Leadership and the Humanities Class Blog Posts

The author described Omelas as this perfect utopian society, where there is no need for drugs, war, and everyone is equal.  One of the main points of the story is how everyone in society is equal, but the child in the cellar contradicts this idea. The story describes how the child,  “…is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes–the child has no understanding of time or interval–sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there” (Guin, 5-6).  I interpreted that this child in the above section was either autistic or had some sort of mental illness. In Omelas, it seems that a person can not be ‘defective’ in anyway otherwise they are not allowed to be apart of the utopian society. The people of Omelas claim that if they let the child into the real-world, then the happiness of the city would be at risk. What this society does not realize is that despite preaching for equality, they are preventing everyone from being able to join in on their utopia, which in itself is unequal. It is one thing to essentially institutionalize the child, but the people of Omela go out of their way to mistreat the kid. In a society that is supposed to be full of happiness, mistreating people, even if they are not recognized by the society as a whole, demonstrates how the culture is inherently flawed.

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I was very surprised by this story The lottery, it starts off innocently enough with the children gathering rocks and coming to a lottery after school is done. The entire story is about the lottery system and how it wasn’t fair for Tessie. It is revealed that Tessie has drawn the bad card, there is a twist in that it ends up being Tessie is to be stoned by her family and friends as they surround her.

The ones who walk away from the Omelas is an interesting story as well because it describes the city as a perfect society and utopia, however, this concept and idea is constantly questioned in terms of legitimacy. The people are happy and it talks about their celebrations and traditions.

Both of these stories show how people in societies react to tradition and when constructs are built-in society how people are quick to conform and just do. People act blindly when they feel like everything will work out and attribute their behaviors to success without thinking deeply.

 

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On Friday I went to watch the film Rafiki. Rafiki is a Kenyan film that features the daughters of two political rivals, Kena and Ziki who fall in love in a society rampant with homophobia and discrimination. Seeing as homosexuality is illegal in Kenya, the two continuously struggle with hos much affection to show each other. Kena begins flirting with Ziki and soon the pair are going on dates. Ziki’s friends get jealous which leads them to attack Kena and when Ziki helps her with her injuries, Kena’s mom catches them kissing. This is where their romance takes a dark turn. They are both arrested and Ziki is sent to London. A couple years pass and Kena has become a doctor, which was her dream. Kena hears that Ziki is back and they meet and their love has not faded. Before the movie, we were given s brief background of the political weight of this movie. What I thought was really fascinating about this movie is that it was actually banned in Kenya. It was put up for a festival and the director sued the government to let the film be shown. It was unbanned for 7 days and showed to sold-out audiences each showing. It was really interesting for me to see how another society responds to homosexuality. Here in the US there is definitely still a lot of homophobia but nothing like in Kenya. It is a totally different culture around homosexuality and it took it as a learning experience.

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The lottery passage was very intriguing as I compared it to society in the United States. A lottery is something that is used to strip any social prestige. I think it is an effective way of randomly selecting people. As the people in that community understood their tradition of the lottery I think you can compare that to the draft in the United States. As US citizens we understand the obligation we serve to our country if we are selected. It is a very democratic practice if done fairly.

The Omelas are unique people and quite honestly I think it would be very interesting to live in their society. The Omelas are people who are obviously a tight nit group of people. Through their own culture and rules they have achieved happiness. In this society it is clear that everyone has their own duties to the community to make it function. This was a common theme I found in both passages. They both analyzed how the followers of a community do their part.

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One of the parts of the story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” that really made me think and look back throughout the reading is the last several sentences when Le Guin describes the people who leave the town after seeing the child. Le Guin puts it like “They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.” This is so intriguing to me and made me try to decipher what this truly meant and/or parallels from the real world that I could find.My guess is that the ones who walk away are like those in any society that recognize an injustice or flaw and strive to fix it… or at least they cannot continue being a happy part of the happy town knowing there happiness is at the cost of another. When Le Guin says “But they seem to know where they are going,” I interpreted this as, while the literal solution is unclear, those who walk away knowing that the direction that they want to be going is away from the ideologies of the happy town. They know that they are headed in the best direction, even if they do not know where the destination is quite yet.

 

 This story is clearly about followership and fear in the face of the unknown. The followers who choose to stay in the town, happy, even though they know a child is suffering reminds me of the phenomena that happen in real life. Millions, trillions of people go on with their lives knowing of the troubles, inequalities, and horrors of the world are occurring and will continue occurring because these thoughts are swept under the rug or saved for later by so many.

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The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is a short story I had heard of in comparison to the Lottery, but never got a chance to read. Because of this, the twist was spoiled for me, but it really didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story at all. I really loved the casual unreliability of the narrator. I also liked that the narrator just came out and said imagine Omelas one way or another way, it doesn’t matter. Scene setting isn’t the purpose of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. What is important is the situation of Omelas. In that respect, the story also (probably intentionally) contradicts itself by criticizing those who only notice suffering and then only going into extreme detail on the suffering of the child in the base (that was hard to read and imagine). Everything else about Omelas is up for open interpretation except for this poor child’s situation.

Another very interesting aspect of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is what the speaker says people have to think about the child in order for them to be okay with it. “They begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom: a very little vague pleasure of warmth and food, no doubt, but little more. It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy” (page 6). This explanation is dehumanizing to the poor child, the people of Omelas cease to view “it” (and the speaker refers to the child as “it”) as a human being! Don’t you just love groupthink? I was so mad when I read that.

The townspeople of the Lottery‘s justification for their violent ritual is even more flimsy than Omelas’. They are just creatures of habit, completely unable to change their ritual because it’s been done for so long because they are afraid of what will happen without it. Really it seems like they hardly think of stopping it. This is why, in my opinion,  The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is better at explaining this phenomenon of people forgetting their humanity, because it talks about (and is named after) those who can’t. The Lottery hints at this by mentioning other towns, but (and maybe it’s because I’ve read this story too many times in high school) the point doesn’t strike as well as it does in Omelas. What do y’all think?

 

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In reading both of these short stories there was an overarching theme of followership and the effect that it has on an entire culture. When growing up within a cultured tradition it can be difficult to see outside of this tradition, as it is all you know. If there is nothing else to compare that one experience to, it is understandable as to why it has never been changed. Still, this does not mean the members of the community cannot question the tradition. Although I have little experience, I am sure that all cultures generally have a rule that each member should not kill or harm one another—as this is ethically and practically necessary to maintain a civil society. In the lottery, their killings eventually happen more and more frequently yet it is never questioned. This practice goes against the basic necessity to maintain a society but, since it is agreed upon by the society it became part of their norm and how they maintain a civil society.

The story of Omelas is a bit different, for me, in that it is a question of ethics and less of tradition and followership. The child in the room is being abused and everyone knows it. Yet, according to their rules, it is necessary to keep the child in the room so that everyone else may remain happy. This is somewhat of a trolley problem–do you sacrafice one life for the life of hundreds of others or is each life valued the same and therefore the child should be released from the room despite the consequences. I believe that this story is beyond followership because there is an aspect of tradition and fear. No one exactly knows what would happen if the child was released hence why it has become a rule to keep the child in the room. This cannot simply be deemed bad followership and failure to question authority because the entire town could be killed once the child is released. Both of these stories are complex in the themes that they bring about on what would be ethically or logistically best for each town.

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When reading The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, a certain quote struck me as the most objective and most interesting was “Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive.” This is a concept I never would have thought to explore or consider before reading this excerpt, but it certainly seems that there is a definitive basis for happiness.

This quantification of happiness made me think of Thomas Jefferson’s “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” One’s right to life is very objective – one has the right to not be killed by others whether it is on purpose or on accident. One’s right to liberty is more subjective, but still can be made objective when discussed as the right to self-autonomy and right to make one’s own decisions. One’s right to happiness, however, has always been super subjective; it seems impossible to ensure that any individual has the right to be happy as there are a bunch of factors which impact happiness, some being uncontrollable such as mental illness. This line, however, made this right much more clear-cut in my eyes. As long as one has the right to anything that is necessary in his or her life, then he or she is being granted the right to happiness.

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The first story, The Lottery, is about a weird tradition in a town. A person from each family picks a piece of paper from the box and if it is blank then they are safe, but if it has a black dot on it they are to be sacrificed. It is also mentioned that they thought about changing the box because the one they had was breaking, but decided not to. This story emphasizes the role of traditions in society and even when it seems easy for someone to step in and make a change, it isn’t.

The Omelas had the same type of theme. In this story there is a society that is very peaceful and happy. However, this is only due to the fact that there is a young boy suffering and being abused. Everyone knows about him, but they think that their society runs so well because of his suffering. Similarly to The Lottery, to us it seems simple for someone to step in and stand up for the boy. The tradition and superstition is so ingrained in their minds that they are not capable of seeing the truth.

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In Omelas, there is something wrong underneath, that the entire town knows about but no one addresses. They cannot fix the problem as it would ruin the city as they know it but instead try their hardest to live on while they know about it. When it becomes too much some may leave in the middle of the night. 

In the Lottery, there is a tradition that they will not go away from, as they believe that breaking away from it would be similar to returning to being barbaric. They see that the people in surrounding cities are breaking away from this system, but refuse to do that themselves.

Both of these short stories had twisted and chilling endings. Omelas began overly joyful, describing how happy the people were and how joyous the people of Omelas were there. The Lottery began describing the daily duties of the people, and the story began as normal but as it went on, there was always a singular word or phrase that made the background of the city more mysterious. I would how different or how much happiness they would actually sacrifice by saving the happiness of that one child. Or how much the city in the Lottery would change if they didn’t have the lottery system. It seems like neither of the places are truly dependent on it but they continue to hold on to it as if it did.

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Both of these stories while interesting to read were extremely disturbing and had extreme twist endings. The first story the Omela’s describes essentially a Utopian society in which everything is perfect. The people are happy, the city is beautiful, essentially saying there are no problems with this society. However, the article towards the end discusses how there is a child locked in a room who is neglected and malnourished. The reason for this is that without his neglect the Omela’s would be unable to live in this utopian society and if they were to care for this child they would lose all their happiness. It essentially calls into question the trolly example. Asking in a sense if it makes sense to kill one and save multiple people. In the case of this story, it is essentially asking is it ok for one person to suffer in order for thousands to flourish. I think it also discusses the idea of how nothing in life can ever be perfect and sometimes for people to succeed others are sometimes neglected or are left behind.c

In the second story, the lottery described this lottery-based system in which representatives from each family had to pick a slip of paper from the lottery box without getting the black dot on the paper. Bill Hutchinson picked the piece of paper with the black dot on it. His family had to go up and place the black dot piece of paper in there with blank pieces of paper for the remaining family members. Tessie picked the piece of paper with the black spot and rocks were thrown at her for human sacrifice to ensure that their crops would grow. Discussing the idea of how some rituals are not worth holding on to. Believing that sacrifice would ensure crop growth is a ridiculous connotation/implication. Also,  it is ironic how winning the lottery in this sense means death whereas, in our society winning the lottery is associated with profit and essentially is a great thing.

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When I read both of these short stories, I initially didn’t see the connection to leadership. Both had twist endings where the happy reality of their lives is only maintained by an underlying evil – in the case of “The Lottery” an annual randomized stoning and in the case of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”. Both were sad and forced the reader to confront the lengths humans are willing to go to in order to maintain the status quo. But I still wasn’t sure how leadership played into things.

Then I thought about the concept of sacrificing a “lesser evil” for a greater good. A common concept in leadership, particularly when thinking about war casualties, it’s easy enough to think about and accept in the abstract. The life of a couple hundred civilians to preserve order and prevent thousands more from dying. But when you’re confronted with examples like in these stories, especially of the child in Omelas, the lesser evils get faces. It makes me question if the ends really do justify the means and why we have become so desensitized to certain practices like the characters in the stories do. It also raises the question of what we can do when we’re put in situations that are so ingrained in our society and feel so much larger than us – maybe all we can do is walk away like some chose to do from Omelas.

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The short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” started out being this perfect society where everyone was always happy. Towards the middle of the story, the reader learns that this society is not “perfect” at all. There is a locked room in a basement where a child is kept. The room is described to be very dirty. The child is being neglected and kept in very inhumane conditions. Children learn about this child when they are about 8-12 years old. Some children when they learn about this child want to do something to help but, they are told there is nothing they can do to help.

With that being said, I think this short story is an example of groupthink. This is because the people in Omelas are aware of this child and the condition it is in but, due to everyone saying there is nothing they can do they do not do anything about it.

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The other night I watched Rafiki (2018) (part of the international film festival), a Kenyan film directed by Wanuri Kahiu. Rafiki, which translates to “friend,” is a drama with LGBTQ+ themes. This film is the story of Kena and Ziki, both daughters of rival political candidates, as they fall in love. While I don’t want to spoil this film, it’ll be hard to relate it to leadership without doing so. After Kena and Ziki enter a relationship with each other, they are soon found out about (as you’d expect) and are harassed by their family and neighbors. Both of them are physically assaulted by people in the small town they grew up in. It was a hard scene to watch. Then they face potential jail time for being lesbian (how is that a threat!? How can you be arrested for that?!). Furthermore, both sets of parents struggle to continue loving their daughters after their homosexuality is revealed.

What is the cause of all this? What could possibly tear families and neighborhoods apart like this? Rafiki does a great job of highlighting two causes: sexism and homophobia that is so deeply ingrained in society because of religion. The church is a place of high tension in Rafiki. Every service is full of nervous glances from the leading characters. There is one scene in which the pastor discusses homosexuality and claims that God’s laws can’t be broken, that changing the laws of man won’t save people who are homosexual. Furthermore, there is another scene in which he discusses the significance of matrimony between a man and a woman; how they need each other to be complete. During the discussion after the film, a student (who is from Kenya, herself) brought up the point of how she hadn’t even realized how many expressions were sexist or homophobic, she hadn’t thought about how accustomed Kenyan society was to excluding/degrading/alienating these groups of people. This reminded me of the Zinn readings on slavery and racism. While the origins are different, the way these mentalities stick and stay in society is very similar. And the violent reactions to these minority groups of people (though women aren’t really a minority)… just going through life is much like Plato’s Cave Allegory; people don’t want change/new/different/ Even if it’s for the better, even if it stops suffering. Even if it doesn’t affect them at all.

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Coincidentally, I have read both of these short stories before; however, being that they are so interesting and that I forgot some of the details, I definitely did not mind reading them again. The lottery has a particularly slow build-up, then there is so much that happens so quickly at then end with Tessie getting stoned. It isn’t really revealed what the lottery is all about until the very end, which is great for building suspense. Anyways, on the leadership side of things, I have so many questions. It isn’t really clear who enforces this, rather it seems that the village does it every year out of pure ritual. Given how many years the lottery had taken place, it makes me wonder why no one ever took a stand to stop it. I think it’s particularly interesting because the village members aren’t being submissive to a person or a group, rather just an idea/ritual. It makes me wonder whether the village is subject to very severe groupthink.

The story of the Omelas is another really mind-boggling one. The setting is first introduced as this wonderful place by the sea in which there is a life of perfection for all of its residents. Who wouldn’t want to live there? However, once it is said this is only possible because of an imprisoned and tortured child who never sees the light of day, it flips the entire story upside down. Of course, the biggest question then is whether you would live there knowing that your happiness is based on the misery of a child. This question could be debated upon for hours, and there is not necessarily a right answer. Nobody would want to be the one tortured, but it comes down to whether or not you could live with yourself knowing the reason for your happiness. Many people in the story decide to leave after they are told about the child, but many decide to stay as well. Does leaving make you a better person than one who stayed?

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In “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” the city of Omelas seems to be a perfect place where all the people are happy. However, halfway through the story we learn that this “perfect” place only exists because of the child who is locked away and abused. Everyone knows that the child is there, and parents usually tell their children about it when they are between the ages of 8 and 12. When they are told about this, many young people want to do something for the child, but are told that they can’t because that would ruin the entire existence of Omelas. I think that this story is a good example of groupthink. People in Omelas accept that this one child will have a horrible life because they are taught to believe that it is for the good of everyone else. When anyone wants to do something for this child, they are told that letting the child out would actually be making their life worse, which is another way that the group justifies its actions.

In “The Lottery,” the village draws a name from a lottery on June 27 each year, and whoever’s name they draw will be stoned to death. Everyone in the village accepts this as a tradition and shuts down any criticism of it. When someone mentions that several other villages nearby have ended the practice of the lottery, Old Man Warner calls these villages a “pack of crazy fools” who are giving the young people too much influence. Once Tessie’s name is drawn, she protests, but the people in the village still go through with stoning her to death. Reading this story, I noticed a lot of similarities to the Hunger Games books/movies. I also thought that this story was a good illustration of groupthink. Because this event is so public and a long-standing tradition, no one wants to be the first person to question it no matter how many people are uncomfortable with it.

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Both of these stories teach the same lesson: one must suffer for the good of the rest. I had read The Lottery before, so the ending was not much of a surprise. But this time I took notice to Old Man Walker’s opinion on the lottery tradition. Upon hearing that other towns have abandoned the tradition or changed it slightly, he was disappointed. He even said, “There’s always been a lottery” (pp. 32). This made me think, sure there has always been one, but is it still right? We have talked a lot about voting in class and how the popular vote more and more does not match the electoral college vote in presidential elections. This system has always been in place. But is it failing in modern day politics, so much so that it would be okay to rethink the system?

The tale of Omelas’s theme reminded me more of the trolley effect we have talked about in class. When the town thinks about changing their tradition and releasing the child from the darkness, they believe it would ruin all of the happiness of the city. That “to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one” wouldn’t make sense. In the case of the trolley problem, it is not common for one to decide to save one life over five because of mere numbers. If thousands are to benefit, it would seem extreme to save one life. But does that still make it alright to lock a child away? 

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The Lottery, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

Susan Nevin

 

To begin, I read the Omelas story. To me, this had been one of the most impactful readings I have read for a class. This story showed the idea of a fake utopia, as the society tries to put on a front of “perfection,” when in reality, there is true suffering at its base. In addition, this story begs the question of the utilitarian perspective. Is it better for one child to live a horrible life for the happiness of the majority? This is something I could debate on for hours, and that many people continue to argue about. This argument is also seen in the city of Omelas. Some of the people once the see the child are very upset, but decide to return home. Others are so hurt by this idea that they cannot bear to live in these conditions anymore and walk straight off the city, and are never seen again. This story, along with utilitarianism, brings in the idea of groupthink. While every single member of this society knows that the treatment of the child is horrible, no one does anything about it. And those who cannot bear to watch it run from the city instead of helping the child and making a change. 

Next, I read “The Lottery” story by Shirely Jackson. This story showed many similarities to the Omelas story, however, the person who had to accept the suffering was an active member of their society. In detail, the town would hold a “lottery,” and whoever won was stoned to death. This again brings into light the idea of the “ideal” society, which isn’t ideal at all, but instead tries to cover up their suffering through a decision they believe to be better for the group. They also use the idea of a “lottery” which usually has a positive connotation to it, to cover up the horrible events that occur if you win. This argument is extremely popular within hollywood today, as they are making countless films to debate this idea. I first heard of this concept when reading The Hunger Games Series, and this idea has stuck with me since.

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Both of these stories were pretty shocking. I remember reading The Lottery in an english class and high school, but I was still equally interested reading it for the second time because the ending is so unexpected. This story has always kind of reminded me of The Hunger Games, which I think has a very similar premise to both of these stories.

I think both stories were good illustrations of groupthink. It was clear that people in both of these towns understood that what they were doing was wrong. In fact there are people in both stories that either try to suggest that there are other better ways to live that do not require such brutality, or that simply cannot take learning of what is going on in the town and leave. These ideas, however, are called crazy and shut down. The idea of not having a lottery each year seemed foolish to some members of the town. These people shutting down the idea of cancelling the lottery are acting as mind guards and keeping out new ideas. It seems easier for these people to live with their current situation than to actually do something about it. Also, nobody wants to be the first person to seriously propose a change.

Both of these stories were kind of illustrating that there is no such thing as a perfect society. Even the happiest of societies have some flaw that is allowing them to be that way. The stories suggested that not everyone can be happy. Some person is always going to end up unhappy, but one person being unhappy is worth it if it makes the rest of society happy. Having this one example of an unhappy person seems to be a way of maintain control over society. It shows people how they could end up if they don’t conform to the societal norms that allow people to operate the way they do. The stories, however, also suggest to me that having on person imprisoned, or otherwise harmed, leaves everyone else imprisoned to a certain extent because they know they must conform and they know that everything is not perfect.

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