Omelas

[MystyGlyttyr]

I wasn't the least bit sure where this would go, here seemed as good a place as any. And I chose Fratching for it because I suspect it could become heated.

I recently was redebating a story I read years ago called The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. The link is to the actual story itself, if anyone hasn't read it. There's lots of discussion about it online as well.

The most basic premise is, if one innocent person were to be sacrified to the benefit of the whole of society, would that be for the best?

We're not talking death penalty of hardened criminals here. We're talking someone like a kid, or someone who might have done something "wrong" but the reason why it happened is something that no one is aware of and that would release the person from being guilty.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately and debating the field of questions because this story has an eerie connotation to a situation I'm having to deal with myself at the moment. The main thing being...is it acceptable to allow and even to a degree endorse a fall from grace of one innocent person in order to save, or at least improve, an entire society? Or if someone should step in and do or say something to save that person, at the risk of possible loss to a society, should that be done instead?

[Greenday]

I don't believe in sacrificing one person for the good of other people. Especially if that person is innocent. Unless the person wants to sacrifice themselves, I don't think people should have the right to ruin someone who did nothing.

[rahmota]

This is where you wind up with the question of which is more important or valuable the individual or the body politic of society.

I have never read the story before. Though I have sent it to the printer to read later. However I doubt it will change my feelings on this as if they havent changed in a decade of different issues and debates I doubt they will.

This is MY opinion and MY feelings on this. Your milage may and probably will vary.

While society in general needs to have order and be protected for the common good of all. Society is nothign more than a collection of individuals who have for one reason or another joined together and agreed for the common good to reach an accord and agreement about behavior and laws and such. Generally societies work well when the members of that society at least have some thigns in agreement and common.

However the basic framework of society is the individual. Like a wall it is made up of the individual bricks workign together. A wall is stronger and more effective for the most part than an individual brick but the wall cannot exist without the individual brick.

By sacrificing one innocent individual you weaken the whole of society by introducing dishonor and suspicion and makign the whole be more important than the sum of its parts. Why do you think the Army changed their slogan to an Army of One! Innocence can never be sacrificed honorably if there is a secret that would save it or it is coerced into it. It is a disgrace upon all who would keep the secret regardless of the consequences. It is a dishonor and a stain upon those who would force an innocent or allow an innocent to be sacrificed to save the face of another. Each is responsible for their actions and needs to come foreward if they have done something. Societies may fall, the individual will survive. Civilizations may crumble, the individual will rebuild. So long as one person stands up for innocence, and justice the sum of the parts will continue in one form or another.

It is never right to place an entire society above one innocent person.But if that person willingly sacrifices themselves that is their choice. But to remove that choice is to deny the freedom and honor of the individual. It is to disgrace the reason for their sacrifice and the action of their sacrifice. It would render it meaningless if they where tricked or forced into it. That is not a sacrifice that is a murder.

Yet there are times when a leader must make the decision of who will live and who will die. A doctor in the field of a tragedy must play god and make these decisions. These are not decisions to be undertaken lightly, or frivolously. Each individual is someone's beloved and is a part of the whole that cannot be recreated only replaced and then only by a pale shadow. A soldier willingly chooses his fate when he accepts his oath that he might not live. A Dctor must make decisions based on his skills and equipment and severity of the tragedy. These are all unavoidable times where the society outweighs the individual. But still it must be asked if what you are saving is worth the pain and the sacrifice.

But for the most part keeping a secret, no matter how harmful to society in the whole, that would harm an innocent is never the right thing, or the honorable thign to do.

Sorry if I rambled on about this but as you can see I've had uite a bit of thought on this and trying to put it into simple words is rather tough. basically the individual outweighs society unless the situation is a cataclysmic armageddon level of bad if the individual is not sacrificed. And I am talkign the second coming of all the deities, everybody packs up and dies, game over level of bad news here not just that some company will loose its ceo or the president will get impeached or whatever sort of mundane kind of bad we have.

Hope this makes sense. And good luck on whatever your issue is that is realted to this. These kinds of dilemmas are never easy. I know as I've been there quite a bit. But if one has their code of honor and morals or whatever belief they stand for and stick with it then it will work out in the end. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about it or not.

[Seshat]

I see a difference between self-sacrifice, and forced sacrifice. I honour those who choose to sacrifice themselves (or risk sacrifice), such as soldiers, emergency service workers (eg: people who rescue others from floods), police, doctors and nurses in infectious disease wards, and many others.

I also strongly support quarantine, which is a type of forced sacrifice. There are infectious diseases which we can't yet cure, and quarantining the victims is the only way we currently have to prevent the disease from spreading. Failing to quarantine them will only cause more innocent victims to die - it's a really horrible problem, but quarantine causes the fewest possible to suffer.

I strongly support the way the First World is handling multiply-resistant tuberculosis, as well. We're requiring the victims of MR TB to take the full course of antibiotics, to prevent TB from evolving to being resistant to those as well. It's for the same reason - to prevent the disease from spreading. (Fortunately, while the antibiotics for MR TB are icky, I hear that the patients recover fully.)

Which pretty much means, I guess, that I'll accept innocents being forced to sacrifice themselves if the alternative is even greater sacrifice of innocents.

[AFPheonix]

Here is how I feel about it:
An individual does not have to be harmed by others.
An individual does not have the right to harm others.
An individual is allowed to choose to accept harm in the place of another individual or group if he so chooses.

Quarantine is a different argument because it is not really all that harmful to the individual. It may suck temporarily, but I wouldn't say that it was harmful.

[Rapscallion]

I face similar decisions over on CS on a semi-regular basis. We keep an eye out for people causing trouble - usually new people - and try and warn them that some things are unacceptable. It's usually things such as attacking other members outright, rather than dealing with the point of the thread.

I don't ban lightly. Most of these people do wake up to the fact that as a community, there are rules and ettiquette to be followed. We recognise that some parts of the Internet are pretty much lawless, and if someone comes from there and has to be reminded that CS.com isn't such a place, and they behave, then no harm and no foul. A few are incorrigible. I'm just glad that this is rare.

It's on a smaller scale than a real-world country, but the process is similar.

Rapscallion

[Boozy]

I don't think the kind of society that would kill an innocent to save themselves is a society worth saving.

[Seshat]

Quarantine is a different argument because it is not really all that harmful to the individual. It may suck temporarily, but I wouldn't say that it was harmful.

It can be. During the Black Death/Plague in late-medieval early-renaissance Europe, whole villages were quarantined. Some of the residents of those villages had not yet caught the plague, but noone in that era could tell who had it, and who didn't. So non-victims were (probably) stuck inside the quarantine zone with victims, and thus a significant proportion probably caught it and died due to the quarantine itself.

This sort of thing could happen again - it's much less likely, now that we can test for the presence of contagions, but it's still possible. And if we simply couldn't tell, and I was in charge, I'd order the unknowns to be quarantined separately from the definitely-infected and the definitely-uninfected, just for the sake of saving as many people as possible.

And then I'd go find a corner to hide in while I cried and cried until I could stand up, wash my face, and go look like I had complete faith in my decision again.

But in a society with the resources we have nowadays, I'd definitely quarantine the maybes separately from the definitely-infected, to save as many of the maybes as possible too. If I could, I'd keep each of the maybes separate from each other: another measure to keep as many as possible uninfected.

[DesignFox]

I pretty much agree with the way Rahmota stated things. I don't see how I can state my opinion any better.

I do think that sacrifice is needed in any society. But it should be each individual member's choice to make that sacrifice.

The only exceptions I can see are what Rahmota states- when a doctor is forced to make a decision based on the situation at hand, or like Seshat points out where diseased patients need to be quarantined to prevent the spread of infection. A point to make too, is that you can quarantine someone without being cruel to them.

Along the lines of Boozy's statement: A society that would intentionally harm an innocent person to serve their own selfish purposes, is not a society worth saving.

That story was sad, Mysty...

[rahmota]

Designfox: Thank you. and I agree Boozy's statement is very good.

I read that story and have to say I find it slightly disturbing to me on some level. Rather sad too I guess but more just depressing. Then again it is Le Guin and I was never overly fond of her works anyhow. Sorry to say if anyone doe slike her works. Sort of like looking at a Picasso vs a Reubens or Rembrandt.

I could never live in a society that did that. This is of course speakign as an outsider who grew up the way I did in the society and culture I did though so take it for what you will. I'm sure from the perspective of someone within the story it makes perfect sense.

[AFPheonix]

This sort of thing could happen again - it's much less likely, now that we can test for the presence of contagions, but it's still possible. And if we simply couldn't tell, and I was in charge, I'd order the unknowns to be quarantined separately from the definitely-infected and the definitely-uninfected, just for the sake of saving as many people as possible.

And then I'd go find a corner to hide in while I cried and cried until I could stand up, wash my face, and go look like I had complete faith in my decision again.

But in a society with the resources we have nowadays, I'd definitely quarantine the maybes separately from the definitely-infected, to save as many of the maybes as possible too. If I could, I'd keep each of the maybes separate from each other: another measure to keep as many as possible uninfected.

That's an easy fix, don't quarantine ANYONE with ANYONE if we're not sure about their contagion status. That way, if they do end up carrying the disease, they will not have spread it to anyone else, and if they didn't, well, then they can be released with no ill-effects.

[Seshat]

That's an easy fix, don't quarantine ANYONE with ANYONE if we're not sure about their contagion status.

I covered that.

"If I could, I'd keep each of the maybes separate from each other: another measure to keep as many as possible uninfected."

Asymptomatic carriers - such as Typhoid Mary - are the nightmare of anyone devising a quarantine system. I'd be wary of releasing anyone from quarantine if I didn't have a way of testing for carriers who show no signs of the illness. On the other hand, solitary confinement is a severe punishment, and calling it quarantine doesn't make it any less punishing.

But I've derailed this thread enough - we all seem to be of similar opinions regarding quarantine: it's a necessary evil and we make it as non-evil as possible while still being effective. On to other aspects of the problem!

[AFPheonix]

Oh sorry, I misread and thought you'd put the "maybe" people together. Ha!

[Seshat]

In a poorer society that didn't have the resources to individually separate them, yes I would put them together for lack of a better plan. In any current first-world society, and in developing nations which are doing well, I'd separate them.

Apology accepted, by the way. It's no problem.