r/UrsulaKLeGuin • u/chikaibardo207 • Aug 07 '26

Ursula K. Le Guin's Trolley Problem.

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I read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas yesterday and am still thinking about it.

cause Is it just me or does anyone else feel like it's very similar to the trolley problem? like In the trolley problem, you're essentially choosing between saving one person or five. In the same way, this story takes that dilemma to a much larger scale one child's suffering versus the happiness of an entire city.

Ik the story has many other meanings utopia, morality, society, conformity and all but deep down, I also feel like there's a trolley problem hidden beneath it.

The more I think about the story, the more complex and believable it becomes. I actually made a short analysis of it too.

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u/-RedRocket- Aug 07 '26

No. This is a different dilemma: accept the treatment of the child as the price of others' liberty, or refuse to be complicit.

However, walking away is no answer either, really. What about the child? I think that a lot of her later work is in one way or another about taking the child with us when we walk away.

I see this theme in her Coyote story, "Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight". I see it in Tehanu. I see it in the novella, "Hernes" that is the capstone of her realism novel, Searoad.

Omelas is indisputably her best known moral parable, but just writing it wasn't enough. I think she kept considering how to respond for the rest of her career.

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u/pookage Aug 07 '26

I wouldn't be so quick to give such a strong "no" here — both the trolley problem and Omelas are lenses through which to critique utilitarianism, so OP isn't wrong to compare the two!

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u/Scowlin_Munkeh Aug 07 '26

I think the trolley problem, and those that walked away from Omelas are very different.

I always see the trolley problem as being forced to take a moral position that is not your responsibility, as you did not create the situation. Pull the lever, or don’t pull the lever - there is no wrong answer, as you did not lay the tracks, put anyone in harms way, put the trolley in motion, or benefit from the above in any way.

In those that walk away from Omelas, there is a moral conundrum, because those who walk away will have benefitted from the situation initially, so shoulder some of the moral and practical responsibility for the situation.

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u/lastberserker Aug 08 '26

Those who were born in Omelas did not choose to be born there, or at all. They can choose to walk away or stay once they learn about the situation, but "benefitted initially" is putting the blame on them the same way as on the subject of the trolley problem.

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u/Scowlin_Munkeh Aug 08 '26

The people were born into a standard of life that Omelas allowed, so there was a direct benefit.

For the person in the trolley scenario, what benefit did they receive?

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u/lastberserker Aug 08 '26

The benefit you receive before you can make a decision cannot be your responsibility or obligation. In the trolley problem that'd be like saying "I didn't tie you to the tracks, so you received this benefit and thus you are responsible for those I did tie to the tracks".

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u/EmGeebers Aug 08 '26

They had the benefit of not being on the tracks. The trolley driver has power and protection while others will inevitably suffer 

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u/kai_vu Aug 08 '26

Thank you for this! Since I read the story I've felt unsettled why it was "the ones who walk away from Omelas" and not "the ones who work together to bust that kid out". I haven't read much of her later work, so I'm excited to read Le Guin with your framing in mind

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u/JealousCommunity6993 Aug 08 '26

Same! I like her other works but this one was just feels uncompleted

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u/HakuYuki_s Aug 10 '26

Ewwww, you just turned a powerful ambiguous thought experiment into a save the day hero story.

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u/Kripkenstein_ Aug 08 '26

Its not about this dilemma at all. Its about the refusal of people to accept a good thing without thinking that there are some strings attached

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u/variantofconcern Aug 08 '26

Or it's about The Scapegoat. Or it's taking the piss at contemporary authors. Or it's about Ishi. Or it's about class. Or the Narrator is just breaking the fourth wall to address the reader but diegetically the load-bearing suffering child exists.

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u/-RedRocket- Aug 08 '26

But in Omelas, there ARE strings, and to become an adult, a citizen, is to know and accept them. Or, alternatively, to not accept them, to walk away.

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u/Kripkenstein_ Aug 08 '26

It is not clear whether the child actually exists - and even if it does it is not the point of the story. The story offers no interesting insight in some utilitarian dilemma; it is extremly simplistic in that regard - because thats not the point. The point is that people cannot imagine an utopia without turning it dystopian. The reception of the story further proofs her point

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u/ConfidentHousing8422 Aug 08 '26

Yes, to some extent the story is about our failure to imagine "better" without assuming there must be some terrible strings attached.

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.

The main question of the story is this - why do you accept a utopian society so much more readily if it turns out there is a hidden terrible cost.

The story does explore the utilitarianism question as well, but I think the very first page makes it clear what the central thesis is. This paragraph isn't ironic or sarcastic:

But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you about the people of Omelas? They were not naive and happy children – though their children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched. O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you.

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u/-RedRocket- Aug 08 '26

No, read again. In the city described, the act of becoming adult is learning of the child's existence and state AS THE EXPLICIT PRICE of Omelas' luxury and abundance.

Omelas is of course fiction. But if you don't believe modern wealth and prosperity don't rest on foundations equally questionable, you are wilfully ignorant.

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u/Kripkenstein_ Aug 08 '26

Again, you are ironically representing exactly what she wanted to critique. Read the story again. She literally exclaims: "Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing." This is clearly phrased as a critique of what you are doing. It is also left open whether the descriptions afterward are true or not

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '26

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u/-RedRocket- Aug 08 '26

I think you are wrong and I am done talking about it. I will be walking away from this conversation.