thelandsman55 t1_j41hjuu wrote on January 12, 2023 at 3:04 PM

Reply to comment by flyingjesuit in "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Leguin affected me like few books have done by feanor_imc

I like the heaven and hell thing you've brought up, it reminds me of the parable of the long spoons, generally I feel like heaven and hell allegories are compelling when they hold a mirror up to the person in them and unsatisfying when they involve externally directed punishment or torture. The most narratively satisfying hells are the ones where you can leave at any time if you simply accept the goodness in the world and god's love, but some people are too broken to do so.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'they can't free or help the child' the child is not particularly guarded, the door to its cell is locked but that's about it, we aren't told who has the key but it seems like many people have access to the cell, hell the cell may only be locked from the inside for all the narrator tells us. No one is externally prevented from freeing the child. No one is even told not to free the child, they are simply told that their way of life cannot exist without the child's suffering.

Actions have consequences, that isn't a constraint on freedom, its simply a fact about the world. If I jump off a tall building, is it a constraint on my freedom that I will fall to my death rather than flying?

flyingjesuit t1_j41l893 wrote on January 12, 2023 at 3:29 PM

We were talking about agency though, and so like with Pandora’s box or the Apple in Eden they are told not to do it. If I’m not allowed to scratch my nose because if I do a loved one of mine will die, then I’m only really free to scratch my nose in theory. I’m free, but my agency is severely limited.

thelandsman55 t1_j41wl2g wrote on January 12, 2023 at 4:42 PM

I'm confused by the analogy to Eve eating the apple and pandora's box.

Pandora's story is pretty murky in a lot of retellings, but while someone may have told her not to open the box, it is pretty clear that she didn't know what the consequences of opening the box would be. Hell contemporary classicists aren't super clear on what the consequences of opening the box were supposed to be.

Eve is more cut and dry in that she's forbidden from eating the fruit and is deceived into doing so anyway, but again, while there is a fair amount of hubris in making the choice, the main way in which she lacks freedom in doing so is that she isn't clear on the consequences of making it.

I'm not really sure what you mean by 'agency' either. Traditionally there are two types of freedom, freedom from obstacles and freedom from need. Some scholars extend freedom from need to include 'self mastery' ie being able to control your needs and not have dependence on something others can do without.

It is pretty clear that the people from Omelas have both freedom from constraint and freedom from need, the aside about drooz also demonstrates that self-mastery is fairly ubiquitous in their society although perhaps not universal.

To use your analogy, I would say that if I have been told by some external actor that if I scratch my nose they will kill my loved one, that would impact my freedom from obstacles, a foreign actor is constraining my choices to their own ends, and framing it as forbidden or 'if you do x, y will happen' is just a semantic distinction.

If on the other hand, by some inherent quirk of my and a loved ones physiology, scratching my nose is intrinsically linked to stopping that loved ones heart, that is not a constraint on my freedom any more than not having wings is a constraint on my freedom.

The suffering of the child is foundational and intrinsic to everything that makes Omelas good. And no one is deceived about the nature of the choice to leave the child to suffer. I would say its a pretty freely made choice.

flyingjesuit t1_j43x48z wrote on January 13, 2023 at 12:10 AM

Agency is your ability to enact your free will. I’d love to drop everything and go visit Europe, but I have to hold down a job to pay bills and feed myself. A billionaire could go visit Europe on a whim because they don’t have the concerns I do. In theory me and the billionaire have the same free will, but when you account for how realistically we can act on it, they have more agency than I do. Same with my example regarding women riding the subway in an earlier comment. So in a lot of mythology, maybe Pandora wasn’t a good example I thought she was told not to open it like Eve being told not to eat the apple, there’s a MacGuffin of sorts where they are free to enjoy paradise or a superhuman ability or whatever so long as they don’t do X. In Omelas they are told they can’t intercede on behalf off the child otherwise it all falls apart. So they have the free will to do it but not the agency. So agency could also be thought of as revealing the extent to which our free will is an illusion. If the people in Omelas were truly free they’d be able to save the child, but the world is structured in a way that ensures that they don’t. Almost akin to structural injustices in our own world which limit the agency of certain people despite them technically having free will.

thelandsman55 t1_j441e6o wrote on January 13, 2023 at 12:39 AM

I think you are right that in the classic modern version of the story Pandora is told not to open the box although she is not told why, IIRC she's made to think its a present she has to wait to open.

I'm not sure quite how to square your concept of agency (coming from what sounds like a literary background) with my concept of freedom (coming from someone in political science grad school). Having to pay bills and feed yourself is arguably an infringement on your freedom from need. You are subordinated to others because you have to eat and have shelter and those needs create opportunities for exploitation that you aren't protected from. Not being able to go to Europe is arguably an infringement on your freedom from obstacles, but its sort of a gray area, since your ability to get to Europe is presumably contingent on exploitative relationships with others (pilots, airline employees, taxi drivers, etc).

I would also say that beyond freedom from need stuff, most of the greater agency a billionaire has is not per se personal freedom but the ability to compel the subordination of others to his or her will. That is, the additional freedom/agency/whatever you want to call it of a billionaire compared to you is mostly built on other people being less free then they otherwise would be.

And this is where I have a hard time with how your concept of agency relates to Omelas, for one person to have the agency to remove the child without causing social collapse would imply a level of agency that is only possible by subordinating others. You can't generalize that kind of agency since any increase in it for one person is inherently a reduction for someone else, so a society where someone can free the child cannot possibly be more free than Omelas.