[disclaimer: I haven’t actually read the short story]
This part from your quote
Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were not there snivelling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.
makes me think that this is not just about rationalisation but about the (wrong) belief that there can be no happiness without suffering (or without evil which is slightly different). In fact, you could interpret it to think that the only reason that the child in misery is necessary for the other people’s happiness is because the other people believe it to be necessary. Because they believe that there must be suffering/evil for true happiness and they couldn’t cope otherwise. This would fit with the short story giving no causal explanation as to why the child has to be in misery to sustain the happiness of the others. If you take them at face value, these sentences actually read like they are the allegedly missing causal explanation: ” It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science.”
Slightly different point: The ones that walk away sort of remind me a bit of HPMOR’s Harry’s deliberate rejection of/accidental inability to accept necessary evils. (I think Harry has both of those going on.)
[disclaimer: I haven’t actually read the short story]
This part from your quote
makes me think that this is not just about rationalisation but about the (wrong) belief that there can be no happiness without suffering (or without evil which is slightly different). In fact, you could interpret it to think that the only reason that the child in misery is necessary for the other people’s happiness is because the other people believe it to be necessary. Because they believe that there must be suffering/evil for true happiness and they couldn’t cope otherwise. This would fit with the short story giving no causal explanation as to why the child has to be in misery to sustain the happiness of the others. If you take them at face value, these sentences actually read like they are the allegedly missing causal explanation: ” It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science.”
Slightly different point: The ones that walk away sort of remind me a bit of HPMOR’s Harry’s deliberate rejection of/accidental inability to accept necessary evils. (I think Harry has both of those going on.)