Life is Good!

I have it all; the education, the happy single parent household, the stable socio-economic status.  Although society was built against me in so many ways, I can say that I am a happy woman. My idea of happiness may be different than yours. Ursula LeGuin says that, “happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive.”(2)  Based on this definition I can say I am happy. But my happiness is systematically built on the fact that I need to do better than others.  I may not encounter those I need to step on in order for my happiness to prevail in my everyday life but I definitely have some dirt on my shoes.  But there is one person I know I have had to step on in order to be where I am.  She is a close friend to me. This has nothing to do with any deep dark secrets I have kept but I know it comes from the structural hierarchy that is built into our society in order for me to be in the position I am today.  It is hard to think I can/have put some people into the positions they are in because I do not want to feel at fault for their unhappiness. LeGuin tells the story of a “utopian” society whose happiness is based solely off the misery of one child.  This one child’s existence is caged away yet known and repulsed by many.  In my opinion the child could represent a lot of deeper meanings like racism, sexism, classism, but in particular I thought of privilege.  LeGuin’s story reminds me of a time in my own life where I noticed my friend’s difficulties in life and how I am more privileged than her.  Thus although my friend’s unhappiness does not consciously make me happy, through the way society is set I am “happy” because of her “unhappiness”. If LeGuin and I were to speak we would share a similar ideology about how happiness based off the fact that people are happy based off of another’s suffering.

It was a cold morning and the ground was already layered with dirtied snow from the previous day yet a sun cheered up the day.  My friend and I had plans to meet later that day so I went on with my routine of getting ready.  One that probably resembles many others of thinking about what I am going to where, trying one on, not being satisfied, then trying another, and the cycle continues until I am content. After eating breakfast, I had out to her house. As I drive along the road in the car, I see mostly black men and women heading out for their day bundled in their coats. This has me think back to my new lifestyle of living at boarding school where a majority white institution prevails. Boarding school includes a much different population than I grew up with. Once I arrive at my friends government- subsidized housing aka “the projects” many memories come flooding back of our joy and innocence that we shared in elementary and middle school.  Broken bottles and graffiti litter the outside sidewalk, but this was nothing new.  I just was now more aware of it.  Finally my friend and I reunite with so much to catch up on. As our conversations continue I realized our language was different.  After catching up, we head to the kitchen and I am offered Cheetos, honeybuns, or orange soda. They hadn’t gotten new groceries because they hadn’t received their check yet she explained.  I noticed my accessibility to food was different.  I took some orange soda, and headed to the living room where she put the TV on but only very few channels were available because they did not have cable. All the things I had now noticed because of my new awareness of what I had been taught in boarding school about low-income neighborhoods and other structural hierarchy all became real. But what could have possibly made me so different?  I had always lived in the same town and did not live close to rich either, so what was this that was experiencing? Privilege.

LeGuins The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas reinforces my own experience because I had noticed the different aspects of my friend’s life of which I was considered myself better off. Class and education is a major part of my experience which has allowed me to be “happy” but with the knowledge that this major part of my life is built on the fact that I needed to better than others is difficult to face.  LeGuin discussed how the child had, “become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect.” (3) The idea that I step on others to be who I am, is one that is not celebrated because is very much so one that is neglected and malnourished because of the fear this concept gives off.  In human society, the notion that you need be the best neglects the downside to this mentality which is that means beating the competition or put more harshly profiting off of their failure.  The child would scream to be let out and acknowledged with promises of good behavior but this would mean a breakdown in their “utopia”. This utopian world is also a representation of society today because the front that is broadcasted is not the one that is actually felt, thus LeGuin’s utopia is a fraud. Had LeGuin heard my story she would say that because I understand this paradox, “[You] know that [you], like the child, [are] not free.” (4) She would say that knowing that this idea exist, I now can not be free from this idea ever although I can mask it through my outward happiness and “utopia” that I live in. Everyone in the utopia had the privilege of not being that child. It is similar to my experience because I have the privilege of not being underprivileged.

I have now acknowledged the evils of privilege that take away from all my outward qualities that had once made me so happy. It is easier to separate myself from the problems that some people face because I did not feel responsible and I can most definitely say there are higher forces that put me down. Yet once I give excuses for any unhappiness I face I take away from the fact that I also cause unhappiness from those who are hierarchically under me. LeGuin’s community described a utopia of all its people being equal except for this child. This separates modern day society and this story somewhat because of all the complex aspects of structural hierarchy in race, gender, class, etc that are not described in LeGuin’s story. In conclusion, my life is good only because I have had that privilege.