If you were a citizen of Omelas, would you stay or would you walk?

Would I walk away from Omelas? The conscious part of my brain, the compassionate part, the ethical part, tells me that I should say yes. Society would most likely expect me to say yes. Many other people would undoubtedly say that they themselves would walk away. However, the implications of such a statement go far beyond what the average person could comprehend. Walking away means leaving literally everything behind: your family, your friends, your livelihood - even your dog. Everything that you know would disappear the second you decided to step away from Omelas, with only the vast unknown awaiting. This is a lot to give up for the misery of one child; a sacrifice that I don't know that I would have the courage to make.

Fear often governs the process of decision-making, and I hardly think that this situation is an exception. It takes immense bravery to be able to, as was discussed in class, "excercise self-determination" and make an individual decision. This is made especially difficult when the pressures to conform are as great as they are in Omelas. Every other person that has been to visit the child has been able to accept that its existence is necessary, except for the handful that opt to walk away, never to be seen or heard from again. Which would be the easier option? Both choices have their benefits and their downfalls but neither is particularly easy to stomach.

If Omelas was truly as utopian as it seems to be, the issue of the child would never arise. A perfect society would never put the choice upon its citizens - whether purposefully or otherwise. Perhaps that is why Omelas has no guilt, to keep its people from leaving when faced with the horrible child. For I cannot believe that anyone should be able to peer into the cupboard and view the suffering within without feeling guilt. Not under normal conditions. In Omelas, the emotion has been removed completely from the repertoire of feeling and thus the child can be forgotten, neglected, and left to fester by the hundreds of people that visit.

It has been suggested that Omelas is an analogy for our own society, a statement that I can't dispute. The child could represent any number of modern day things, from children in sweatshops of third world countries to the homeless people in our very own city of Vancouver. The point that the story is trying to convey is that tragedy is all around us, poverty is what bolsters wealth, that our very lives are dependant on the misery of others. While this may only be true to a fraction of the magnitude that the people of Omelas depend on the child, the facts still stand. Need surrounds us. There is always somebody worse off than ourselves; but we rarely do anything about it. Maybe we opt not to act because we feel that the demise of others is what keeps us happy, that it is simpler to accept things as they are than attempt change. I'm sure many people would be desperate to leave Omelas, to free themselves from the thought of the child; to essentially cleanse their minds from the shame upon which their lives are built. But who is to say that the memory of the child will not linger? Would leaving wipe the mind clean indefinitely or would the unpleasantness reoccur? We can't say. Fear governs. Striking out alone is far more dangerous than living with the occasional thought of the child (or so we tell ourselves). Fear tells people that walking away isn't worth it, fear binds people to society - and if we are bound, how is it ever going to be possible to completely walk away?

In the end, I think my subconsciousness would take over. While my consciousness would be fighting to scream out, to run from Omelas and from the unethical principles on which it is built, it is much more realistic to admit that I just wouldn't have the courage. Yes, it is sad that the child must suffer. Yes, I think it unfair to base the happiness of many on the misery of one; especially one so innocent and undeserving. It seems selfish and unsettling that so many people just accept the child as part of life, but I can see why they do. Society has an overpowering influence in the individual's decisions, and it can be hard to choose a seperate path. To venture out into the unknown, alone, unsure of whether the action of walking away is actually making a difference, rather than just putting my singular mind at ease, is hard. It is impossible for me to comprehend abandoning my family, my friends, everything I have ever known, for a life that has no certain outcome. A life that may not have an outcome at all. And while the existence of the child in Omelas, the existence of the thousands of suffering children in the world, plagues my heart and fills me with guilt, I cannot say with certainty that I would walk away from Omelas. I don't know that I possess the courage.