Obedience to Authority and How It is Evil Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Obedience to Authority and How It is Evil - Essay Example This essay analyzes how following authority produces evil. Obedience to authority results in evil in the stories â€Å"The Lottery† and â€Å"The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas,† because of appearance of convention, cowardice, and ordinariness of violence. Convention and law are common sources of authority, which many people can follow mindlessly, however evil their outcomes may be. In â€Å"The Lottery,† Old Man Warner stresses that the lottery cannot be removed, simply because it has always been done: â€Å"There's always been a lottery† (Jackson). Furthermore, he emphasizes the saying: â€Å"Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon† (Jackson). It does not matter if this ritual results to the suffering of one person, since the society focuses on its â€Å"positive† outcomes. In "The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas,† people believe that in order to maintain the joy and wealth of Omelas, they have to preserve a â€Å"child's abominable m isery† (LeGuin). Omelas has made it a law to never let the child out, because it will result to the loss of â€Å"prosperity and beauty and delight† of Omelas (LeGuin). Some residents feel the injustice of this law, but the majority follows its law nonetheless. Simply obeying authority is a form of cowardice, which results to evil too.