Thomas King The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

Thomas King’s “Afterwords: Private Stories” and Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” invite their readers to think about privilege and power and how that relates to ethics. Thomas King’s use of stories shows us that we choose to follow ethics only when it benefits us, only when it creates an interesting story. Le Guin’s story on Omelas vividly creates this imaginary utopia where all is great because one child is locked away. This represents they system we live in. One where privilege is always at the expense of another.

Thomas King tells us about a family he knows in “Afterwords: Private Stories.” This family consisted of John and Amy Cardinal and their three children. Their youngest child, Sam, was adopted. Sam suffers from

fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and so, obviously, her birth mother drank while pregnant with her. This was important to tell so judgment was not passed on Sam’s mother, Amy. However, it was also important because it embodied King’s discussion of North American ethics or its lack off.
Thomas King says “We understand alcohol and tobacco…But with other drugs such as heroin...even though they have much the same effects as alcohol and tobacco” (157). The fact that we do not ban tobacco and alcohol but only limit their use represents North American ethics. We know that these addictive drugs are disastrous but we don't prevent their use because that would discomfort us. We would lose the romantic stories that come with alcohol and the action adventure stories that come with smoking. We would lose the feel good feeling from alcohol and the good image that comes with smoking (158). This is explained to show how we justify our actions so we can still be ethically right even when we are wrong. Sam’s birth mother represented this. She knew the consequences of drinking but she still did because the stories they created made life more interesting for her.
Thomas King says “What you want to read is how the distress of a child and a family engaged the compassionate and ethical responses for which North America is supposed be famous...Unfortunately, North America has no such ethics” (159). Thomas King is addressing this idea that North America is this ethically right and just world; however, that is not the case. He uses the Exxon Valdez oil spill and Enron as examples. In both cases, there was a large uproar for ethical justice. The people band together to make things. However, those actions were only for that moment as nothing was truly done to prevent future disasters of the sort. This is because we believe that these moments are something that we cannot control, that they are not supposed to happen (160). They are the costs we have to pay for our privilege and power. These actions of trying to right a wrong are efforts to comfort are objection of ignoring inequality and what is ethically right.
We continually see inequality today because it is what we are used to.

Inequality is what gives, some of use, comfort, power and privilege. This quote from King “It’s not that we don’t care about ethics or ethical behavior. It’s not that we don’t care about the environment, about society, about morality. It’s just that we care more about our comfort and the things that make us comfortable—property, prestige, power, appearance, safety” (163) is him summarizing this. He is explaining this subconscious action, people make when facing inequality knowingly or unknowingly. This action is actually inaction because why change something, to better another, if it will have a negative impact, no matter how small, on your life? This is drawn out for us in Ursula Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away From

Omelas.
In Omelas there is a young child who is kept in a tiny dirty cellar locked away from civilization.

All of the people of Omelas know of this child. This is because their happiness depends on the child's misery as explained in this quote “If the child were brought up into the sunlight…the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed” (4). Most people are upset or angry about the child’s predicament but do not do anything about it. On the other hand, some people walk away from Omelas because of this child’s predicament but still, do not do anything about it. This represents the fact that privilege is often at the expense of another. The happiness of the people of Omelas is their privilege and that is at the expense of the child who must live in dirt and misery. This also reflects the author’s perspective of

poverty.
As we have read and discussed in class, often poverty can be the result of the lack of resources granted to someone because of inequality. I believe Le Guin sees that children are often affected by poverty through someone else. The poverty they suffer through is not their fault no matter how hard they try to escape. In the Omelas story, the child in the cellar represents the children in poverty as a result of someone else who is represented by the people of Omelas. They are the reason that child is in the cellar and the reason that child remains there.
The idea of There is No Alternative (TINA) can be seen in both stories. TINA is a problem faced by those seeking change because people believe there is no alternative to the current system. In “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” people who seek change for the child would run into the TINA problem. This is because everyone has already accepted that there isn't any alternative for the child. The people who are initially upset over the child eventually get over their emotions because they have come to believe that the child could not survive outside of its cellar due to being there, and isolated for so long “As time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom..” (4). The people who walk away from Omelas because they can no longer live in a system built on another's misery also have accepted that there is no alternative. They believe that there is nothing that they can do for that child, and since they cannot stand to live with that, they walk away (4). Thomas King runs into the TINA problem within himself. As a friend of the Cardinal family, he gradually began to distance himself as Sam’s behavioral problems intensified (161). He accepted that there was nothing that he could do to help because studies and professional say that they “there is absolutely nothing you can do to reverse the effects or undo the condition” (156).
Thomas King and Ursula Le Guin took two different approaches to addressing privilege and ethics. Both authors do an exceptional job at allowing their reader to think of how ethics shape who we are individually and as a society. They both show us how we choose when to abide by our ethics because of the comfort and privilege we receive at the expense of another.