A Place of Magnificent Happiness

Imagine a place, outside of history or geography, where people of all ages enjoy a magnificent happiness -- a rich, sustained, even ecstatic happiness.
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Imagine a place, outside of history or geography, where people of all ages enjoy a magnificent happiness -- a rich, sustained, even ecstatic happiness. Ursula LeGuin has described this place in her haunting story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."

What we learn in this story is that the extraordinary happiness of those in Omelas is just as extraordinarily contingent: it depends entirely upon the suffering of a single child, who is confined to a basement, denied adequate food, medical attention for her festering sores, and
denied all human companionship.

The people of Omelas know of the child's suffering; indeed, the terms of their happiness are such that they must know of this suffering, even as they can do nothing about it. Were the child to be rescued, this happiness would end immediately, for everyone.

These are the terms, and everyone both knows them -- and knows as well that any attempt to change them will bring an end to the community's happiness. When adolescent children first learn of these fiercely strict terms, there is regret, even rage; yet they come to accept the arrangement. because their joyous and collective happiness depends upon the child's suffering. So, too, does the prosperity and the many impressive cultural achievements that define happiness in Omelas.

But quite remarkably, sometimes a young woman or man does not accept these conditions -- sometimes they leave Omelas, each alone. They leave Omelas, Le Guin writes,

"Walking 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."

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