deliajones:

Ursula LeGuin wrote a much-anthologized short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” about a near-paradise of a city-state where the population is happy, well-educated, creative, living in almost unimaginable bliss, peace, and beauty. Because this is a fable, there is one small price to be paid for the happiness of all the citizens of Omelas: In a basement somewhere, a feeble-minded child sits naked and terrified, covered in sores and sitting in its own excrement. The child is utterly without hope, and upon its suffering the happiness of Omelas rests:

They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.

To relieve the suffering of the child would break the deal. If someone ever removed the child from the cellar or even spoke a kind word to it, the happiness, peace, and prosperity of the thousands would vanish. “Those are the terms,” LeGuin says. When young people learn about this ugly reality, they are appalled at the injustice of it all, filled with rage and sorrow, but eventually, they come to accept “the terrible justice of reality.” Because they know the truth, their happiness is tempered with wisdom:

Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children.

And every now and then, someone who sees the child walks away from Omelas. The bargain isn’t acceptable to them. They don’t know where they’re going, but they cannot stay.