What Happens After We Walk Away from Omelas?
In 1973, Ursula K. Le Guin published the philosohical ficitional short work ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’. In this short story, which serves as one of the most reprinted in history, Le Guin’s narrator speaks of a joyous festival in the small town of Omelas. The narrator spends time trying to describe the infectious and deep happiness of the town folk- describing the scenes, smells, actions, food, and overall vibe of the folk of Omelas. Omelas is not a town with a monoarch or very many, if any, laws; there is just a supposed inherent feeling of joy and abundance for all its citizens and those who arrive from other cities and towns to join in the festivities.
The narrator then goes on to describe a basement in one of the town’s buildings. In the basement there is a small broom closet and a small child, roughly 10 years old. The child has developmental impairment, either from birth or from being locked away and neglected for so long. The child is terrified and completely alone. Occassionally, someone will open the door, fill the food bucket with corn and grease, fill the water jug, and kick the child to make it stand. The child is covered in sores and their filfth and has memory of the outside world, always begging to be released.
All of the folk of Omelas knows that the child exists and understand that their abundance of food and good fortune is the exchange of the suffering of the child. All the town’s children, between the ages of 8 - 12, are taken to see the child to be made aware of their existence and the importance of that trade off. They are told they cannot offer the child any kindness - not of food or clothes or even a single kind work - or all of the abundance of Omelas will immediately cease to exist.
At first the children are upset and sad. But after time, they come to accept what they deem as neccessary for the good of Omelas. They come to accept this as a fact of life. But there are a few who do not move through the anger and sadness into acceptance. A small few leave Omelas all together. They walk down the street, out the gates, and over the mountains. No one knows where they are going; they seem to have a lone guiding factor within and they never return.
As I considered writing about this piece of literature, a piece that I hadn’t engaged with in over a decade, I started to consider my own journey in life at this moment in time. At first, I wanted to share the why behind my decision to ‘walk away from Omelas’ by leaving the U.S. empire and living a life of a global nomad. But that all seemed so obvious for anyone that has access to any news media and even a small sense of empathy for other human beings.
I’d also considered writing about how, being an American, I’ve served as one of the townfolk of Omelas - benefiting from the inhumane torment and treatment of other groups of people. Always doing so by explaining away how their torment is neccessary for the larger good of me and those around me. That it is a fact of life. Because it’s easy to accept dehumanization of others when they are far away, and out of sight (If you think I’m hinting at the destruction of Palestinian, Congolese, Sudanese, and other peoples of the Global South that are expereincing extreme torment, subjegation, and genocide for those of us in the Western world/global powers to have comfort, luxuries, and access to natural resources- let me be clear: I AM.).
AND, how being a Black American, I’ve also served as the child in the basement, continuoulsy dehumanized, demoralized, and ignored for those of the dominant culture to continue to thrive on the back of my labor and suffering. To amass power and resources and freedom, while I’ve been given the leftover scraps and looked at with disdain when it is my very existence that makes their exuburance possible. The difference being; the child in the story never had the option to leave on their own.
They are dependant on someone else seeing their humanity and offering them dignity and care.
No, I got to choose. I’m one of the people who saw that child in the basement, disgarded by my society and chose to walk away. To make the hard choice of leaving behind all I know, and all that has brought me a familiar sense of comfort, to suffer the mutterings and whispers of those around me and walk away from participating in and benefiting from that type of dehumanization. And in Le Guin’s version, that’s it. There is no explanation to what happens to those who walk away, just that they leave. So, here’s where I’ll pick up the story…
What happens after we walk away from Omelas? For me, leaving the U.S. feels like me freeing myself from my own dehumanization, while also feeling a responsibility that I’ve been required to bear as a way to show others there is another way. Walking away means that I’m allowing myself to understanding existence outside of the gilded cage of all I’ve known; where the subjegation and exploitation of others is neccessary to survival. To expereince another way of being. Another way of finding joy and safety and community and care and consistency - and to continue to bring those lessons back to Omelas.
That’s the important part of the story; the part that isn’t written. What do we do next? What do we do once we’ve come face to face with the brutalization of another? Do we explain it away because it benefits us and is a fact of life? If we continue to rationalize the inhumane treatment of others at our benefit, what type of hollow life and happiness do we expereince? As William James writes in ‘The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life’:
“…what except a specifical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberatey accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?”
How gross is the enjoyment of our freedoms and joys when we willingly accept them as the bargaining outcome of the dehumanization of others?
For me and my family, as people who identify as Black, working class Americans, it has felt irresponsible and unbearable to continue to find my freedoms on the backs of others. Because, as I mentioned earlier, those of us who occupy that identity have also served as the child in the basement, stripped of all of our humanity. How could I continue to exist with the expectation that someone else would live such a wretched life for my gain?
I’m also not sure I believe in the idea of a universal moral absolutism. The belief that there are universal moral laws that apply to everyone at all times, regardless of the situation or consequences. Morality has to be subjective based on any number of variables - so I could argue that leaving one child locked away for the prospering and freedom of hundreds of others is a neccessary and reasonable trade off. But DAMN(!), do I feel like a monster when I conceed that.
So, again, the question becomes: what do we do after we leave Omelas? My hope is that I learn other ways to exist in the world that doesn’t neccessitate me relinquishing my own humnaity by stripping others of theirs. The story of Omelas works in our understanding of the Western world, capitalism, and individualism. Those of us who’ve walked away, where the story ends - what we are seeking is a new narrative that allows us to hold each human being in our own indivdual inherent dignity, and derriving our joy and freedom from that. From the collective nature of shared humanity. The unspoken imperative of walking away, is returning. To free the child in the basement and to free the town folk who’ve resigned their own humanity.
Whether you find yourself as one of the town folk, the child in the basement, or one of the few who leaves - what’s your next move? What’s your responsibility to our shared humanity? What parts of your own humanity are you ok surrendering to stay in the grotesque beauty of Omelas? And what is your responsibility if you become one of the ones who walks away?
This is a really smart, powerful piece, Emerald. I, too, have long loved "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas;" that turn in the story when the narrators like "But wait - there's one more thing" and then proceeds to talk about the child is one of the most haunting turns in English lit tbh. The question of what is the moral obligation of the ones who stay is also interesting. And if "Omelases" are just a feature, not a bug, of capitalism. All to say: thanks for sharing your insights here.