Through the Beautiful Gates...

      Would I walk through them?  I’d like to believe that I would.  That I would leave behind Utopia to protest the misery of that little boy or girl.  That I would leave behind Utopia to take back myself.   And it’s so easy to sit here right now and say that I would.  However, were I actually put in that situation, I don’t think I could do it.  The question said to justify your decision, however I can find no real justifications for staying, only excuses.  The only justifications  I can make are for leaving.
     I've always been a fence sitter.  It is possibly (aside from procrastination) one of my biggest faults.  I like to say it's because I enjoy the view from the height.  And it works for me most of the time; taking a bit of this opinion and a bit of that, never choosing one side completely.  However there are times when one does need to take a definite stance, with both legs firmly planted on the ground, not dangling from a fence post.  It's something I need to work on.
      In my heart I know the right thing to do would be to leave.  I feel this way for many different reasons.  One of these reasons is simply my first, initial, gut reaction to reading about the poor, unloved child, suffering away, day after day, in the damp cellar, with only terrifying mops for company.  It just doesn't seem right.  It angered me.  I was "shocked and sickened at the sight" (Le Guin, "Those Who Walk Away From Omelas) just like the children of Omelas.
     When I started to examine why I felt this way, why this was my first reaction, I came back to my dislike of utilitarian ethics.  I don't feel that the happiness of one person can necessarily justify the misery of another.  Though utilitarianism does have parts I like and agree with, mainly the whole concept of "that which brings happiness is moral, that which doesn't is immoral," I don't like how it can also be characterized as a giant happiness math equation; as long as the pain an act causes is outweighed by the happiness, an act is moral.  What makes the life of this child and, as the American constitution puts it, his right to the pursuit of happiness, any less important that the lives of the rest of the citizens of Omelas.  Why does he or she not deserve to experience life to its fullest?  Why must she or he be locked up, hidden from the sky and the sun and kindness and love?  It isn't fair, and that, to me, has always been my belief as to what morals and ethics should strive for.
     One can think of it in even simpler terms, using a rule we are all taught in kindergarten.  That rule is the golden one.  "Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you."  Would I be fine to take the place of that child?  Would I be willing to live in a dark, dank, and damp cellar.  Would I be willing to confine myself, for the rest of my life, to a tiny little room?  To live off of one "half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day"(Le Guin)?  For the only human interaction, for the rest of my life, to be an occasional kick and staring eyes?  Even if it meant the happiness of a whole city of people, I wouldn't be able to condemn myself to that.  Maybe there is someone more altruistic than me out there, but no, I would not be willing.  In my reasoning, it only follows from there that keeping the child locked up, even for the happiness of everyone in Omelas, is unethical.  If I am not willing to take the place of the child, how can I believe it is ethical?
     When I look at it from a perspective of analysing Le Guin's message about the relationship between society and one's self I also feel that I should walk away from Omelas.  Though I don't believe people should refuse to sacrifice any of their 'selfness' at all, I also don't feel that they should sacrifice all of it.  Both are just as wrong to me.  Instead I think we have to find the right balance between keeping our individuality but also having a functioning society.  Though in general, humans are reasonable, logical creatures, all of us, at times, can be unreasonable.  Due to this, without society enforcing some of it's laws on us, without society governing us, the world, and humanity, risk falling apart.
     These are the justifications and reasons I give for why walking away would be what I would like to do.  However all these leave out the pure difficulty that leaving would actually entail.  I know what will follow will simply be excuses, but sadly, I am one prone to making them.
     Simply put, leaving Omelas, leaving Utopia, giving up all that happiness and joy for uncertainty, to "walk ahead into the darkness" is terrifying.  To leave behind everything and everyone that you know and love and cherish; I don't think I could bring myself to do it.  I don't think I'm that strong a person.  Maybe I could bring myself to leave behind the lifestyle and luxuries I would have in Omelas, but the people?  When I think about leaving all the people I love in my life, never to talk to them again, never to laugh with them again, never to hug them again, it seems unbearable.  In an utopia I can only imagine how much more difficult it would be.  There is one more reason why I am choosing not to walk away from Omelas.  That is that I haven't yet. 
     There are many similarities between the society that we live in, and Omelas.  The fact that we have so many decadent things here in Canada, is due to the lack of necessities in the lives of others.  Though this may not be so clear cut and obvious as it is in Omelas, it is arguably even worse.  Unlike in Omelas, our happiness does not come at the expense of just one child's misery.  Instead it comes from the misery of millions.  Though I don't have any statistics to back it up, I feel pretty safe in saying that those who suffer far outnumber those that have the luxuries and happiness in our world.  Added to this is the fact that, unlike the people in Omelas, we are often not grateful or even aware of the suffering of these millions.  Instead we too suffer at times, although not to the same extent.  So not only does our 'utopia' result from the suffering of far more people than that of Omelas, it is not even a true utopia; we are not completely happy, we don't view our lives as perfect.  Yet I have not walked away from our society.  I have not turned down all the fancy trinkets and electronic devices and comfy clothing that are possible due to the suffering of others.  My image of marriage, when and if it happens, still includes a diamond ring, despite what I know of the horrors of much of the diamond industry.  So to say that I would walk away from Omelas would be very hypocritical.
   After much thinking and struggling, of which just the tiniest bit has been documented above, I have at last come to my conclusion.  I will stay in Omelas.  I am not yet ready to leave.  However, I will work to make that only temporary.  While I'm there I will work towards becoming a stronger person, someone more committed to doing what is right, no matter what the costs.  And hopefully, one day, when I am strong enough and brave enough, I'll be able to walk out of these beautiful gates of Omelas.

10 Years Ago the World Changed

     Time has a funny way of distorting itself.  If you told me that ten years ago I was in grade 3 I would say that ten years has been a long time.  However, when I think about how 9/11 was ten years ago today, it just doesn't seem that long ago.  I can remember that day so well, however how accurate those memories actually are is questionable.
     I can remember hearing about some horrible disaster not long after waking up.  I can remember my best friend, Andrea, and her brother, Peter coming over before school, running across the road that separated our houses.  Seeing them before school would have been a cause for smiles and laughter, however they didn't bring those things with them.  Instead they brought news of two towers, a world away from me, having fallen down.  The next thing I knew I was lying on their parent's bed in a room that to me had always been a safe place, a place where I could hide from the noise and fear of fireworks while still able to see them on Halloween nights.  That safety shattered as I watched footage of smoke and dust and debris erupt from barely visible skyscrapers on the tiny TV in the corner.
     The school was strangely quiet in my memory, when I arrived.  In class the teacher explained to us why the flag outside was only half-way up, "at half mast", a new phrase for us eight and seven year olds.  Sadly it had nothing to do with laziness, as I had previously assumed, and instead with death, a concept that induced a heart-stopping fear in my constantly worried little eight year old mind. (And I'd be lying if I said it still didn't scare me, although for slightly different reasons now.)
     10 years ago the world changed.  It changed in many different ways and on many different levels.  And 10 years ago my world changed too.  My world shrunk.  New York, which before might as well have been on a different planet, no longer seemed so far away.  I was suddenly aware of things that happened outside my little community.  Death, a previously inconceivable concept, no longer seemed so inconceivable and no longer was something I only worried about selfishly, only concerned about my death.  It was now something that could happen to other people and people I didn't know. 
     Like most people I also experienced fear.  To my self-centered, eight year old self, my home seemed just as important as some buildings in a city in the United States.  So if someone wanted to fly a plane into the Twin Towers, it was very likely someone else was planning to fly a plane into my neighbourhood.  Unless of course they were Canadian.  Being pretty well naive and ignorant to politics and the rest of the world, as many eight year olds are, that seemed to be the only way I'd be safe.  I can remember voicing, as terrible as it was, that I hoped the hijackers (although I doubt that word was part of my vernacular at the time) were from Canada, to a girl at my daycare after school.  She told me that, secretly, she felt the same.  We both knew we shouldn't feel that way, yet we did.  I now understand that would have afforded me very little protection and I am slightly ashamed that I ever felt that way however we were scared and holding on to that hope seemed to make us feel better.