When my friend James Stanescu told me about Ursula Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” I began reading about the titular utopia of Omelas with excitement for its Marcusean vision. Omelas is a society that does not merely know no war, no poverty, no toil, and no pain, but also no boredom; it is a society of genuine and positive delight and constant play. The buildings are beautiful and exist in harmony with nature; people practice free love and heighten their experiences with a special drug called drooz that opens the doors of perception without making them addicts. Their lives are so tranquil that this drug does not function as escapist tranquilization: What else, what else belongs in the…
Tagged: dignity, happiness, Kant, the highest good, the kingdom of ends, utopia