Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, The by Ursula Le Guin ~ June 21-2~ Short Stories

[marcie]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

Short Stories - Some SeniorLearn Favorites - JUNE 1 til mid JULY

It is said that a good short story should include: * a strong theme, * a fascinating plot, * a fitting structure, * unforgettable characters, * a well-chosen setting, * an appealing style.  Let's consider these elements as we discuss the following stories.  Is it necessary to include them all in a successful story?  
  

Notice that the titles are all links to the stories.

Discussion Schedule:
June 1 -June 9: *The Book of The Funny Smells--and Everything (1872) by Eleanor H Abbott *The Necklace or The Diamond Necklace (1880) -  by Guy de Maupassant
  *A Pair of Silk Stockings (1896) by Kate Chopin
June 10- 14: *Babylon Revisited (1931) by F.Scott Fitzgerald
June 15- 17: *First Confession (1939) by Frank O'Connor
June 18-20: *A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1953) by Flannery O'Connor  
June 21-24: *The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1973) by Ursula LeGuin
June 25-28: *The Half-skinned Steer (1997) by Annie Proulx

************************

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula LeGuin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was born in 1929 in Berkeley, California and lives in Portland, Oregon. As of 2013, she has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many honors and awards including Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud. Her story, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, is a philosophical parable that primarily focuses on the city of Omelas. It was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Short Fiction and won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1974.

Topics for Consideration
June 21 - June 24

Do you want to go straight to the ending and the title of the story, "The ones who walk away from Omelas?"  What do you think about those who walk away? Why do they leave? Does our knowing that a William James quote inspired the author to write the story,  help us understand the story and the ending? What are some analogies between Omelas and our world that you see in the story? What are our choices for interpreting the story, especially the ending? DL Contact: Marcie

[marcie]

Welcome to our discussion of this short story by Ursula Le Guin.

This story (sometimes referred to as a "parable" or "allegory") has an interesting narrator and an interesting way of pulling you into the story. To a great extent, the reader creates the initial world of Omelas.

We can talk about some of that but I'm wondering if you would prefer to jump to the end of the story and talk about that first. What do you think about those who walk away? Why do they leave?

[PatH]

It's been a while since I read this.  I'll dig out my copy, reread it, and be back.

[BarbStAubrey]

Back much later - a full day... 

[PatH]

My first reaction on reading this story (both times) is how impossible it is to describe a convincing utopia.  LeGuin knows this, and invites the reader to fill in the details, but for me it's already too late.  What she says has already made it too dreamlike.  Everything and everyone is so wholesome, picturesque, happy, that it just looks like a fairy tale, doesn't seem in the slightest like something one could possibly live.

[PatH]

In my book--The Wind's Twelve Quarters, a collection of LeGuin's short stories--this story is subtitled Variations on a theme by William James, and in her introduction she quotes James on the subject of the scapegoat.

From :The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life:

"Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torment, 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 deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?"

James' grammar is sometimes pretty hard to tease apart.  I proofread the quote carefully; hope I didn't leave a word out somewhere.

[marcie]

PatH, yes, it's difficult to describe a utopia without it sounding like a fairytale. I guess that's probably so because the whole idea of a utopia seems like a dream. We don't experience utopian life very often, if at all, and we each have our own ideas of what makes up a perfect world.

As you say, Le Guin's narrator invites us to fill in whatever we would include in the Omelas utopia. I confess that I didn't try very hard to actually fill in the details. I just told myself that, yes, it's a fantastic place ... whatever I would want it to be.

Thanks very much for providing the quote from the philosopher/psychologist William James that Le Guin says inspired her story. (You said it about his grammar. The quote is all one sentence!)

William James thought that "a vast number of our moral perceptions also are certainly of this ...  brain‑born kind. They deal with directly felt fitnesses between things, and often fly in the teeth of all the prepossessions of habit and presumptions of utility." By brain-born, I think he meant that people are born with certain moral "instincts."

Everyone, does our knowing that the James quote inspired her,  help us figure out the ending?

[JoanP]

So many questions...
From the start, I was hung up on the title...where did she find Omelas, or if LeGuin made it up, what does it mean?  

She is quite a storyteller, doesn't matter where she got the idea for the story.  Did knowing it was William James who provided her with the fact that we are born with certain moral instincts help me to  figure out the meaning?  I don't think so -

 I've got to admit that I saw the dilemma...sacrificing  the happiness of the whole village to save the one poor boy ( where did he come from? Where were his parents?) - or living with the knowledge that his life is festering away in this dreadful basement.  I saw the choice as long with it, or doing something about it- no matter how many would suffer.

I really didn't see moral instincts telling people who were upset about the situation to simply walk away ....

Now I'm going to reread and count on some of you to help me tear back the skins of the onion to get to the meaning of Le Guin's parable

[marcie]

I'm glad you've joined us, JoanP, to help us figure out this story.

A side note: I don't think we're going to get much help from the name "Omelas." Le Guin says she thought of it when she was leaving Salem, Oregon and looked at the name of the city backward in her rear-view mirror.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh God that first sentence - I soared with the swallows and my heart rang with the bells - I love a beautiful sentence and she keeps it up - one after the other - oh oh oh - I love it - the beauty of her writing - I could nuzzle down regardless of the story, characters, themes, myths, conflicts - forget it all - she strings words like an admirable well ordered laundry line, shirts and sheets blowing in the wind - I'm in another place, a poets place... the first sentence is too good not to repeat...

“With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea.”

[marcie]

Thank you, Barbara, for linking me back to her poetic words. They are definitely worth savoring.

[BarbStAubrey]

Wow - get this - in light of our last short story this is quite a thought expressed in these sentences.

"Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it."

I guess when you think about it the repetition day after day of pain does become boring and there is truism in the evil as commonplace - as much as we would wish it were not so the daily news keeps us out of the fantasy that evil is an occurrence that comes to us all of a sudden out of the blue.

And with this thought I am looking for her to tell us about an evil that is commonplace that we can relate to life today - the commonplace evil that we give little attention to because it and the pain of it is so common.

[BarbStAubrey]

       - this sentence for sure had to be written just before Kent state took the joy out of the 60s/70s flower children -- "Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine souffles to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh." - love it...

[marcie]

Barbara, it looks like you are taking a productive track by analyzing the sections that both describe the utopia and describe what it is not.

The narrator says that the people of Omelas "were not naive and happy children--though their children were, in
fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched. "

...Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive."

... What else, what else belongs in the joyous city? The sense of victory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we did without clergy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world's summer: This is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life."

How are we to read these descriptions in light of the existence of the child that everyone knows about below the foundation of their public buildings and homes?

[BarbStAubrey]

ah so she drops the other side of the coin - ""Please let me out. I will be good!" They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining,..."

My first reaction is her conflict is too simplistic - it is this horror versus free, party like joy because I do see that many, during what we called the hippie generation thought they could create a joyful community with no leaders and no evil - a black or white dichotomy. There are never only two sides to anything.

I do see how we go on with our lives feeling we can do nothing to change some of the horrors - those horrors she described in comparison are not as bleak that although, not quite as bad were almost as bad and that was kids in prisons during the 60s and 70s - it was a horror - prison cells with marks from bloody fingernails dragged down the walls of the cells and then, there were all the babies in the Baltic nations and parts of Russia left in institutions with inadequate help and supplies rocking themselves for comfort in their filth not able to even talk and they were beyond crying - remember that exposé - and then we also read about the conditions in the Cambodian camps where folks from Viet Nam were fleeing with holes dug as outdoor outhouses and some having to live in self-made hovels next to those holes.

We can look today at how we aspire to live in and create a community similar to Omelas -   Maybe without the nude boys and girls or horses running through town - however, we think we could live in a town that we do not like to think is only a fantasy - we keep trying and wishing and wanting the city, state and national leaders to make it happen for our town and yet, we have homeless living in conditions not too much better than the boy in the story. Just this past winter during one of our bad cold fronts a small group from the Methodist Church were out trying to make sure the homeless were well and alive who were living in tents on tracks of land too rough for cattle and they found a ten foot square hole about 6 feet deep that 10 guys were huddled together for warmth. They were living in the hole.

We too create joyful holidays around birthdays and Thanksgiving and Christmas etc. without guilt while there are folks living in conditions we can hardly believe because we do not see them.

I guess I do not see her story as a myth or a fairytale but simply as an analogy.

As to the story suggesting we are powerless to make the changes - I can see that - and yet, to accept her saying we cannot have the joyous reverie without the horrors in the basement of society - hmm have to wrestle with that for a minute...

I think I see it when we think war is an answer because always, with war the citizens living in the path of war are UN-necessarily killed and often survive with great deprivation. That says to me when we shout out our strong opinions or will not listen and work out a win-win solution to differing opinions or expect a representative to only secure what we want we are setting up an under-girting to the black and white thinking that can carry over to many issues of the day that leave some in dire situations because we do not see them, just as the adults in the story quit looking at the boy in the basement - they too must have been vulnerable when they were young but, they harden and blunt their emotions in order to cope, in order to keep their strong opinions and feel justified resorting to war. Not just a war of bullets but, a war of words, a war over wealth, gender, energy, who is worthy etc. etc. with all war, going back to our knowing, we must accept there are always survivors in the path who often exist in great deprivation.  

[marcie]

Barbara, I too think that there is analogy/ allegory in some of the descriptions in the story.

From some of the possible comparisons that you've brought up, I'm now wondering if we are to re-read some of the initial descriptions as satire: "The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world's summer: This is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life."

We're told that the people know about the child beneath them. Are they not to be "in communion" with the child also? Or is the child a necessary "it" for them (we don't learn the gender). They seem to accept that their swelling hearts can't include the child or their 'perfect' world would be destroyed.

[JudeS]

Wanting to know more about the author I went to Ursula le Guin in google and from there I scrolled down to Video Results and from there to Bing Videos. There are endless short and long videos with this charming woman.
Enjoy!

The story we read is not specifically mentioned in any of the articles or videos that I perused. However I think the point of the story is that the good life derives from the suffering of others in some way or form.
 So it has been from the beginning of civilization and until today.

LeGuin did her Masters work in UC Berkeley and has continued to live there for the rest of her long life (she is 84). Berkeley is a bastion of ultra liberal thought (and sometimes action). She must feel comfortable there.

The story is beautifully written and though it deals with a horror it didn't leave me feeling horrible , just thoughtful.

[PatH]

One of your sources is mistaken Jude.  LeGuin lives in Portland, OR, and has done so for a long time; she was already there when my book was published in 1975.  I looked up her address a few years ago; it's on the west side of the Willamette, sort of near the Lloyd center.

Her father was an anthropologist, and many of her sci-fi books have an anthropological frame of mind.

[pedln]

A fascinating story that raises more questions than it answers.  In some ways it made me think of Lois Lowry’s The Giver, which is also about a utopia of sorts, with some unpleasant undercurrents.  At one point I wondered if the poor child in the basement was to be a Christ figure, who is bearing our sins so that we might live.  Probably not.

And do you accept LeGuin’s comment about the title merely coming from the sign as she drove out of town?  Backwards!  Is something backwards here?  The people leaving Omelas, are they going backwards to live in a less “happy” society?

[JoanK]

I found her prose at the beginning almost beautiful: it would soar, and then thud back to earth with an awkward phrase. ""Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain." Followed by  "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it."
 
I found it very disturbing to read. I thought it was bad writing at first, but maybe it was deliberate. A parallel to happiness and misery with smooth writing and harsh writing.

[JoanK]

I have felt guilty that the soft life that I live, wasteful of resources as it is, is only possible because much of the planet lives a very meager life. The planet could not sustain everyone living this way, and cannot sustain even us fortunate few living this way for very long. We are living at the expense of other peoples and our own grandchildren.

[JoanK]

She almost says that knowing and acknowledging the guilt is enough.

"Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its
existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science."

And yet, there are those who walk away. How do we walk away from this planet?

[JudeS]

Joan P
You are correct.
Le Guin lives in Portland Oregon. From two long visits to this city last year I think  that it is also very liberal although laid back and calmer than Berkeley.
It is really very hard to make an analysis of an author from just one story. In the Videos I watched she was extremely upbeat and rooting for libraries and getting young people to read. Good causes.

In the story I thought the picture of those with enough moral courage to walk away from the "good life" into the unknown as brave souls who refused to base their happiness on the poor exploited child. When we think of exploited children so many thoughts arise. From Dickens to the present times in Pakistan.

Last night I watched a "Front Line" program about Pakistan and the horrors and abuse in that society today toward children, especially girls.
Always, somewhere, there is a child suffering , like the one in our story, so that others can live a good life.

[marcie]

It's great to have more thoughts about this intriguing story. JoanK, you indicate that the narrator does sometimes step out of a descriptive narration and changes to "textbook" language or popularisms. Is the author trying to make us aware that she is setting up a thought piece for us and not just telling a story? Your idea of writing that parallels happiness and misery is interesting.

As you say, no matter how frugally we live, using any resources means that there are fewer for others. And in the USA, many live quite affluent lives compared to those in other countries (your Frontline program is relevant here, Jude). Is there more than this in the story? Something different? The utopia of Omelas exists because of the stipulation that just the one child live in misery. Are the resources of Omelas sufficient for the happiness of everyone else?

You also quote: "Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science."  Are we to take the narrator (whose writing fluctuates as you've said) at face value? Is the "guilt" of at least some of the inhabitants payment enough? Would it be reading more into the story than was intended to think that the inhabitants of Omelas do not know compassion? nobility?

Pedln, you say: "A fascinating story that raises more questions than it answers." Maybe you are right and that is the point of the story. As you say, JudeS, Le Guin is known to be a writer who creates worlds that are of interest to many people who think of themselves as "liberal." She doesn't seem like a  dogmatic person who wants to force her views on others. But the story might still give us possible clues as to what to think of those who live in Omelas...or those who walk away. Jude, you said that the story has left you thoughtful (rather than feeling horrible). What do you all think about it?

[PatH]

We are all of us privileged, living off of others, and we are all uncomfortable with this.  What's important about this story is how specific it is.  The child is a scapegoat, a person (in this case) on whom all the sins of the people have been dumped, freeing the rest of them.  The citizens of Omelas can have no illusions about the bargain they have made; they know exactly what they have done.  She says there is no guilt in Omelas, but she also says that the people are not free.  Their knowledge of the bargain constrains them too.  Is it worth it?  What will the ones who walk away find?

[JoanP]

So much to think about...we're on the road this weekend and I can only get in late...when you are all asleep.

Am still thinking of those who walk away...and wonder how they can do so with the memory of the suffering child they are leaving behind?  How can they do that?  That only makes them a very little bit better than those who stay.  Am I looking at what Ms. LeGuin has written too literally and not considering the parable she seems to intend?

[marcie]

I have those questions too, PatH and JoanP.  My view is that we should not take the story literally. The people are not fleshed out. For example, we're told that the child is nearly ten. Is it perpetually nearly ten for all who come to see it?

I think we are presented with moral questions. What do we think of the option some take to walk away?

Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the
houses with yellow- lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the
fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They
go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead 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.


The narrator says, "The place they go towards is a place even less
imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. " But we're told "They seem to know where they are going."

Metaphorically where are they going? They seem to know. What does that mean?

[BarbStAubrey]

Those who stay seem to live an outsized ribald life that almost reminds us of the twenties or the German Cabaret scene during the Weimar Republic - both are an unrealistic time before the earth moved - where as, those who go over the mountain as you say could not leave and forget if they also saw the boy - Seems to me they were trying to find a place where they imagined life was different. They had no idea if life over the mountains was better or had more opportunity for realism - they simply walked away. So stay or go all the adults react to what they know and try to live with the memory the only way they know how. I do not think those who walk away are any better than those who stay obsessing on creating a joyous life.

Where I do not think it is healthy to live with constant guilt because we are blessed - I do think it gives pause to what is important and how we can help - but then that also is confusing - without beauty and the wealth to support those who create beauty if only by purchasing beautiful objects, we deny artisans, chefs, designers of clothing, jewelry, homes, furnishings etc. We deny them an income so that an artisan becomes dependent upon the very wealthy or the kings and queens that are few and far between, for their livelihood, the time and material to create, the occasions and homes to make special with their creations.

[marcie]

Barbara, you say: "I do not think those who walk away are any better than those who stay obsessing on creating a joyous life." That's definitely an option to interpret the story choices as equal: staying and living in utopia knowing the price paid by the child or leaving the utopia knowing that the child is still paying the price for the others. Is that how you see the outcome?

What are some other options for interpretation?

[BarbStAubrey]

Marcie yep, about right the only thing - I do not see the life in Omelas as Utopia - not my idea of Utopia - More like Animal House or a really wild New Year's Party or a continuous party that is how we understood life in Paris in the 20s as described in the F.Scott Fitzgerald short story -

Everyone in Omelas, even those who do live a quiet life seem to be living with great intensity as though if they stop they would all be sucked into the basement with the boy they cannot make better. They live as compulsives rather than with Zen.

The choice Ursula Le Guin offers either, walk away, over the mountains, or compulsively live pressing your skills, temperament and joyfulness. I do not see in the story another option.

Outside the story as a reader I can see many ways to add additional options. However, even to embrace and clean up the child we have no idea if the system is such the boy, if taken from his circumstance would he immediately be replaced with another maybe even younger child or God forbid and infant - or if the obsessive party would slow to a standstill, with the town loosing its outward jolliness would the town shrivel up and die. There are hunks of information missing that I see as leaving us unable to create another scenario without risk of creating a new story.

She seems to have written this as the close balance of a see saw - if one thing changes the other would have to change. Which is actually what they say to folks living with a compulsive personality - we should change and take care of ourselves as well as, stop attempting to either judge or take care of the compulsive and in time the compulsive realizing the change must make a decision. If nothing else the compulsive knows that the old tricks will no longer work. In this instants the victim is not demanding or taking care of those in town. Almost a perfect silent partner that isn't even an outward enabler. Simply the other side of a see saw - for every positive experience in town the boy experiences the exact opposite. Haunting...0 to the power of 0...no quantum leap...more like the balance of a large Caulder hanging in the new wing of the Museum of Art in the Smithsonian.  

[marcie]

Interesting thoughts, Barbara. I thought that the reader is given the invitation to add/subtract details to create  his or her own Omelas utopia but  you and others think that the details the narrator supplies tend to supplant or at least influence your view of the world.

To my mind you're offering another, somewhat different, possible interpretation of the story which is a "yin and yang" view which, according to wikipedia is "where seemingly opposite or contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world; and, how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another." The situation is what it is; it's is just "the given" way of life. As you say, "for every positive experience in town the boy experiences the exact opposite."

[PatH]

This would fit well with LeGuin's own philosophy; she has long been a Taoist, and has published her own translation of the Tao Te Ching.

http://www.amazon.com/Lao-Tzu-Ching-about-Power/dp/1590307445/ref=sr_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371943569&sr=1-13&keywords=ursula+k.+le+guin

[JudeS]

Barb
You used the word compulsion as if it was in the person's power to control himself if he so chooses.

Real compulsions are part of a severe disease, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which has to be treated with medication for relief of symptoms. Compulsions are repetitive behavior (hand washing, praying, counting etc.).All diseases appear on a spectrum and the severity of symptoms is individual. It comes under the rubric of Anxiety disorders and not Personality disorders as you described it.

Pat
Thanks  for the info on Taoism. I will read about this as presently I know the word but what it means is a blank.

[PatH]

I don't know much about Taoism either.  It came up in connection with LeGuin when we read her The Left Hand of Darkness here, led by marcie and me.

[JoanK]

" But they seem to
know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."

Do they? LeGuin doesn't, and neither do we.

It's true that her happy place does not sound all that great to me. Our affluent society doesn't seem that great either, even to many of the affluent. Have we made this bargain, and what we got was not worth it?

No one knows what the alternative is. Communism was supposed to be an alternative: "from each, according to his ability, to each according to his need". Look how THAT  turned out.

[marcie]

PatH, thanks for sharing that information about Taoism.

JoanK, I don't know how much emphasis to put on the statement that those who walk away "seem to know where they are going." I don't understand it either.

You're right that communism did not work in practice. We don't know what the alternative is. Is it just that those who walk away are making another choice--different from the utopia?

[BarbStAubrey]

OH yes, the Yin Yang is a way to describe the phenomenon described in the story and yes, I think all obsessives have in their hands ways to control their lives and live in the moment with the pain they are often running from - if we limit seeing obsessive personalities as uncontrollable incurables than our homes and streets would be filled with addicts of alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, over-weight and under-weight food addicts, hoarding, crime, debt, work. enablers, co-dependents,  -

I understand there are various kinds of addiction - "A compulsion is a repetitive action-sequence which the person cannot control by "willpower." - "They all serve to temporarily distract (self-medicate) the person from relentless inner pain - i.e. shame + guilts + anxieties (fears) + hurts + confusion + anger + frustration + sadness + hopelessness (despair)."

Rather than using the word compulsive I should have been clearer using the word addictive or obsessives - however, my 12-step groups use the word compulsive and for a long time, and still do from time to time attend an Al-Anon or ACOA meeting. The kind of  obsessive or compulsive addiction I see in the story is not the kind that is expressed with excessive hand-washing, nail-biting, hair combing, scratching, or fantasizing which is almost like a tick not helped by a 12-step meeting.

I am still trying to wrap my head around using the Tao as the way in order to understand the story - My younger sister and I have read and studied Taoism for over 30 years - we share with each other our extensive library of Taoist books and CDs  - my sister turned to Buddhism where as with Taoism I found it to be more like the contemplative mind taught by the Carmelites. As I understand Taoism there is no good and bad as we define it - good and bad are considered cultural phenomenons.

I checked a translation of Tao Te Ching  - a few quotes that could be useful.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

All life springs
From yin and yang
As they blend forever
Into patterns of harmony.

Today we are weak,
Tomorrow strong.
Therefore, Mastering
Avoids excess,
Avoids Extremes,...

In destroying others,
We destroy ourselves.

Do you want to improve the world?
I don't think it can be done.

The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man's job?
If you don't understand this, you will get lost,
however intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.

From The Tao of Inner Peace by Diane Dreher, who explains the quotes from the Tao Te Ching; "The Tao tells us to to transcend dualism, All creation is comprised of complementary opposites: yin and yang. In the Western world, we habitually fall into the logical fallacy of the false dilemma, seeing all life as either-or: win or lose, right or wrong, all of nothing, us or them. Dualism limits our options and makes us see differences as threatening...the cause of violence, which lies deep within us: in our mounting anxiety and frustration because we don't know how to resolve conflict."

What difference is there
Between agreement and disagreement?
Between correct and incorrect?
Accepting another's opinion
Obscures the dawn
Of your own awakening.

[JudeS]

Barb
Yes, the use of some words in the Recovery movement gain a connotation that is not scientific. Having taught DUI classes and worked with addicts their problems are very different than people suffering from a brain disorder that usually appears in childhood or early adolescence.

Certainly your knowledge and understanding of Taoism is beyond anything I would be able to come up with  after reading about the basics of this belief system.

However I chose one thing I read and decided to apply it to this story-although with a bit of hesitation.
I quote Google here:
"In general Taoism tends to emphasize WU-WEI (action through inaction) naturalness, simplicity spontaneity and the three Treasures: compassion, moderation and humility."
If we look at our story as it relates to "Wu-Wei" we see the ambiguity of non-action. However the suffering child is a factor in the people's lives and we are faced with a conundrum: Those who believe in inaction cannot help the abused. Yet they live happy, fulfilling lives.
It seems there is no answer to the conundrum as it relates to the story. Thus we see the science fiction element. If this is not real then there is no problem.
I am in awe of her brilliance.

[marcie]

I hadn't realized, Barbara, that you had studied Taoism for so long. Thank you for sharing some of your insights.  Jude, too, I appreciate the reference to Wu-wei. I'll have to think about that and re-read the story.

We've got one more day to talk about Omelas. Let's see what we come up with tomorrow.

[BarbStAubrey]

Ah - yes Wu-Wei however, it is not the kind of inaction we can only imagine when we see the word 'action' as meaning accomplish, put into affect, carry out, drive or plot - it has to do with not putting, the best I can say is, our ego into action in our plotting or planning or even in our actions - It is much like the serenity prayer -

There is an expression a hermit monk living in Zhongnan Moutain range (called living among the white clouds) says to visiting journalists who are trying to attain permission to study with a monk who is in his 90s. They have many, many questions - the exchange is all on film - and all the monk says to the young men living with him is, "it is time to make lunch' regardless that it was hours before the usual time to make lunch he continued to repeat "it is time to make Lunch'. He was reminded that there were not that many more to feed and lunch could be prepared as usual but, he answered no question and with each question asked he simply says, with no rancor or annoyance or hast, "it is time to make lunch" So everyone chips in and does their job to make lunch. While lunch is being prepared two of the journalist interview a few of the younger monks and the other journalists help to clear the table and make lunch.  

That is Wu-Wei - doing well what is in front of you with compassion for your work and fellow-workers, the food source and those who made the raw food possible. Moderation in the amount of food, the use of your body while preparing the food, the amount of space you use to do your part to prepare lunch, the plans for your day along with the humility of doing what is in front of you and to keep your mind focused on what you can do that is put before you rather than, on your ego which wants to change what is not in front of you.

Only by everyone preparing their lunch (metaphor) with compassion do we deepen our compassion for anything that is put in front of us while being moderate in all things and in all expressions of our ego-power and the humility to refrain from using our power to alter what is the behavior of another into what we think is best.

Humility comes from knowing the "Great Master (God) doesn't take sides; She welcomes both saints and sinners." Yes, 'She' is used indiscriminately. "The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain."

The wu-wei is effortless, for it is part of its nature. However, being truly compassionate starves the ego, and the ego gives us hell in the process. Therefore, to see the low places where we can fall or be trapped as the place of infinite depths. True compassion allows you to live with contentment as a social outcast.

I think the way to describe it reminds me of what we learn in Al-Anon about detaching - detaching with love - where as those translating the Tao use many words to get to a similar message - The idea of detachment being linked to compassion is foreign to many people today. Today compassion is linked to attachment, emotions and the desire to fix others with our ego needs satisfied rather than, acting with detachment from our wants and needs.

P.S. with all the questions from the Journalists who did pitch in to make lunch however, they did not see the message in making lunch till months later when they put their film together - they were not given permission to study with the aged hermit monk and were asked to leave after lunch.