Looking on the bright side, are we?
posted by y2karl at 7:39 AM on September 29

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
posted by simra at 8:03 AM on September 29 [1 favorite]

That was really good. I'm making a hard copy to re-read in the future when the internet explodes and we're all too poor to afford cat food
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:56 AM on September 29 [3 favorites]

This story feels fairly well true, except I'm surprised there was a 51% no on killing Shelly, and then they'll just try again anyway.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:09 AM on September 29 [1 favorite]

The Ones Who Stay and Fight
posted by agentofselection at 9:21 AM on September 29 [1 favorite]

Man, that story was just a punch in the chest with each new article. They should teach it in schools¡ªcompare and contrast with The Lottery, 500 words (in class, in blue books only).
posted by Countess Elena at 9:32 AM on September 29 [4 favorites]

daaaaaaamn. that was a great read. a chillingly dispassionate display of some pretty terrifying dynamics in action. very close to the bone.
posted by supermedusa at 9:52 AM on September 29 [1 favorite]

I'm reflecting on why "Question 3" immediately reminded me of "The Lottery" rather than "Those Who Walk Away From Omelas".

I think part of it is that "Question 3" and "The Lottery" are both told in fairly realistic styles, with dialogue and named characters, about specific reasonably modern places. "Omelas" is a dreamlike fable that doesn't name its characters or render spoken or written dialogue, and Le Guin explicitly tells us that we could imagine a variety of technology levels as we like.

But also, in "The Lottery" and in "Question 3", we witness a collective choice presented to the group regarding whether to kill a specific adult who's, up till now, been a pretty ordinary resident of the neighborhood, and known to many of them. In "Omelas" the suffering person is a child who lives in a cellar or a basement, basically a stranger, and the town does not kill the child -- the people of Omelas seem to believe that the prosperity and happiness of the town depend on the child's suffering, not the child's death.

And: the emotional affect of "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" changes so much over the course of the piece, way more than the other two do -- friendly, yearning, mocking, dour, acid, hopeful. It goes a lot of places.

All three of them get at the rationalizations people make up to make excuses for injustice, to make up reasons why they consider unfair things fair. Le Guin's approach, though, includes her repeated question about whether the reader believes in the possibility of the happy city without the suffering child -- then she describes it and asks, "Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible?" She's criticizing those who basically can't imagine or believe in a possible society without inequality, where the comfort of some doesn't depend on anyone's cruel and unjust suffering. It's a different critique.
posted by brainwane at 11:05 AM on September 29 [5 favorites]

Neither Jackson nor Le Guin mention a pickleball court.
posted by dannyboybell at 2:00 PM on September 29 [5 favorites]

Fucking NIMBYs are everywhere.
posted by flabdablet at 3:07 PM on September 29

They should teach it in schools¡ªcompare and contrast with The Lottery, 500 words (in class, in blue books only).

The one literary thing I recall from high school reading of the Lottery was is how madam Delacroix picked up the biggest stone ("so big she had to use both hands to pick it up"), and the irony of her surname's meaning ("of the cross").

I tried re-reading Question 3 and if there's anything quite like that I didn't catch it. But I did catch one interesting subplot. There's two surnames shared by multiple characters: Edson , the police chief Michael and his daughter Lacey; and Ramirez, the defense lawyer Jason and fifth grade teacher Anna (presumably married). Jason campaigns for No, and Michael seems on team Yes. Anna's 5th grade class sends cards, and becomes a minor scandal when the paper points out Lacey participated, forcing Anna to issue an apology to keep her job.

A dark part of me sees little Lacey's "Hang in there!" as having two meanings. The first being the obvious motivational poster it quotes, and the second being well, a bit darker and the interpretation is not directly contradicted by the paper.

One other note: the town is called Marbury. On first read it's evocative of Mayberry, establishing the small town politics it runs through. But Marbury is literally one of the names in Marbury v Madison, which established that the Supreme Court shall review the constitutionality of law. But I'm not sure how this squares with current events and a supreme court that seems content to enable unconstitutional conduct if it furthers causes they support.
posted by pwnguin at 11:33 AM on September 30 [2 favorites]

pwnguin: "The one literary thing I recall from high school reading of the Lottery was is how madam Delacroix picked up the biggest stone ("so big she had to use both hands to pick it up"), and the irony of her surname's meaning ("of the cross")."

And Tess's last name sort of reminds the reader of Anne Hutchinson... And I agree that the usage of "Marbury" works as an allusion to Marbury v. Madison. Like, we depend on that precedent as a part of the edifice of administration of justice. It's hundreds of years old and it's foundational. But alluding to that case also reminds us how precarious and socially constructed and contingent the whole edifice is, that we are all collectively involved in making norms and deciding how we're doing this society thing together.

I came across this thought on how Jackson builds a sense of tradition which goes on to say:

i would argue shirley jackson¡¯s ¡°the lottery¡± is to ursula k. le guin¡¯s ¡°the ones who walk away from omelas¡± as fight club (1999) is to the matrix (1999). though both works convey similar messages¨Cin the case of the short stories, the blithe way people accept personal comfort at the expense of the pain of an arbitrary other; and in the case of the films, how easy and dangerous it is to lose yourself for conformity with others¨Cyet both ¡°omelas¡± and the matrix deeply explore their themes through the distance of fantasy, whereas ¡°the lottery¡± and fight club make a point to stay as rooted in the familiar as possible even as clearly fantastic elements are introduced, so as to drive the message home.

posted by brainwane at 7:37 AM on October 2

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