ISSUE 14 | The Child in the Basement 那个地下室的孩子

<Swipe Left for English>

本期“赞赏”将全额捐赠给武汉同志中心的“携手抗疫与艾同行”项目。武汉同志中心是一家在武汉及其周边地区开展LGBT社群服务、多元性别公众教育、政策倡导的公益机构，致力于推动平等、改善同志及艾滋群体的社会处境。

4月8日，武汉”解封“了，或者更准确地说是恢复了对外交通。实际上武汉市内还有诸多行动限制，疫情的后遗症还在继续。受影响的人中，那些无法及时获取药物或就医的艾滋患者，仍面临严重的健康威胁。疫情期间，武汉同志中心为受困的艾滋患者提供了包括接送就医、代领药物、线上咨询等方式的援助。截至3月31日，中心已共计帮助2644名艾滋患者获取抗病毒药物，接待超过5500人次的咨询。

我们决定以这篇以及周日的推送为开端，开设“赞赏”功能（文末），并将所得资金捐赠给在疫情内外为不同群体服务的公益组织。武汉同志中心是我们选择对点捐赠的第一家机构。

本期文章从小说《那些离开奥梅拉斯的人》讲起，反思了认知与行动之间的距离。与读者分享自己思考的同时，作者也希望触动那些始终关注unCoVer的朋友们为奔波在一线助人的团队和机构送去支持。

The “Kudos” money collected from this article will be donated in full to Wuhan LGBT Center’s project “Hand in Hand against the Epidemic; We are Here for the AIDS Patients.” The Wuhan LGBT Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the social status of the LBGT community and HIV/AIDS patients in and around Wuhan through community service, public education and policy advocacy.

On the 8th of April, Wuhan lifted its lockdown, or more precisely, resumed its traffic with the outside world. But in fact, all kinds of restrictions inside the city remain – the repercussions of the epidemic continue. Among the affected are AIDS patients who cannot obtain medicine or receive treatment, thus still facing dire health threats. During the epidemic, Wuhan LGBT Center provides support for the trapped AIDS patients in ways such as picking them up at home or hospital, collecting medicine in their stead, and offering them online consultation. By the 31st of March, the center had helped 2644 AIDS patients get antiviral medicine and held consultations for over 5500 people.

Starting from this and the following issues on Sunday, we will offer a “Kudos” option (at the bottom of the post). The money we collect will be donated to the non-profit organizations serving vulnerable populations in and beyond the pandemic. Wuhan LGBT Center is the first one to which we choose to make our one-to-one donation.

Beginning with the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” the following article reflects on the distance between awareness and action. While sharing her thoughts, the author hopes also to move the readers to act in support of the groups that have been providing service and relief on the front line.  

 unCoVer 

▼

地下室的孩子

The Child in the Basement

Author: Joyce

Translator: Jasmine

1

奥梅拉斯的秘密 

The Secret of Omelas

<Swipe Left for English>

在作家厄休拉·勒古恩笔下，有座美丽的海滨之城，名叫奥梅拉斯。我们不知道它的地理位置，不知道它的统治方式，不知道它人口几何。只知道这里生活舒适，幸福。这天，奥梅拉斯的人们即将开启一场盛大的夏日庆典。人和马儿在阳光下信步走着，空气中有音乐和欢声笑语。

如果这些描述听起来太像童话，让你无法相信奥梅拉斯的存在，那么——作者说——读者们可以自行添加细节，想象它座落何方、有多高的科技水平、人们使用哪种交通工具；甚至不妨——为了让它显得不那么完美无瑕——想象这座城市还有着对肉欲、酒精和毒品的宽容。

此刻木笛奏毕，号角响起，马儿跃身而鸣，骑手们蓄势待发。夏日庆典正式开始。

“你认同这样的庆典、这座城市、这种欢乐了吗”？勒古恩在构建奥梅拉斯时一再问道，“这样你相信了吗？”她知道乌托邦难以令读者信服，一个真实的世界必不全然光明。于是她接着告诉你一个秘密，正是这个难以启齿却又公开的秘密，让奥梅拉斯的存在变得可信。

其实奥梅拉斯所有的美好，都建立在一个孩子的悲惨境遇之上。这个孩子被锁在一个地窖里，快十岁了，但由于营养不良看上去只有六岁的样子。TA赤身裸体，腿像麻杆一样细，因为长期坐在自己的排泄物上，身上长满了疮。在密闭的工具间里，这个孩子忍受着长期的饥饿、恐惧和孤独。偶尔有人走进来，一言不发装满TA的碗之后徜徉而去。有时孩子会喊，“求求你们放我出去，我会听话的！”没有回应。

人们见到这个孩子会感到震惊，恶心，气恼。但最终TA们什么也没有做，因为（不知为何但）故事是这样讲的：如果谁把这个孩子带到阳光底下，擦干净TA的身体，让TA吃饱喝足，甚至只是说一句同情的话，那么后果是，奥梅拉斯所有的繁荣和欢愉将在瞬间消散。

于是人们说服自己，那个孩子也许已经习惯了囚禁、污秽和黑暗，自由和温饱对TA来说已经几乎没有意义。一旦接受这一点，人们不再愤怒，不再流泪。那个孩子因此日复一日、年复一年地呆在地下室里。

“一个小孩坐在房间里。这孩子可能是个男孩，也可能是个女孩。TA看上去约莫六岁，但实际上就快十岁大了”(尾注1)  “In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded.” 

Illustrator: Anna Xuan 

Source: https://www.annaxuan.com/those-who

In a story by Ursula K. Le Guin, there is a beautiful seaside city named Omelas. We do not know where it is, how it is ruled, or how many it is home to; all we know is the comfort and bliss of life there. On this day, the residents of Omelas are about to celebrate a glorious summer festival. People and horses meander along under the sun. The air rings with melodies, laughter, and joy.

These descriptions may sound too fairytale-like to convince you that Omelas truly exists. If so - the author welcomes readers to flesh out the details for themselves, as to where the city is located, how technologically developed it is, and what kinds of vehicles are used. To make the city seem less perfect, readers might as well imagine a tolerance of lust, alcohol, and drugs there.

At this moment, the wooden flute falls silent, and the trumpets sound. The horses prance and neigh, the horsemen poised for departure. The summer festival officially starts.     

“Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy?” Le Guin asks more than once while portraying Omelas. “Do you believe now?” She knows that a utopian city hardly convinces readers, for darkness is unlikely to be eradicated in the real world. She therefore goes on to betray a secret. It is exactly this unspeakable yet publicly known secret that makes believable the existence of Omelas. 

All the happiness of Omelas is in fact built on the misery of a child. Locked up in a cellar and deprived of nutrition, the nearly ten-year-old child appears to be only around six. It (following the gender pronoun used in the original text - editor’s note) is naked, legs as thin as hemp stalks; sitting in its own excrement all day, the child's body is covered with sores. Confined to the tool room, the child suffers from long-time hunger, fear, and loneliness. Only occasionally, someone would walk in, fill its bowl in silence, and swagger off. At times the child would cry out – “Please let me out! I will be good!” – but no one answers.

When seeing the child, people are shocked, sickened, and outraged. But ultimately they do nothing to help, because (for some unknown reason) the story goes like this: should anyone bring the child into the sunlight, clean its body, feed it nicely, or speak a single word of sympathy, all the prosperity and delight of Omelas will vanish in a heartbeat. 

For that reason, people convince themselves that the child may have gotten used to imprisonment, filth, and darkness. Freedom, food and warmth barely hold any meaning for it. Once people accept this idea, they turn away from anger and tears. So the child stays in the basement day after day, year after year. 

2

悲天悯人，作为一种隔岸观火 

A Bystander’s Compassion

<Swipe Left for English>

我无法描述初读《那些离开奥梅拉斯的人》时的震撼。它让我想到所有我为之悲痛或愤怒过、但最终不再记起的人和事。我没有去到暗无天日的地下室，把那个“孩子”解救出来。我也像奥梅拉斯的人一样，让怒气平息，泪水风干，尝试（或假装）相信那个孩子必须在那儿，生活本是如此，而我无能为力。

我并非对不幸或不公无动于衷。对于被孤立、被消声、被剥削、被牺牲的人和事，我也打抱不平。强调这一点不是出于辩解或虚荣，而在于说明：对不公正的事情有所觉察是不难的，说几句批评的话、流几滴眼泪，也是常有的；可是，不计得失地去打破既有安排，是稀罕的。实际上，大部分时候我们之所以愿意发声，也许恰恰是以自己的健康、安全、财产、成功等等不受到实质性威胁为前提。如我这样有幸受到良好高等教育的人，当然可以用学来的知识去大肆批判父权资本主义、消费主义、阶级区隔、难民危机诸如此类，可只要我不是（或不认为自己是）那个被牺牲的孩子，我就不会去砸烂那扇地下室的铁门。

奥梅拉斯的人没有去解救那个孩子，尽管TA们中有些在目睹其惨状后，也流泪多日。要知道，TA们并不无知野蛮或丧失人性。相反，TA们“成熟、睿智、热情”，懂得什么是怜悯。正因为那个被禁闭的孩子的存在，“TA们对其他的孩子更加温柔”。可是，这个孩子激起的除了某种悲天悯人的情怀，就没有别的了吗？

如果见证不幸和不公，但仅把它们作为道德教育的养分，岂不是最精致的利己主义？如果正义感只是智识层面的，而非实践层面的，岂非道貌岸然？我不愿接受这样的伪善，但也痛苦地意识到，我那有限的关注和表达，完全有可能只是一种隔岸观火的评论，一种用理论装扮的话术，一种自我慰藉。

那不勒斯四部曲的第二部《新名字的故事》里，费兰特写到莱农和莉拉去参加高中老师举办的聚会。谈话间尼诺讲起非暴力运动，讲起马丁·路德·金，表示相信可以用和平手段消除“殖民主义、饥饿和战争”。在其它无数场合，尼诺这样高谈阔论的时刻还有很多。而莱农一方面急于融入，另一方面为了引起尼诺的注意，激动地表达了对他观点的支持：“这个世界有太多暴君和受苦受难的人，迫切的需要改变，但需要通过和平手段来改变”。莱农被证明自己的欲望驱使着，想着在报纸上看到的话，在“不知道自己要说什么的情况下”就开始表达。此时，她对世界苦难的关心，虽然不是假装的，但也绝非完全真诚。

当这群人衣着优雅地谈论对受苦大众的关切、改变世界的必要，也许就在一街之隔的地方，底层的意大利人正经受着真实的痛苦和不堪重负。这里，我们不仅看到阶层之间的割裂，更看到智识和实践之间的割裂。莱农一直试图通过教育改变命运，她言之凿凿的关心，有时被用作了某个阶层的入场券。但最知行不一的当然不是莱农，而是尼诺。他那些看似敏锐而富有道德感的洞见，都不过是为了塑造自己的人设——一个博学深沉、心怀天下、充满魅力的知识分子。实际上，他的行动一次又一次证明了他的虚伪和轻浮。

离开聚会后，莉拉对莱农和其他人的表现进行了一番“恶毒”的讥讽：“TA们的脑子里没有任何一种思想是TA们自己的”。“TA们知道一切知识，但实际上TA们什么都不知道”。当我读到莉拉对莱农说：“你要小心一点，你也快变得和TA们一样了，一样鹦鹉学舌”，我感到她的嘲讽也甩在我的脸上。那些经受着苦难的人就在我的身边。在思想和表达之外，我有付出多少努力去帮助TA们、去抗争那个将TA们置于不公正境遇的体系？我是否一方面宣称着对公正的追求、另一方面又对实实在在被压迫的个体视而不见呢?

在陨落之人的周遭，世人安逸如故，

仿佛对他的命运无动于衷

《风景与伊卡洛斯的坠落》，老彼得·勃鲁盖尔，1555

Around the one who fell, the rest of the world remains unperturbed, as if indifferent to his demise.

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Pieter Bruegel (the Elder), 1555

Source: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/landscape-with-the-fall-of-icarus

I cannot describe the shock I felt when reading “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” for the first time. It reminded me of all the people and events which had caused me grief and wrath, but which escaped my memory in the end. I did not go to the dark, sunless basement to rescue the “child.” Just like the people of Omelas, I let my fury wane, allowed the wind to dry my tears, and attempted (or pretended) to believe that the child must stay there, that life was supposed to be this way, and that my hands were tied. 

I am not indifferent to misfortune and injustice. I, too, take up the cudgels for the people who are isolated, silenced, exploited, or sacrificed. I am emphasizing this neither in defense of myself nor out of vanity. My point is: it is not difficult to discern injustice, and it is not unusual to utter a few words of criticism or shed a few tears. It is rare, however, to upset the status quo at all costs. In fact, we are perhaps willing to speak out, most of the time, only on the premise that our health, safety, property, and success are not under actual threat. Of course, those who are as fortunate as me to have received proper higher education could use their knowledge to lash out at capitalist patriarchy, consumerism, class segregation, refugee crisis, and so forth. Nonetheless, as long as I am not (or assume that I am not) the sacrificed child, I will not go and smash open that iron door to the basement.

No one in Omelas comes to the child’s rescue, although some do weep for days after witnessing its misery. After all, the residents of Omelas are not ignorant savages, nor have they lost their humanity. On the contrary, they are “mature, intelligent, passionate,” and “they know compassion.” It is exactly because of the confined child that they are “so gentle with children.” However, does the child evoke nothing else other than this sort of universal compassion? 

If one witnesses misfortune and injustice but merely uses them to cultivate one’s moral sensitivity, is this not egoism in its most elitist posture? If one’s sense of justice is only intellectual rather than practical, is it not sanctimonious? While reluctant to accept this kind of hypocrisy, I am also painfully aware that my concerns and expressions have their limits. They might as well be merely a bystander’s commentary, a kind of rhetoric adorned with theory, a self-consolation. 

In The Story of a New Name, the second book of the Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante writes about Lenù and Lila going to a party held by their high school teacher. During the conversation, Nino, a boy that Lenù has romantic feelings for from a young age, talks about non-violence movements and Martin Luther King, and asserts his belief in peaceful means of eliminating “colonialism, hunger, and war.” There are numerous other occasions when Nino speaks in such lofty terms. Lenù excitedly voices her support for Nino’s opinion, partially out of her anxiety to fit in, and partially to attract Nino’s attention: “[T]he world urgently needed to be changed…there were too many tyrants who kept people enslaved. But it should be changed by peaceful means.” (endnote 2) Driven by the desire to prove herself, Lenù thinks of the words she read in the newspaper, and begins to express herself when she “[does] not really know what to say.” Clearly, at this point, her care for the misery in the world is neither solely pretended nor entirely sincere. 

When this group of people, clad in elegant clothes, ramble about their care for the suffering masses and the necessity of changing the world, maybe some downtrodden Italians who are truly in pain and overwhelmed are struggling just across the street. Here, we see the disconnect not only between different classes but between intellectual knowledge and actual practice. Lenù strives to change her fate through education, and sometimes her emphatic language of care is used as the entry ticket to a certain class. That being said, it’s not Lenù but rather Nino whose words are the least consistent with their deeds. His seemingly sharp and virtuous insights merely serve to create a persona – an intellectual of profound learning, universal compassion, and great charm. In actuality, his deeds prove his hypocrisy and frivolity time after time.  

After the party, Lila makes a “ruthless” mock at Lenù and the others: “[I]n their heads they don’t have a thought that's their own . . . They know everything and they don’t know a thing.” Lila reminds Lenù to “look out, or you’ll be the parrots’ parrot.” When I read it, Lila’s derision feels like a slap on my face too. The suffering ones are just around me. Apart from being aware and vocal, how much have I actually done to help them out, to challenge the system that imposes injustice on them? While claiming my pursuit of justice, am I not turning a blind eye to the individuals who are under real oppression?

3

面对一位跨性别者

Faced with a Transgender Person

<Swipe Left for English>

曾和伙伴主持过一个性别主题的工作坊。参与者有不同的年龄、教育和阶层背景。其中有位跨性别女性，来自一个我从前没听说过的小镇。从衣着打扮来看，她有些窘迫。在两天的活动中，她很少公开发表意见或观点。偶尔在一对一交谈中，她说的话也有很多是重复同样的内容。有时我担心她的沉默是一种局促，有时我又感觉那只是思维和表达能力受限而造成的失语。总之，她是最格格不入的那一个。

工作坊结束后我们建了微信群。她倒是会积极发一些照片视频和推文，没有得到太多回应。很多时候，我猜测其他人跟我一样，对于她发的内容感到某种隐隐的尴尬。有几次，她没有事先说明就加了大家都不认识的人进来，被群友指出之后，又不得不把熟人拉出群聊，说了对不起。她还发过很长的文字，大意是她生活的地方人们愚昧无知，对“变性人”充满歧视，对她像对“畜生一样”。我没见有人在群里回复。

显然，她并不熟悉我所熟悉的那一套知识和话语体系。平日我接触到许多在性别和性少数平权领域活跃的伙伴，其中不少有海外留学或生活的经历，有不愁吃穿的生活。我们可能读过一些书，对诸如“社会建构” “性别二元” “异性恋霸权” “顺性别中心主义”这样的词汇信手拈来，或许还能用性别理论去剖析社会文化现象，发表评论文章。可是，当我们声讨着害人的性别文化，面对一个因为性别而遭受明目张胆、无孔不入的日常辱骂和人身攻击的人，我们却沉默了。我们显得无奈，无措。

要说，我们当然都是父权体系的受害者——好莱坞的影星是，从事性别研究的学术大家是，呼吁女性赋权的企业家们也是。但每个人受压迫的程度是不同的。由于身份的交叉性，一些人在性别之外拥有的特权，使TA们在其它方面成为受益者，甚至剥削者。而我说出“交叉性”这个词的时候，已经透露出知识带给我的某种特权。这位跨性别者，却因为各个交叉着的底层身份，成为了那个“地下室的孩子”。

英文里有个表达叫Blissful ignorance。很长时间以来，我把这里的ignorance理解成无知。傻人常乐。但我近来才意识到，ignorance并非无知，而是忽视，是ignore，是neglect。选择忽视的人并不傻，TA们也许爱思考，爱正义。可是，如果挑战不公意味着跳出自己熟知或舒适的范围，甚至给自己原本安定稳固的生活带来风险，我们还会在多大程度上将同情和正义感转化为行动呢？Merriam Webster这样定义blissful ignorance: a state of not knowing and not wanting to know about unhappy things or possible problems. 翻译过来就是：不知道或不想知道不愉快的事的状态。我们的blissfulness，究竟有多少归功于“不知道”、有多少归功于“不想知道”呢？

那位跨性别者在微信群里每次现身，都是对我的某种提醒：压迫和欺凌真切而全面地存在，那个被折磨的人就在眼前。这样的提醒如此令人困扰——尤其是在我无法直面内疚、无力改变现状的情况下——以至于在不觉和自觉之间，我终于也将她抛在脑后，成为让她继续困在“地下室”的帮凶。

“正在放映：令人安心的谎言” 

“Now Playing--A Reassuring Lie.”

Illustrator: Clay Bennett

Source: http://new-universe.org/zenphoto/Chapter5/Illustrations/Abrams56.jpg.php

I once co-facilitated a workshop on gender. Our participants varied in age, education level, and socioeconomic background. Among them was a transgender woman from a town I had never heard of. Judging from her clothing and appearance, she’s not well off. During our two-day event, she rarely voiced any opinion or idea. Occasionally she spoke in one-on-one conversations, where she repeated herself most of the time. Sometimes I worried that her silence bespoke her uneasiness. Other times, I felt that she simply could not organize her thoughts or find the words to express herself. In any case, she was the most out-of-place one.

We created a WeChat (a Chinese multi-functional social media app) group after the workshop. She was rather active and shared some photos, videos, and online articles there. Few of us responded. I guessed that most of the time, just like me, other group members were slightly embarrassed by the things she posted. There were a few times when she invited strangers into the group without asking us first. After being reminded of the rules, she removed her acquaintances and apologized. She also poured her experience out once or twice: in the place where she lives, people are ignorant, full of discrimination against the “transvestite,” and treat her “as if she was an animal.” No one replied in the group. 

Personally and professionally, I got to know many who are active in the field of gender equity and LGBTQ activism, many of whom have studied or lived abroad and live a beyond decent life. We might have read some books and could use phrases such as “social construct,” “gender binary,” “heterosexism,” and “cissexism” at our fingertips. We might also be able to apply gender theories to critiques of sociocultural phenomena, and have the writing published. But while denouncing the oppressive gender structure, we are nevertheless reticent in the face of someone who suffers blatant, suffocating humiliations and personal attacks due to her gender. We appear lost, helpless.  

Of course, we are all victims of the patriarchal system – “we” including the Hollywood celebrities, gender studies scholars, and entrepreneurs who call for female empowerment. The extent to which we are oppressed, however, varies. Given the intersectionality of our identities, some gender minorities are rendered beneficiaries, or even exploiters, by other aspects of whom they are. Ironically, when I utter the word “intersectionality,” I am already exhibiting a certain privilege granted by knowledge. That transgender person, in contrast, has become the “child in the basement” because of her intersectional marginalized identities.     

There is the expression blissful ignorance. For quite a long time, I understood the ignorance here as unawareness. Happiness favors the fools. But only recently have I realized that ignorance is not unaware, but rather uncaring, that is to say, to ignore, to neglect. Those who choose to neglect are not ignorant; they might actually be thoughtful and justice-minded. However, if to challenge injustice entails jumping out of our comfort zones, or even putting at risk the stability of our own life, how far would we go in translating our sympathy and sense of justice into action? Merriam Webster defines blissful ignorance as such: a state of not knowing and not wanting to know about unhappy things or possible problems. Now think about our blissfulness – how much does it owe to unawareness, how much to uncaring?

Every time the transgender woman showed up in the group chat, I was reminded of this: the existence of oppression and bullying is real and ubiquitous; the person under torture is right in front of me. Such reminders were so disturbing – especially when I could not bring myself to face my guilt and upset the status quo – that I finally put her behind me and became an accomplice to her confinement in the “basement,” half wittingly, half unwittingly.

4

如果你就是“地下室的孩子”  

想像，为了正义  

If You Were the “Child in the Basement”  

Imagination for the Sake of Justice

<Swipe Left for English>

交待了那个孩子的存在之后，勒古恩还告诉了读者一件事。她说，偶尔会有人，在见到那个孩子之后默默离开，“孤身一人......TA们一直走......离开奥美拉斯，TA们走进黑暗，一去不回”。

读罢这篇小说，人们通常会问自己：如果我是奥梅拉斯的一员，会做出怎样的选择？我会把孩子从地窖里救出来，即便这意味着这座欢乐之城将从此改变？还是带着眼泪和怒火回家之后，逐渐忘却，继续过着美满的生活？亦或，我会成为离开奥美拉斯的人？

而离开奥美拉斯之后，去向何方呢？勒古恩在小说的结尾写道，TA们要去的地方“比这个欢乐之城更难以想象。我没法描述。或许那个地方根本就不存在。不过TA们似乎知道自己的方向——那些离开奥梅拉斯的人”。为什么那个地方难以想象、甚至可能根本就不存在？难道一个没有恶、没有剥削的地方，注定是过为激进的存在，激进到我们无法去想象它？

地下室的孩子无人营救，是因为某种不成文的社会契约。孩子的温饱和自由将破坏整个奥美拉斯的幸福。那样代价太大，于是只能反过来：以一个人的不幸，换取其他所有人的幸福。奥美拉斯当然是一个虚构。可这种为了“大局”牺牲少数人利益的逻辑，却伴随着人类社会的运转，从古至今。财富和进步，似乎永远不可能抹灭贫穷和不公，而恰恰纵容、依赖、延续着那些贫穷和不公。

电影《寄生虫》里，你以为住在地下室的穷人是寄生虫，富人又何尝不是。有钱有势的人依靠榨取底层人们的劳动力来维持体面的生活，TA们需要那些人一直呆在地下室。像奥美拉斯的孩子一样，地下室的人“必须在那儿”，一旦出来，就将动摇地上的人的生活根基。

疫情之中那些做不了透析的病人，大桥上哭泣的母亲，家中死去的脑瘫少年，绝望跳河的自杀者......我们的世界从不缺少“地下室的孩子”。而很多人容忍甚至认可了这种牺牲，说，这是为了“大局”。

可是，如果你就是那个为了成全大局的牺牲品呢？

面对《离开奥梅拉斯的人》道德选择的困境时，我们总是轻易将自己代入那些幸福的人的角色，却很少去想象：如果我就是那个被关在地下室的孩子呢？或者，如果那个孩子就是我的孩子、我的兄弟姐妹呢？我们为了切身利益而接受、合理化各种不公正，因为我们无法想像，自己就可能是既有安排的最大受害者。正是这种想象力的匮乏，导致了许多对苦难和压迫的视而不见。

以正义论著称的政治哲学家约翰·罗尔斯，为阐释他的正义原则，设立了一个思想实验。他假想，在社会契约订立之前，人们在一个原初状态中决定社会制度安排的基本原则，而这一决定需在“无知之幕”背后作出。这块幕让人们对自己的出身一无所知，包括性别、性取向、财产、个性、嗜好、家庭背景、身体状况等等。于是，人们不得不考虑这样一种可能性，即自己就是那个出身最糟糕的人。什么样的安排，能让一个人即便带着最悲惨的出身来到这个世界，也能享有基本的权利和人之为人的尊严？罗尔斯之所以让人们在无知之幕之后去选择正义原则，也正是因为，一个公正的社会不应该有“地下室的孩子”，不应该有人成为牺牲品。

我们并不清楚离开奥梅拉斯意味着什么。毕竟，出走的人没有挑战奥梅拉斯的社会契约，没有去帮助那个孩子，只是选择了不再作为这个契约的签订者和服从者。TA们不再继续那种blissful ignorance，而是吞下“红色药丸”，为了走向不知能否抵达的正义之邦。那些离开奥美拉斯的人，“似乎知道自己的方向”。奥梅拉斯既可以是整个世界，也可以是我们充满矛盾的内心。 

4月4日鸣笛响起时，我正走在路上，前面一位中年男子双手提菜，直直站立。离他不远处，有一家三口人面向十字路口，也在默哀。我环顾四周，有人停下脚步，有人继续行走，交通依旧。我忽然有种复杂的感觉，不知道应该怎样去想像这个社会和身在其中的人的未来。当我把感受分享给远在巴拿马的朋友，TA们发来一段文字：“我们追悼了过去的人，还要发愿：要除去于人生毫无意义的苦痛。要除去制造并赏玩别人苦痛的昏迷和强暴。”

这段话来自鲁迅的《我之节烈观》。文中他对当时社会上鼓吹表彰“女子节烈”表达了不平：“节烈的女人······不幸上了历史和数目的无意识的圈套，做了无主名的牺牲。”文章最后一句是——

“我们还要发愿：要人类都受正当的幸福。”

“正义的原则将在无知之幕后被选择”——约翰·罗尔斯

“The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.” ——John Rawls

Source: https://www.etsy.com/listing/623024535/lady-justice-art-print-watercolor-print

喜欢这篇文章，请至文末点击“赞赏”给我们打赏，

本期赞赏所得将全部用于支持

武汉同志中心的“携手抗疫与艾同行”项目

To donate, scroll down to the bottom 

and click on  “Like the Author” 

The money we receive from you will all be 

donated to Wuhan LGBT Center’s project, 

“Hand in Hand against the Epidemic; 

We are Here for the AIDS Patients.”

After revealing the existence of the child, Le Guin tells the readers another thing. At times, she narrates, there are people who leave the city in silence after seeing the child. “Each alone . . . They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back.”

Reaching the end of this story, people usually ask themselves: if I were a resident of Omelas, what choice would I make? Would I rescue the child from the cellar, even if it means this city’s joy will be gone? Or would I return home in tears and fury, but soon leave the child behind and carry on with my own blissful life? Or rather, would I be the one to leave Omelas?  

And where to go after Omelas? Toward the end of her story, Le Guin writes that the place they head towards is “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.” Why is that place unimaginable, or perhaps does not even exist in the first place? Is it true that a place free from evil and exploitation is destined to be a radical vision, so much so that it cannot even be imagined? 

No one rescues the child in the basement, because an unwritten social contract forbids it. The comfort and freedom of the child will ruin the bliss of everyone in Omelas, and that is too heavy a cost. Therefore, it has to be the other way around: to trade the happiness of one single person for the happiness of everyone else. Omelas is of course fictional. But this logic of sacrificing the well-being of one person for “the greater good” has been embedded in the mechanisms of human society throughout history. Wealth and progress, as it seems, can never wipe out poverty and injustice. Quite the reverse, they connive at, rely upon, and reinforce poverty and injustice. 

In the movie Parasite, the poor who live in the basement might seem to be the parasites. But are the rich not? The wealthy and the powerful sustain their decent lives by exploiting the labor of the downtrodden. Like the child of Omelas, the ones in the basement “[have] to be there,” for as soon as they are let out, the people living above the ground will see the foundation of their own lives shaken.

During the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, we heard about the dialysis patients who could not get treatment, the mother who wept on a bridge, the teenage boy with cerebral palsy who died at home, the suicider who threw himself into the river in despair… Our world has never been short of the “child in the basement,” but many have tolerated and even approved of such sacrifice nevertheless, claiming that it is for the “greater good.”

But what if you were the one who was to be sacrificed?  

Facing the moral dilemma in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, we tend to put ourselves in the shoes of  the happy residents. Rarely do we ponder: what if I were the child imprisoned in the basement? Or what if that child was my child or my sibling? We accept and rationalize all kinds of injustice for our own interests, because we could hardly imagine ourselves as the worst victims of the status quo. The absence of such imagination is precisely why so many of us turn a blind eye to misery and oppression. 

The political philosopher John Rawls, who is known for his theory of justice, designs a thought experiment that concerns choosing the principles of justice. He postulates an “original position” where people are to decide the basic principles of the social system before entering into a social contract. Such a decision is made behind “the veil of ignorance,” which keeps people from knowing facts about themselves such as gender, sexuality, wealth, personality, hobbies, family background, and health condition, etc. Thus, people are forced to consider one possibility, that they themselves are the most underprivileged ones. For a person born into the worst sort of misery, what kind of arrangements could grant them basic rights, as well as the dignity that defines them as humans? Rawls makes people choose the principles of justice behind the veil of ignorance exactly because, in a society that values justice, there should not be any “child in the basement” - there should not be anyone who needs to be sacrificed.  

We do not know for sure what it means to leave Omelas. After all, the ones who walk away neither challenge the social contract of Omelas, nor offer a hand to the child, but merely choose not to comply or surrender to the pact. They turn away from the blissful ignorance, swallow the “red pill,” and head towards a land of justice which may or may not be reached. Those who leave Omelas “seem to know where they are going.” Omelas could be a metaphor for the world we live in, or “just different pieces of one person’s psychology” (endnote 3) , a person with conflicting values and imperatives. 

When the sirens of national mourning began to wail on the 4th of April for those who died from COVID-19, I was walking down a street. A few meters ahead of me I saw the back of a middle-aged man standing still, with bags of groceries under both his arms. Only steps away, a family of three was facing toward the intersection in silent tribute. I looked around. Some paused; some went on walking. The traffic moved as usual. For an instant, I was seized by a complex feeling, not knowing how to imagine the future of our society and the people in it. I shared my feeling with my friends in Panama. They replied with the following: “After mourning for the dead, we must swear to get rid of the meaningless suffering which blights our lives. We must do away with all the stupidity and tyranny which create and relish the suffering of others.”

These words come from Lu Xun’s “My Views of Chastity” (endnote 4). In this essay, Lu Xun voices his indignation over the preaching of “women’s chastity” in society at that time: “Trapped for no good reason by tradition and numbers, they [chaste women] are sacrificed for no purpose.” The piece ends like this –

“We must also swear to see to it that all humankind knows true happiness.”

尾注 1: 中文翻译引用自【美】奥森·斯科特·卡德 编, 姚向辉 译, 《大师的盛宴》

Endnote 2: English translation quoted from: Elena Ferrante, The Story of A New Name, Europa Editions, 2013. Translated by Ann Goldstein. Retreived from https://books.google.com.hk/books/about/The_Story_of_a_New_Name.html?id=h1DVDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=colonialism&f=false

Endnote 3: David Brooks, “The Child in the Basement,” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/13/opinion/david-brooks-the-child-in-the-basement.html

Endnote 4: English translation quoted from: “My Views on Chastity,” Lu Xun Selected Works, Vol. II, Foreign Languages Press, 1980. p. 25. Originally translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. Original translation was modified for accuracy and gender neutrality. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.184582/2015.184582.Lu-Xun-Selected-Works--Volii_djvu.txt

相关书籍与影片

▲Scroll down to read 向上滑动阅读▲

《那些离开奥梅拉斯的人》 — 厄修拉·勒古恩

《新名字的故事》— 埃莱娜·费兰特

《正义论》— 约翰·罗尔斯

《我之节烈观》—鲁迅  

“My Views on Chastity,” Lu Xun

《寄生虫》

“红色药丸” 出处：《黑客帝国》

“Red Pills” — The Matrix

Editors | Lili, Joyce

Proofreader | Carly

Typesetting | Linlin 

Contact Us | 联系我们

[e-mail]

Follow Us | 关注我们

Instagram: uncover.2020

Facebook Page: 

https://www.facebook.com/2020.unCoVer/

Website: https://uncoverinitiative.home.blog/