The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Essay

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In “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” we encounter a very strange story. There are many stories of utopian societies in the world, but this one is a bit unique. Everything is perfect, but the perfection rests completely on the shoulders of one person being tortured. We must consider what this says about society. If we really think about the story, we can see that although this idea may seem exaggerated, it is actually true. Throughout history, people have built their success and their happiness on the backs of others. We need only to look at examples such as colonization and slavery in order to see that this is a reality. Even today, we can look at the countries who are prosperous and how they wage war and exploit labor from third world countries to see that this idea continues to exist. …show more content…

The question of whether or not they are brave to leave and enter the real world where unhappiness may be a reality is a faulty question. Is having the chance of being sad sometimes brave? Not really. This is part of life. And it is difficult to imagine that there would ever be a time when something bad is not a possibility. So, you may ask, why would they not stay and try to fix the problem? Let us compare this with today’s world. When there is a problem affecting society, what happens? Typically, in any area with any degree of freedom, people rise up in protests. Protests take on many forms – either violent or non-violent. The presence of violence is not really the issue though. What we see is that often those protests have little effect. Violent protests are met with stronger resistance from law enforcement or military. Non-violent protests are often completely ignored, or even countered with violence (look at Standing Rock now for evidence of

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