Ursula Le Guin weighs in on the current LDS situation

[_fetchface]

But she did it in 1973.

If you are hurting about the current situation and haven't read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, I highly recommend it. It may help you understand yourself a bit better (it did for me).

http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.pdf

A big thanks to Moksha for introducing me to this story.

[_EAllusion]

That's more a colorful articulation of what seems intuitively off about utilitarianism to many people. It's normally articulated through trolley problems, but this is a more fun. Is it Ok to use people's suffering as a means to an end? In order for this to be a metaphor to the current situation, the suffering of homosexuals and their families would have to be necessary to achieve an overall wonderful outcome the Church is providing. Such suffering is neither necessary, nor are they creating such speculator outcomes. The world is not better for the LDS Church existing and suppressing the well-being of gays.

I think what you've taken away from this is people choosing to ignore harm the Church causes in order to enjoy the personal happiness it provides them. There's a thread of connection there, but I really think it misses what the story is doing thematically. There's an older metaphor of not wanting to know or care about how the sausage is made that suffices for that.

[_fetchface]

I think what you've taken away from this is people choosing to ignore harm the Church causes in order to enjoy the personal happiness it provides them.

Hmmm. When I think back to when I was a believer, that's not at all how I see how I made it work. I didn't choose to ignore anything (the church made that choice for me by not sharing information). In fact, I don't know that it is really possible (at least for me) to choose to ignore anything when evaluating beliefs. That's probably why I made a crappy Mormon. I didn't fight much for my "testimony."

Now you are probably right that Le Guin had some different goals with this story and I'm doing some shoe-horning, but to me the central question of the work is, "Can we be content if our happiness is dependent on another's misery, even if the ratio of happiness to misery is large?"

In order for this to be a metaphor to the current situation, the suffering of homosexuals and their families would have to be necessary to achieve an overall wonderful outcome the Church is providing.

In the discussions I have with TBMs I make it a point to ask why gays have to suffer and they invariably reply that they don't know but that they are sure it is necessary in some way.

The world is not better for the Church existing and suppressing the well-being of gays.

I agree but I was comparing the church's description of itself to Le Guin's description of the city in my mind as I read this. I don't think that Le Guin was trying to suggest that an actual Utopia was attainable in real life. I saw it as an exploration of some aspects of how ideologies describe themselves and the emotional dilemma it provokes in some followers of these ideologies.

[_EAllusion]

Utilitarians like myself believe that whatever produces the best overall outcome for people's welfare is ultimately what is best to do. Non-utilitarians sometimes criticize this by saying, "What if the best outcome was dependant on treating some people horribly? Would that be Ok?" Most people intuitively answer questions of this type by saying that no, it is not Ok. This is often taken as a powerful intuitive case that there's something wrong with utilitarianism that it has to grapple with. LeGuin's story is an articulation of this line of thought. It functions as a very well-written thought experiment.

I don't think this is directly analogous to the LDS Church situation because I don't think you can reasonably argue that the Church is putting people in positions of suffering for aggregate benefit. In Omelas, the issue is not that some people are made happy through others suffering. That is trivial and less interesting. We know all manner of people who live opulent lives on the backs of others' misery and we often hate this. The key to LeGuin's story is that life is so absolutely wonderful for almost everyone that it would be hard to argue that their system doesn't produce the best overall well-being.

I think what can be taken from the story from your perspective is that idea of people relinquishing their personal happiness if it is dependent on others being hurt. I think this is stretching it, though.

[Guest]

I don't think this is directly analogous to the LDS Church situation because I don't think you can reasonably argue that the Church is putting people in positions of suffering for aggregate benefit.

Of course you can. But only from the believer's point of view. For this to make sense as a comparison to the church one must place oneself inside the mythology of the church.

ETA: I also don't think that Le Guin made a very good case for aggregate benefit to Omelas by this torture and I think this is on purpose. In fact, it seems to me that none of the benefits she claims would require torturing anybody. If Le Guin is criticizing utilitarianism, it seems like a poor caricature.

The torture of the child to ensure everyone's happiness in Omelas is an arbitrary and nonsensical social contract. Just like the arbitrary and nonsensical decree by the God of Mormonism that gays must suffer in life because of some unseen moral cog of the universe that will suddenly make sense to us in the afterlife.

Those are the parallels I see and the walking away is significant because it is a recognition that the nonsensical social contract is just that. Not that I would have moral qualms about making legitimate decisions to maximize good to society.

But that's just my interpretation. It's not the only valid one.

[_EAllusion]

Of course you can. But only from the believer's point of view. For this to make sense as a comparison to the church one must place oneself inside the mythology of the church.

Inside the mythology of the Church, everything it does it is justified on important matters. Walking away from it is profoundly dumb. I think if you take situations like this as reason to leave, you are implicitly acknowledging fault in the Church's narrative about itself.

[_fetchface]

Of course you can. But only from the believer's point of view. For this to make sense as a comparison to the church one must place oneself inside the mythology of the church.

Inside the mythology of the Church, everything it does it is justified on important matters. Walking away from it is profoundly dumb. I think if you take situations like this as reason to leave, you are implicitly acknowledging fault in the Church's narrative about itself.

Sorry, I added more as an edit above while you responded.

[_fetchface]

Of course you can. But only from the believer's point of view. For this to make sense as a comparison to the church one must place oneself inside the mythology of the church.

Inside the mythology of the Church, everything it does it is justified on important matters. Walking away from it is profoundly dumb. I think if you take situations like this as reason to leave, you are implicitly acknowledging fault in the Church's narrative about itself.

I don't see that as a problem. The story is one of paradigm shift.

[_ludwigm]

Re: Ursula Le Guin weighs in on the current LDS situation

But she did it in 1973.

If you are hurting about the current situation and haven't read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, I highly recommend it. It may help you understand yourself a bit better (it did for me).

http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.pdf

A big thanks to Moksha for introducing me to this story.

I like Ursula Le Guin, as I have 700+ scifi on the shelf and terabytes of scifi downloaded - Ursula Le Guin among others and read.

Sometimes - many times - scifi writers are seeing social problems, and try to solve them by their way.

[_annie]

But she did it in 1973.

If you are hurting about the current situation and haven't read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, I highly recommend it. It may help you understand yourself a bit better (it did for me).

http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.pdf

A big thanks to Moksha for introducing me to this story.

Thanks for posting the story. It was new to me and I enjoyed it very much. It reminded me of how I felt when I discovered, as a teen, that black men hadn't been able to hold the priesthood until 1978. I remember feeling physically sick and shocked - my parents (people I believed to be fair and compassionate) chastised me for my reaction and attempted to justify the ban.