The concept of freeing the Child is explicitly floated and then shot down, because of this controversial idea that was very clearly and explicitly stated when the Child was invented in the first place -- both Omelas and the Child only exist because of the Rule
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
It is and always was just a thought experiment, if the Child goes then Omelas goes "What if the Child is freed but Omelas' prosperity remains" is off the table because it just up and negates the whole concept It was always just a thought-experiment
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
Well, not *just* a thought experiment -- the idea of Omelas, says Le Guin, is seductive to you because the utopia it represents fills some deep emotional need in you, you need to believe a place like this exists in some imaginary future
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
But the roadblock to imagining Omelas is imagining the Child You just can't imagine peace and prosperity without someone having to pay for it The logic in your head won't allow it, it doesn't work
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
So, I mean, that's this ambiguous thing about "walking away" What are we walking away from exactly It seems like we're walking away from both -- by walking away from the idea of utilitarian sacrifice being morally acceptable we're walking away from utopia, period
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
That's my read, anyway, having wrestled with what the hell this story is supposed to be about a bunch In the context of stuff like The Dispossessed or The Lathe of Heaven "I'm not going to try to imagine some perfect world where perfect happiness exists It's too dangerous"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
Imagining Omelas means imagining the Child, it means having this image in your head of a place that doesn't exist but *could* exist and is so much better than the here and now around you that you'll excuse or commit atrocities in that here and now
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
The future being more real and more solid than the present Abstractions taking priority over the concrete
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
Taking this virtue ethics stance instead -- "utopia" is in the actions you personally choose to do or not do to the people around you right here and right now, not in the imagined future payoff that will make your present actions moot
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
The people of Urras, after all, justify everything exploitative and harmful about their system by what it makes, and dream furiously that someday it will make enough stuff that all the oppression will be paid for They make that case to Shevek as strongly as they can
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That's why they want *him*, they're thirsting for the magic engine they think his new theorem can create, they can taste the utopia they can build with that tech
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
They aren't unaware of the pain and suffering to all the children in all the closets their system has caused, they're acutely aware of it, they only grow more aware of it the more work they do to hide it, and they push *harder* to try to push *through* to when it will all pay off
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
In this set of stories Le Guin makes it really clear her feelings about omelettes and eggs, I think Anarres' ambiguous utopia is such because Anarres is dirt poor and the people live in relative poverty and yet the system is still worth defending in that poverty
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