Omelas Blog

Omelas Blog 

I would stay in Omelas. I feel terrible for what the child is suffering, but there is no way I would leave. Honestly, I would not even consider leaving. 

It is truly horrible that this one child suffers such inhumane treatment, however, it is just one child. Thousands of others live in happiness, prosperity, and safety. Thousands. Why should thousands lose their great city “for the chance of the happiness of one”? The author used the word chance here because even if the child was released and lived in better conditions, there is no guarantee that it will be happy. The city would lose all of its positive features, meaning that everyone’s quality of life would go down. A decrease to the average person is still an increase for the child, but it will never know the happiness and comfortableness that the average citizens used to experience. However, if the child stays in its suffering, the lives of thousands will be improved. 

We live in a world filled with so much pain and suffering, in so many different varieties. Children are starving, veterans live on the street, people fear each other, minorities face discrimination, many people lack equality. In Omelas, none of that happens because only one individual is sacrificed. It is not fair that this one person is chosen to suffer, but it is also not fair for an individual’s happiness to outweigh a society. The greater good should win out. If we value an individual’s happiness the most, then we should also take into account every individual’s happiness, most of which requires the child to live in squalor. The child’s suffering is a necessary evil for the people of Omelas. 

Besides, what does leaving accomplish? The child will still be locked in its broom closet-prison. It will still starve. It will still sit in its own filth. It will still suffer. All leaving does is put the child further out of one’s mind, which does nothing to improve the child’s situation. The reason people would choose to leave is because they do not agree with the treatment of the child, yet they do not do anything to actually help the child. Sure, they become a martyr, giving up the prosperity they once lived in at the cost of a child’s happiness, but martyrdom does nothing for a child who yearns for freedom. 

I would stay in Omelas. The suffering of this one child is immense, inhumane, and tragic, but thousands live in prosperity because of it, away from the pain of the rest of the world. It is an unfair situation for the child, but more than fair for the rest of the city because thousands of lives could be saved at the cost of only one. I understand that it is cruel of me to condemn this child to its own personal hell, but I truly believe that the greater good caused by it justifies this  suffering.