The story demands debate and dissent, which modern leftists appear to abhor. The mere fact that she wrote “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” argues that she would not. Le Guin, were she still alive, feel welcome on the Left? Hard to say. The people who call themselves anarchists today wink at each other, understanding “anarchist” as a convenient cloak to hide under and a hammer with which to wreck the hated system (which at least works) on the road to a socialist uberstate (which won’t). After using them as cannon fodder, the socialists pulled a cynical bait-and-switch. I don’t agree with, but do feel an empathy for, those bitter old anarchists. Her honest, old-fashioned leftism viewed a practical anarchism as an end goal achievable and worth striving for. I am not a scholar of Le Guin’s work, but from reading her and about her one can glean that she was a feminist and an anarchist. When the Walk Away movement began, Le Guin’s story resonated loudly in my head. Sooner or later the troubled ones simply walk away from Omelas, turning their backs on all they know. A few, though, are troubled enough by this situation that they cannot. Most citizens of Omelas have accepted the bargain, barely thinking about the shackled child below the streets. Le Guin was obviously setting up the moral quandary which is the spine of the story. It isn’t explained why, but the existence of Omelas is dependent on the continuous torture of this child. However, beneath the city a child is imprisoned in horrible conditions. Everyone has enough to eat and places to sleep without having to toil for it, a true paradise. Omelas is a utopian place, whose citizens spend their days and nights seeking pleasure, recreating, or working, if they choose. Le Guin titled “ The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” Le Guin got the name for the fictional city of Omelas from a fleeting glance in her rear-view mirror at a road sign as she drove away from Salem, Oregon. These adults left Omelas with all its glory and happiness, never to return.There is a 1973 science fiction or fantasy story, depending upon how you define those terms, by Ursula K. He or she walked out of the basement and kept on walking out of the village. Is the price worth paying?įrom time to time an adolescent girl or boy went to see the imbecile and did not return home. The existence of this indescribably neglected and miserable child was the price of Omelas' happiness. It begged to be released, but its presence in public threatened the bliss and peace of the city. Its body was covered in sores and its own excrement. One fact sullied its glory: in the locked room of a basement of one of its beautiful buildings sat a ten year old retarded child, shivering with no clothes. There was no army, no crime, no hatred in Omelas. There was religion but no clergy and love but no guilt. There were no cars in Omelas, but there was public transport and all sorts of marvellous devices, floating light sources, fuelless power and even a cure for the common cold. Technology was used only to satisfy necessary needs. In the village of Omelas, mature, intelligent, passionate adults were happy, chidren joyous and the elderly blessed. (The film The Beach tells a parallel story of paradise that masks a hidden hell). The Ones that Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le GuinĪdapted from Louis Pojman's summary (2002) page 128.
0 kommentar(er)
