Does decentralization have to be a silent retreat?
WARNING: This article discusses/ spoils a 1973 short story by Ursula K. Le Guin titled: The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. Before proceeding – click here to read that story. If you’re short on time, read her short story and forego my thoughts on decentralization below.
A Silent Retreat
At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. 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 story has stuck with me for years.
Wherever these individuals are retreating to, they are breaking away from a society that by unspoken rule or written law disregards the few, even one, for the benefit of many. A society that violates consent isn’t civil, nor is it just.
In 2024, we no longer have uncharted wilderness to retreat into. We must carve out a place “less imaginable” in an interconnected world. We can build together, and should to the extent that consent is maintained. For now, that is likely to be far smaller than 330 million people.
We must acknowledge the problems that result from making another human lesser for the benefit of others. Some will continue with their parades and celebrations, their wars and lines drawn in the sand – you are under no obligation to be a part of that club and only you have the ability to walk away.
Refusing to be a part of systems, relationships, and all acts that initiate violence or diminish wealth through force or fraud is possible and just. These are the circumstances in which Value can grow.
Guin’s story is an inspiration worth frequent consideration, independent of my brief thoughts here. There’s a good chance you won’t be part of my culture, my society, my tribe. Or maybe you will be.
Go silently or with vocal determination, but please – GO FORTH toward something better than a “city of happiness” for which you pay such a cost. Happiness is a placeholder word anyway, and you should be wary of anyone seeking to define it for you.
Leave behind false joys built on the backs of unconsenting others.
There is a better way, and you are not alone.
