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The Hugo Award Winners #1

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

By Nik HeinPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
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The Hugo Award Winners #1
Photo by Erik Müller on Unsplash

Man is a planning creature. The world may fall apart, but we will continue to make plans for the future. I am no exception. It’s only two weeks since I first posted on Vocal. It is a long, long way ahead of me, but I’ve already lined up a grand plan for the future, namely, an extensive series of articles devoted to the Hugo Science Fiction Award winners.

For those who don’t know: in the science fiction world, the Hugo Award rates the same as the Oscar award for the movie production. Supposedly only the best of the best are rewarded (I say ‘supposedly’ because I strongly disagree with some choices, but I will talk about this another time). I have read most of them, and with this article, I will start to share my impressions from time to time. After all, if I’m writing about books, why not pick the best ones?

I gave the honor of pioneering the series to Ursula Le Guin’s short story 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,' which won the Hugo in 1974.

Most people who identify themselves in any way as cultured have heard or read the quote from 'The Brothers Karamazov' by Dostoyevsky about the tears of an unhappy child.

While there is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It’s not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat herself on the breast with her little fist and prayed in her stinking outhouse, with its unexpurgated tears to ‘dear, kind God’!

The philosopher and psychologist William James wrote about the same topic, though from a slightly different point of view:

is anyone entitled to enjoy life knowing that his well-being is built on another’s misfortune?

Frankly, it seems fundamentally unsolvable for all the nobility of the idea, at least for the foreseeable future. Anyone who has been to Third World countries and seen how people who serve our needs and requirements live and work (e.g., workers at ship scrapyards in Bangladesh or miners in the Philippines) is likely to agree with me. I have been in places far from the tourist routes where I encountered our civilization’s dark side, and I must confess that what I saw there was an enormous test for my conscience.

Chittagong scrapyard in Bangladesh. Photo by my friend Ruslan Aizatulin

It is a parable on the eternal theme of what is more important: the public good or individual happiness? It would seem impossible to live at the expense of another’s suffering. That much is clear. And we approve of those who leave Omelas.

But on the other hand, what if anyone breaks the social contract and frees the boy? The story clearly shows that it would cause the world to fall apart, and people — deprived of paradise and happiness would scatter, as the Bible says, “to the eight sides of the world.” Is it really worth it? Is it possible to sacrifice the happiness of hundreds for an individual’s happiness?

And on the contrary, can we deem this happiness legal? Can there be a paradise built on bones? Can 100 people be killed for the sake of a million? And a hundred thousand? And ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine? Where is the line? And how are you going to live while understanding that your happiness is based on someone else’s pain in our world?

Don’t try to turn away and put the book aside. Because we all, in a sense, live in Omelas.

Except that, unlike us, the people of Omelas have a chance to leave their happy city.

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About the Creator

Nik Hein

A sci-fi reader, writer and fan. If you like my stories, there's more here

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