question - why don’t we just stop the psychopathic infliction of suffering on each other… And in today’s world this also extends to other forms of predatory behaviors, such as economic abuse of low wage workers by corporations or some practices of health insurance companies...