18 ms·

Harrison Bergeron (1961)

240 points by dusted 4y ago

amadeuspagel 4y ago
A more readable version: https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
hcurtiss 4y ago
Beauty, and human attraction to beauty, is impossible to overcome. While sometimes informed by culture, attributes like symmetrical faces are desirable across all cultures. And those attributes are often powerfully informed by genetics. Absent absurd handicaps like in the story, people with those attributes will have better lives. Life is not fair. In some ways it’s better that it’s not. Our perception of beauty, and marveling in its wonder, is something that makes us uniquely human.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  Even various animals prefer attractive people. It's pretty crazy
  - rob74 4y ago
    That doesn't reflect my experience - unless you mean "attractive" by the animal's definition, which in case of a cat might be "someone who feeds me reliably twice a day and cuddles me from time to time".
  - waterhouse 4y ago
    That sounds like an interesting result, but I wonder about how such studies were done. Might it be that attractive people are more likely to have certain types of mannerisms or other traits? Did anyone go as far as making people wear clothing or makeup that made them more or less attractive and then putting them in front of the animals?
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    I've noticed that large energetic dogs seem to respect large and strong people more, and show disrespect to smaller people.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cainxinth 4y ago
  > Life is not fair. In some ways it’s better that it’s not. Our perception of beauty, and marveling in its wonder, is something that makes us uniquely human. I don't know if I buy either of those statements. Taking the second part first, animals probably can perceive 'beauty': https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/202107/beauty-is-more-skin-deep-and-helps-animals-survive https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/2021... And as for the first part, yes, life isn't fair, which is partially why human societies make rules that attempt to alleviate some of that arbitrariness. The story of Harrison Bergeron is an example of human rules run amok. It should encourage us to create better rules, not abandon them entirely and return to the law of the jungle.
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    "I'm glad life isn't fair. If it were, it means we deserve everything that happens to us." -- paraphrasing a quote from Babylon 5 Principles are superior to rules, but the best we can do in government is making rules. Best they be few, and of high quality.
swyx 4y ago
i dont know Vonnegut's politics but i have always wondered if this story was secretly a fairytale for the right-leaning. it paints wanting equality as intensely evil, holding back the best of humanity. which, yes, true in communist regimes, but you see echoes in some less well considered laws and policies in modern life. i am afraid to like, or even publicly discuss, the story because of what it might say about me.
- ep103 4y ago
  This story was part of a collection of literature that came out shortly after it became irrefutably understood on the left, that the USSR had failed and become a totalitarian state. Early on in USSR's history most of the socialistically leaning world was hopeful that the USSR might still be, to some degree, working out as hoped. It was extremely hard to get unbiased reporting about what was actually happening within its borders, which allowed some die-hard supporters to hold out hope. But when the USSR put down the Hungarian revolution in 56, there was no denying this any longer. This story wasn't support of right wing politics. It was anti-totalitarian.
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    > most of the socialistically leaning world was hopeful that the USSR might still be, to some degree, working out as hoped. I have to wonder what you mean by "most". Because as early as 1921 the Bolsheviks were supressing anarcho-communists in Ukraine, purging former Mensheviks, putting the SRs on trial and seizing food from starving peasants. All of which was highly contentious and written about combatively in anarchist and socialist newspapers. Perhaps by "most" you refer to the largely student and professional class socialists who lived in Bourgeoisie democracies largely untouched by the history of Bolshevik domination and who for some reason have become the most visible historical standard bearer of socialism in western pop culture.
    - ep103 4y ago
      Perhaps the word most was too loose, but yes, I understand the history. I also understand that what reporting that came out of Russia was mixed, and heavily propagandized by both sides, so if you were living through it, and were in the Western world, it was hard to know for certain exactly what was and was not true, and what the real causes and effects of what was going on were, until years later. Historically, the breaking point for many in the West to give up on the USSR as a clearly totalitarian state, for which excuses could no longer justify their actions, was the suppression of Hungarian revolution.
UnpossibleJim 4y ago
This story had an amazing effect on me as a child and before it begins, yes I have a disability (though a so called invisible disability - I have type 1 diabetes and epilepsy). It isn't that we should turn a blind eye to the disabled, as many use it as a parable for. Many disabled do need extra help, but that help comes in the form of lifting up, not pushing down those who are able. The able should be encouraged, in their own way. Everyone needs to excel in an area that is their own and have a space to grow (oh God, I've turned into a hippy =/). I worry that this parable, the true meaning of this parable, has been washed-out over the years to be used only as a sword and not the shield it was meant to be.
- geysersam 4y ago
  Interesting. I've always felt the story to be a bit of a straw man. Don't we always celebrate and idolize ability, beauty etc?
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    There have been school districts lately that have been getting rid of advanced math classes in the name of equality.
    - pydry 4y ago
      This is probably a vain attempt by management to put a shine on a cost cutting exercise. There is a poisonous ideology at work in the background but ultimately defunding schools comes from a desire for more inequality, not less.
      - woooooo 4y ago
        Who do you mean by management, here? The superintendent, the school board, the city council or the voters?
      - Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
        "A desire for more inequality"? That smacks of "good people support Policy X, even if it achieves the opposite of its goals in the long run. To acknowledge that and oppose Policy X, even on its own merits, makes you evil in intent." Few people actually have desires like "I want more inequality", even if they oppose a policy which intends to decrease it.
spicyusername 4y ago
Treating different things the same can generate as much inequality as treating the same things differently. - Kimberlé Crenshaw
superb-owl 4y ago
This story is typically seen as a critique of socialism, but it's more likely that Vonnegut intended it as a critique of critiques of socialism [1]. Vonnegut himself was a socialist [2], and the absurdist tone of the story reinforces this idea. [1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/197545/03882696bfa8a19df975946fa70f142c.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/197545/03882696bf... [2] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/04/kurt-vonneguts-socialism-from-outer-space https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/04/kurt-vonneguts-socialism-fr...
- mistrial9 4y ago
  thanks so much for reducing this emotional work of art to a political check box?
  - danso 4y ago
    Seems reductionist to think that Kurt Vonnegut was writing only/mostly from emotion, and that he didn't intend for it be political commentary/satire.
  - golemotron 4y ago
    We're talking about a guy who reduced all story telling to a set of 8 graphs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ
  - fullshark 4y ago
    I'm not sure I should like it until I learn what side of the current cultural/political war it's on.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Vonnegut was a highly political writer, as SF writers often are. His most famous work is the extremely traumatized "Slaughterhouse 5", after all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five That doesn't mean it can or should be neatly mapped to the left/right distinction or culture wars of the current moment. Especially when people have so many bizarre ideas about what constitutes "left" or "socialism".
Bakary 4y ago
It's not clear to me if the story is supposed to be a second degree satire of left-leaning doctrine or a third degree satire of right-leaning fantasies. No matter its goal, the story hits a raw nerve. The mix of emotions over inequality, natural superiority, and its implications one way or the other is one of the strongest cocktails, I feel.
- WFHRenaissance 4y ago
  What's a first degree satire look like then?
  - qsort 4y ago
    Just like a third, fifth, seventh... degree one, I imagine.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    It can't exist by definition. Or if it can I'm not equipped to visualize it.
    - WFHRenaissance 4y ago
      >the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. This is first degree satire. Your third degree satire is actually satire in the second degree.
      - Bakary 4y ago
        After checking it looks like the expression second degree doesn't map to English from my own language and I was translating too literally (in the first degree? lol)
  - swayvil 4y ago
    Playing it totally straight.
Parmenidea 4y ago
My hot take is that this story is highly overrated. It’s boring, poorly written, and lacks nuance. The reason people remember it fondly is (1) everyone loves Vonnegut because he’s funny, so they don’t want to criticize it and (2) everyone read this story in middle school and are blinded by nostalgia.
- dkarl 4y ago
  I think it has a special place in the hearts of people who are especially affected by interruptions, more because of what is concretely inflicted on the title character than because of the abstract argument about equality and inequality. There was no language for talking about being sensitive to interruptions back then, and there isn't really now unless you have some kind of diagnosis. My wife does not understand that speaking to me every ten or fifteen minutes affects my ability to concentrate and do my job. As an adult with a high-paying job, I'm able to rent space at a coworker space so that we don't have constant fights about it that affect our marriage. For children living in loud homes where people constantly yell and blare the TV, and trapped in classrooms with other children who scream and disrupt simply because they can't stand quiet, they have no ability to escape, but at least they have some validation in the form of this story, proof that a famous and successful person recognized their experience as real.
  - MockObject 4y ago
    I always thought that the interruption theme was not at all the point of the story, but simply the most disturbing handicap from the perspective of an author.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I'm with you. I think it's one of Vonnegut's weaker works. The only reason I'd recommend someone read it is because it comes up a lot.
- mmmpop 4y ago
  As mentioned in this thread already, it's almost certainly a parody of what an unsophisticated person thinks government forced "equity" measures would look like in a dystopian future. But in my opinion, if Vonnegut were alive today, he may find a little less humor in it seeing how far we've come in making his silly fiction closer to reality.
nbernard 4y ago
IMHO, the short film 2081 [0], based on this story, is also worth watching. [0]: http://www.finallyequal.com/ http://www.finallyequal.com/
egypturnash 4y ago
Captive to our smartphones, distracted constantly by an endless succession of oh-so-important notifications for trivial things. Who in modern life does not feel a little like Harrison Bergeron with his federally-mandated thought-train-interrupting earpiece? And who among us cannot sympathize with Albert Brock, The Murderer? https://www.readkong.com/page/the-murderer-by-ray-bradbury-8004400 https://www.readkong.com/page/the-murderer-by-ray-bradbury-8...
- StrictDabbler 4y ago
  It is baffling that Bradbury was able to write The Murderer in 1953. The transistor was invented in 1947 and the first fully transistorized radio wasn't available until a year after Bradbury published this, but he got all the way through predicting ringtones, smartwatches, housing automation, GPS digital dispatch/gig economy jobs, and smarmy digital assistants in the span of a single story. I am not aware of a more prescient bit of science fiction. Bradbury knew how people worked and what we'd try to make. If you haven't read The Murderer, please do so.
  - ren_engineer 4y ago
    he basically just worked from first principles of human nature and took it to the logical conclusion
  - mpettitt 4y ago
    Ever read "The Machine Stops" by EM Forster? Over 100 years old, and it's got Facebook style interactions!
    - scandox 4y ago
      Yes and video calls that are "good enough".
    - devindotcom 4y ago
      The most prescient fiction work of the century, in my opinion.
cableshaft 4y ago
Several years ago I participated in a local writing anthology that was about "Near Myths", i.e. taking existing myths and fairy tales and twisting them in some way. I wasn't feeling inspired by any until I thought of Harrison Bergeron, which was a childhood favorite story of mine and left a lasting impression. I decided to twist the story and make it about a world in which everyone had to constantly be coming up with new ideas, and couldn't think of the same ideas twice, or else they'd be punished (squeezed by a collar, that I called Doublethought Inhibitors), as the world craves novelty and new ideas and the government recognized it and decided to enforce it. There wasn't any TVs anymore, as those showed the same images to people, just individual Inspirators that showed unique imagery to everyone to help them come up with new ideas. One cute thing I just remembered now that I'm reading it over again for the first time in a couple years. In Harrison Bergeron, the couple is named George and Hazel. In my story, I decided to name my couple Curious and Nut. You have to compare their names in both stories to catch the joke there. It's not the same story but I did refer to the original while writing it and kind of kept similar beats. Ended up calling it 'Fatterson Boogieton', just what popped into my head when I was trying to twist the original name. It's mostly a humorous story anyway, that tends to be what I write. The paperback of the anthology is on Amazon pretty cheaply at the moment, if anyone is curious. They never made a Kindle version, which is unfortunate. https://www.amazon.com/Near-Myths-Tim-Yao/dp/1977642527/ https://www.amazon.com/Near-Myths-Tim-Yao/dp/1977642527/ I should probably get the story online somewhere. It's been long enough I should be able to do so now. Not sure where though, without creating a proper personal website again.
- Vecr 4y ago
  Similar to the r9k 4chan board and the xkcd post that inspired it, yeah?
  - cableshaft 4y ago
    Wasn't aware of that, but yeah, kind of. Thanks for sharing, that's pretty interesting.
hprotagonist 4y ago
ahh, yes. Repudiate the diana moon glampers of the world, no matter their intentions.
germinalphrase 4y ago
There is a fairly good cinematic adaptation called "2081" with Armie Hammer playing Harrison.
cowllin 4y ago
The ~25 minute short film titled 2081 of this story is amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GVHgpCnBmk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GVHgpCnBmk
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hirundo 4y ago
- falcolas 4y ago
  Nah. Abelist is expecting that everyone is capable of and should perform to Harrison's level - that not performing to Harrison's level is a failure by the individual.
- axolotlgod 4y ago
  No. Ableism (not sure why the quotes, comes off as a little sarcastic) is expecting and demeaning individuals--either purposefully or implicitly due to environmental design--for not achieving some arbitrary standard of “normal”. No one advocating for better treatment of people is suggesting a Bergeron-esque reality where those who are performing must be handicapped for equality. It is more about making social systems and attitudes welcoming for those who were traditionally seen as worthless (especially in a system that valued productive work above the health of the individual). Making room for others doesn't mean dragging others down, you know?
travisgriggs 4y ago
This is one of my favorite stories ever. I have never seen it as particularly anti socialism per se. Through most of KVs parables, there is a satire of what happens when we use forced constraint and compulsion to achieve a desired behavior. History has examples of how things go pear shaped when religious/right movements force people to behave a certain way, from the crusades to the current arguments about women’s rights in both the US and Iran at the moment. I’ve always seen KV’s tales as a warning to lefter leaning ideologies, that if you use the same compulsory means to achieve your left leaning goals, you’ll end up with equally wonky results as using the same means to achieve right leaning goals. You can’t _make_ people good. The people of a society have to choose to be good (for whatever arbitrary measure of morality your society has created).
motohagiography 4y ago
Revisiting mid-century dystopian fiction seems like it might yield some insights about the present. I didn't know who the story was by until the last line. I studied his work in 9th grade english class, and it just clicked how meaningful it is that I was part of a lot of experimental education programs as a kid. One could legitimately say I escaped from a lab, and my phone has also been on silent mode with alerts turned off for at least a decade now. Maybe we can attract the eyre of the very-concerned about old sci-fi and let them make it into a moral panic?
- absolutelynobo 4y ago
  Ire?
  - motohagiography 4y ago
    Indeed, ire. I was mixing it up with someone's name when I dashed that off. Should remember it from Dies Irae.
falcolas 4y ago
Ironically, I personally have always felt a kinship to the character George Bergeron. Why? Because it's a shockingly accurate depiction of how ADHD's lack of control over one's own concentration feels. Normal stimuli can be like the sounds coming from his earpiece. Unique, unpredictable, and they wreck utter havoc on your ability to concentrate. But sometimes the sounds don't come for hours, and your mind won't - can't - break free of its current task without those sounds. Anyways. Always a favorite story of mine.
DubiousPusher 4y ago
Honestly, I hate this story. As a disabled kid with an IEP and getting government aid I really didn't need to read this in high school.
LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
/me thinks reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Basis_of_a_Backward_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Basis_of_a_Backward_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_selection_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_selection_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality would be more productive.
- greenie_beans 4y ago
  i think this: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-c...
  - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
    Could be. Tabbed for later. Thx. edit: I have that site bookmarked already, and browse there from time to time.
    - greenie_beans 4y ago
      conquest of bread is a fundamental anarcho-communist book and kind of addresses some of those themes you linked if you draw your own conclusions while reading it
- falcolas 4y ago
  Not everything related to learning requires perfect efficiency. Fiction is a fantastic way to take dry principles and make them relatable. Read those wikipedia articles and Harrison Bergeron if you really want to get the most out of those factual articles and fictional story. To put it another way, productivity is not - nor should it be - the milestone by which we evaluate our lives.
elmer007 4y ago
What's going on in the reviews? Benjamin Khavasov coming in hot after 6 years.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  Yes, I thought the same thing. And the review Khavasov was replying to referenced other reviews that i didn’t see. Very strange.
notenoughbeans 4y ago
As someone that struggled with envy as a kid, this story spoke to me. It made me think twice about trying to tear people down that I thought were hogging the spotlight. Although, I'm sure there were people in my class that identified with Harrison and thought that everyone else was holding them back.
snarkerson 4y ago
The enforced equality of outcome is extended into the extreme. So is it of value when not in the extreme?
- davidw 4y ago
  One of the many reasons I hated this story when I read it in high school was because it's kind of a straw man with no shades of gray or nuance, and thus felt like kind of a dumb thing to discuss.
- LanceH 4y ago
  Bringing people down for the sake of equality? Depends. Bring in more tax money from the rich and build a safety net...that's pretty popular. Don't allow a student advanced math classes because he'll get ahead of his peers. Unfortunately this is actually being pursued. Title IX in the US might be used for either side of the argument. Everyone should have equal access in education -- positive. We need to get rid of men's soccer so we can balance the scholarship numbers (bad for men's soccer players). No idea why we can't balance football scholarships with academic/art/engineering/architecture/whatever scholarships.
mikewarot 4y ago
I've known that something like this story exists forever, it seems, but upon reading it all I can think about is the woke-ism that seeks to cripple society by making every little non-conformity a problem, and not celebrating differences. It made me really angry... took a moment to wind down. Diana Moon Clampers -- the perfect social justice warrior.
- dublin 4y ago
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Vonnegut, to his credit, died long before he would have had to hear someone accuse him of writing a short story about “wokeism.” The story is about envy. Vonnegut said as much whenever he was asked about it: it’s directly inspired by his own feelings of creative inadequacy. Shoehorning it into some execrable 2022 political statement is embarrassing.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > The story is about envy. So is most 'wokeness.' Envy and power.
      - hombre_fatal 4y ago
        And, as Douglas Murray points out, resentment.
    - rmatt2000 4y ago
      I always read the story as a warning against forced collectivism. Specifically, forcing people to act against what they believe are their own individual interests, and instead sacrifice those interests in order to advance the goals of the wider society.
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      Yes the story is about envy. And wokeism is also about envy. So the comparison is fair.
jcynix 4y ago
BTW, there's a Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis which does (or did) digitize Vonnegut's work: http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2011/12/digital-libraries/kurt-vonnegut-memorial-library-tackling-digitization-other-projects-with-76k-in-grants-and-contributions/ http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2011/12/digital-libraries/kur...
tromp 4y ago
> like something the cat drug in TIL that drug is a valid alternative to dragged. In fact about as common according to #google hits.
- dublin 4y ago
  Google hits reflect popular usage, not proper usage. In many cases (like this one, and the even weirder "snuck") there is a big difference between those two...
  - faut_reflechir 4y ago
    Factoid: "snuck" and "drug" have in common that the irregular conjugation is the non-standard one, but are different in that "snuck" is a neologism of the 19th century whereas "drug" is in fact the older standard form, gradually supplanted by "dragged."
  - unwise-exe 4y ago
    Today's popular usage often is tomorrow's proper usage. Even if it is sometimes a bit unfortunate.
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    I'd consider Vonnegut a more legitimate measure of proper usage of English than a dictionary or grammar textbook.
jasonhansel 4y ago
I've always seen this story, less as a parable about our treatment of the disabled (or the gifted), and more as a lesson about envy. It shows what happens when you try to eliminate envy from society by bringing everyone to the same level, so that nobody has any "unfair" advantages. edit: I think the telling line is: > their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in The point isn't to make people equal for the sake of an abstract egalitarian principle, the point is to stop anyone from feeling envious. edit 2: There is one obvious problem with this attempt to prevent envy. When you handicap someone, if the handicaps are visible, you can still tell by looking at the handicaps who has the greatest talent, as happens in the story. A more dystopian version would make the handicaps invisible.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  This seems similar to a common justification for school uniforms. If everybody is made to dress the same way, we can eliminate the bullying that comes with letting people choose their own fashion. Of course, the bullying continues anyway.
- rcktmrtn 4y ago
  I agree, especially considering the version of the story Vonnegut previous told in Sirens of Titan [1]. In that story (written earlier), the people are shown willingly embracing handicaps out of love. Definitely makes an interesting contrast. My theory is that he wrote the later story (Bergeron) is to clarify the distinction you mention. Loving people will want to "handicap" themselves for the sake of solidarity, but you can't turn it around the other way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron#Parallels_with_The_Sirens_of_Titan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron#Parallels_wi...
antiquark 4y ago
Equity equalizes downward.
- falcolas 4y ago
  In this story, yes. In reality, it can be done in either direction. You can give a short person a step more easily than you can chop the legs off a tall person.
  - prottog 4y ago
    In reality, the step has to come from somewhere.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      Well, it sure didn’t come from the tall guy’s legs.
      - prottog 4y ago
        In the end, the "step" (as a metaphor for production) comes from those who produce more to those who produce less, whether due to differences in ability, desire, or circumstance. It's redistribution. And it's entirely fair for you to argue that such redistribution is just, fair, or beneficial for society as a whole, but someone had to work for that step.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    "You can give a short person a step more easily..." Once you get into the territory of cognitive abilities, it is the other way round. Making a dumb person smart is nigh impossible, while you can dull a bright intellect with all sorts of external interventions (various medications or drugs come to mind).
    - falcolas 4y ago
      Are people asking for that? I’ve never heard anybody ask for that. What I have heard people with mental disabilities ask for is accommodations. Don’t put someone who gets panic attacks on call. Let people take medications that helps them without stigmatizing it. Don't mock someone with Tourette’s syndrome when they have a vocal tick. Provide plenty of pto to those with chronic migraines. Small boxes like those help more than you might imagine.
sireat 4y ago
I recently asked twenty college sophomores whether they knew OF Kurt Vonnegut. Not a single person knew. These were twenty bright young persons double majoring in CS and Business Administration. Now there is a disclaimer: the students were mostly from Eastern Europe. However they speak fluent English. In fact I envy how well they carry on their day to day conversations. To add fuel to the fire Vonnegut was widely translated in former Soviet Union. My librarian colleagues almost had a stroke when I told them this story.
softcactus 4y ago
I always interpreted this work as a satire of Ayn Randian style objectivism/exceptionalism. It's funny that in school we were taught that it was a criticism of communism/socialism when I think it's really a criticism of the popular perception of communism/socialism. The underlying premise is a misunderstanding of equity that persists today. The idea behind leftist ideologies is not to handicap the brilliant and able, but to extend the material buffers that allow brilliance to flourish to everyone: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” But at the time and today, people (leftists included) thought that leftist ideology must have been based in envy or some inferiority complex. Harrison Bergeron is that 'meta-ideology' taken to its extreme.
flanbiscuit 4y ago
There was a 1995 adaptation for Showtime starring Sean Astin. It's on Youtube. I remember watching it once back in the late 90's but haven't watched it since, so I can't vouch for its quality but it's definitely a nostalgia trip. The more recent "2081" adaptation might be better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBcpuBRUdNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBcpuBRUdNs
causality0 4y ago
I can't say I really understand the intended meaning behind the story. The ending is obviously fantastical and the author was a socialist, but it also depicts an absurd and brutal form of social equity. Is the whole thing supposed to be sarcastic in the sense of "look what those silly capitalists/individualists think of us and themselves"?
jobs_throwaway 4y ago
Vonnegut, whether you agree with his moral tilt or not, is an absolute master of writing dramatically, thematically simple stories that leave you thinking them over for days, and sometimes years. I read this story in high school and it still comes to mind a handful of times a year.
Animats 4y ago
I've seen this obscure story on HN three times in the last month. I read it decades ago. Did some mainstream event make it popular?
- dusted 4y ago
  This is the first time I saw it, but to be honest, it was referenced by another article which I did read on HN, so it's possible that the author of that article previously found it via HN.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  I don't think any single event made it popular. I think it's a reaction to the 'DEI' zeitgeist generally.
gojomo 4y ago
Thankfully, internet attention-harvesting business models have provided us with an emergent, decentralized 'Handicapper General' functionality. That saves us from the abuses that a formal, centralized agency that enforces equality-of-outcomes might entail.
possiblydrunk 4y ago
In a similar vein ... Now there's no more oak oppression For they passed a noble law And the trees are all kept equal By hatchet, axe, and saw Rush - The Trees
mikewarot 4y ago
I think that such a society would rapidly collapse as there would be nobody left smart enough to maintain the infrastructure, nor handle a crisis.
squeaky-clean 4y ago
Vonnegut may be my favorite author, but I always felt this story was a bit too on the nose. I actually didn't even realize he wrote Harrison Bergeron until many many years after reading it.

240 points by dusted 4y ago

A more readable version: https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

Beauty, and human attraction to beauty, is impossible to overcome. While sometimes informed by culture, attributes like symmetrical faces are desirable across all cultures. And those attributes are often powerfully informed by genetics. Absent absurd handicaps like in the story, people with those attributes will have better lives. Life is not fair. In some ways it’s better that it’s not. Our perception of beauty, and marveling in its wonder, is something that makes us uniquely human.

llanowarelves 4y ago
Even various animals prefer attractive people. It's pretty crazy
- rob74 4y ago
  That doesn't reflect my experience - unless you mean "attractive" by the animal's definition, which in case of a cat might be "someone who feeds me reliably twice a day and cuddles me from time to time".
- waterhouse 4y ago
  That sounds like an interesting result, but I wonder about how such studies were done. Might it be that attractive people are more likely to have certain types of mannerisms or other traits? Did anyone go as far as making people wear clothing or makeup that made them more or less attractive and then putting them in front of the animals?
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  I've noticed that large energetic dogs seem to respect large and strong people more, and show disrespect to smaller people.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cainxinth 4y ago
> Life is not fair. In some ways it’s better that it’s not. Our perception of beauty, and marveling in its wonder, is something that makes us uniquely human. I don't know if I buy either of those statements. Taking the second part first, animals probably can perceive 'beauty': https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/202107/beauty-is-more-skin-deep-and-helps-animals-survive https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/2021... And as for the first part, yes, life isn't fair, which is partially why human societies make rules that attempt to alleviate some of that arbitrariness. The story of Harrison Bergeron is an example of human rules run amok. It should encourage us to create better rules, not abandon them entirely and return to the law of the jungle.
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  "I'm glad life isn't fair. If it were, it means we deserve everything that happens to us." -- paraphrasing a quote from Babylon 5 Principles are superior to rules, but the best we can do in government is making rules. Best they be few, and of high quality.

swyx 4y ago

i dont know Vonnegut's politics but i have always wondered if this story was secretly a fairytale for the right-leaning. it paints wanting equality as intensely evil, holding back the best of humanity. which, yes, true in communist regimes, but you see echoes in some less well considered laws and policies in modern life. i am afraid to like, or even publicly discuss, the story because of what it might say about me.

ep103 4y ago
This story was part of a collection of literature that came out shortly after it became irrefutably understood on the left, that the USSR had failed and become a totalitarian state. Early on in USSR's history most of the socialistically leaning world was hopeful that the USSR might still be, to some degree, working out as hoped. It was extremely hard to get unbiased reporting about what was actually happening within its borders, which allowed some die-hard supporters to hold out hope. But when the USSR put down the Hungarian revolution in 56, there was no denying this any longer. This story wasn't support of right wing politics. It was anti-totalitarian.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  > most of the socialistically leaning world was hopeful that the USSR might still be, to some degree, working out as hoped. I have to wonder what you mean by "most". Because as early as 1921 the Bolsheviks were supressing anarcho-communists in Ukraine, purging former Mensheviks, putting the SRs on trial and seizing food from starving peasants. All of which was highly contentious and written about combatively in anarchist and socialist newspapers. Perhaps by "most" you refer to the largely student and professional class socialists who lived in Bourgeoisie democracies largely untouched by the history of Bolshevik domination and who for some reason have become the most visible historical standard bearer of socialism in western pop culture.
  - ep103 4y ago
    Perhaps the word most was too loose, but yes, I understand the history. I also understand that what reporting that came out of Russia was mixed, and heavily propagandized by both sides, so if you were living through it, and were in the Western world, it was hard to know for certain exactly what was and was not true, and what the real causes and effects of what was going on were, until years later. Historically, the breaking point for many in the West to give up on the USSR as a clearly totalitarian state, for which excuses could no longer justify their actions, was the suppression of Hungarian revolution.

UnpossibleJim 4y ago

This story had an amazing effect on me as a child and before it begins, yes I have a disability (though a so called invisible disability - I have type 1 diabetes and epilepsy). It isn't that we should turn a blind eye to the disabled, as many use it as a parable for. Many disabled do need extra help, but that help comes in the form of lifting up, not pushing down those who are able. The able should be encouraged, in their own way. Everyone needs to excel in an area that is their own and have a space to grow (oh God, I've turned into a hippy =/). I worry that this parable, the true meaning of this parable, has been washed-out over the years to be used only as a sword and not the shield it was meant to be.

geysersam 4y ago
Interesting. I've always felt the story to be a bit of a straw man. Don't we always celebrate and idolize ability, beauty etc?
- josephcsible 4y ago
  There have been school districts lately that have been getting rid of advanced math classes in the name of equality.
  - pydry 4y ago
    This is probably a vain attempt by management to put a shine on a cost cutting exercise. There is a poisonous ideology at work in the background but ultimately defunding schools comes from a desire for more inequality, not less.
    - woooooo 4y ago
      Who do you mean by management, here? The superintendent, the school board, the city council or the voters?
    - Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
      "A desire for more inequality"? That smacks of "good people support Policy X, even if it achieves the opposite of its goals in the long run. To acknowledge that and oppose Policy X, even on its own merits, makes you evil in intent." Few people actually have desires like "I want more inequality", even if they oppose a policy which intends to decrease it.

spicyusername 4y ago

Treating different things the same can generate as much inequality as treating the same things differently. - Kimberlé Crenshaw

superb-owl 4y ago

This story is typically seen as a critique of socialism, but it's more likely that Vonnegut intended it as a critique of critiques of socialism [1]. Vonnegut himself was a socialist [2], and the absurdist tone of the story reinforces this idea. [1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/197545/03882696bfa8a19df975946fa70f142c.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/197545/03882696bf... [2] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/04/kurt-vonneguts-socialism-from-outer-space https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/04/kurt-vonneguts-socialism-fr...

mistrial9 4y ago
thanks so much for reducing this emotional work of art to a political check box?
- danso 4y ago
  Seems reductionist to think that Kurt Vonnegut was writing only/mostly from emotion, and that he didn't intend for it be political commentary/satire.
- golemotron 4y ago
  We're talking about a guy who reduced all story telling to a set of 8 graphs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ
- fullshark 4y ago
  I'm not sure I should like it until I learn what side of the current cultural/political war it's on.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Vonnegut was a highly political writer, as SF writers often are. His most famous work is the extremely traumatized "Slaughterhouse 5", after all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five That doesn't mean it can or should be neatly mapped to the left/right distinction or culture wars of the current moment. Especially when people have so many bizarre ideas about what constitutes "left" or "socialism".

Bakary 4y ago

It's not clear to me if the story is supposed to be a second degree satire of left-leaning doctrine or a third degree satire of right-leaning fantasies. No matter its goal, the story hits a raw nerve. The mix of emotions over inequality, natural superiority, and its implications one way or the other is one of the strongest cocktails, I feel.

WFHRenaissance 4y ago
What's a first degree satire look like then?
- qsort 4y ago
  Just like a third, fifth, seventh... degree one, I imagine.
- Bakary 4y ago
  It can't exist by definition. Or if it can I'm not equipped to visualize it.
  - WFHRenaissance 4y ago
    >the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. This is first degree satire. Your third degree satire is actually satire in the second degree.
    - Bakary 4y ago
      After checking it looks like the expression second degree doesn't map to English from my own language and I was translating too literally (in the first degree? lol)
- swayvil 4y ago
  Playing it totally straight.

Parmenidea 4y ago

My hot take is that this story is highly overrated. It’s boring, poorly written, and lacks nuance. The reason people remember it fondly is (1) everyone loves Vonnegut because he’s funny, so they don’t want to criticize it and (2) everyone read this story in middle school and are blinded by nostalgia.

dkarl 4y ago
I think it has a special place in the hearts of people who are especially affected by interruptions, more because of what is concretely inflicted on the title character than because of the abstract argument about equality and inequality. There was no language for talking about being sensitive to interruptions back then, and there isn't really now unless you have some kind of diagnosis. My wife does not understand that speaking to me every ten or fifteen minutes affects my ability to concentrate and do my job. As an adult with a high-paying job, I'm able to rent space at a coworker space so that we don't have constant fights about it that affect our marriage. For children living in loud homes where people constantly yell and blare the TV, and trapped in classrooms with other children who scream and disrupt simply because they can't stand quiet, they have no ability to escape, but at least they have some validation in the form of this story, proof that a famous and successful person recognized their experience as real.
- MockObject 4y ago
  I always thought that the interruption theme was not at all the point of the story, but simply the most disturbing handicap from the perspective of an author.
yamtaddle 4y ago
I'm with you. I think it's one of Vonnegut's weaker works. The only reason I'd recommend someone read it is because it comes up a lot.
mmmpop 4y ago
As mentioned in this thread already, it's almost certainly a parody of what an unsophisticated person thinks government forced "equity" measures would look like in a dystopian future. But in my opinion, if Vonnegut were alive today, he may find a little less humor in it seeing how far we've come in making his silly fiction closer to reality.

nbernard 4y ago

IMHO, the short film 2081 [0], based on this story, is also worth watching. [0]: http://www.finallyequal.com/ http://www.finallyequal.com/

egypturnash 4y ago

Captive to our smartphones, distracted constantly by an endless succession of oh-so-important notifications for trivial things. Who in modern life does not feel a little like Harrison Bergeron with his federally-mandated thought-train-interrupting earpiece? And who among us cannot sympathize with Albert Brock, The Murderer? https://www.readkong.com/page/the-murderer-by-ray-bradbury-8004400 https://www.readkong.com/page/the-murderer-by-ray-bradbury-8...

StrictDabbler 4y ago
It is baffling that Bradbury was able to write The Murderer in 1953. The transistor was invented in 1947 and the first fully transistorized radio wasn't available until a year after Bradbury published this, but he got all the way through predicting ringtones, smartwatches, housing automation, GPS digital dispatch/gig economy jobs, and smarmy digital assistants in the span of a single story. I am not aware of a more prescient bit of science fiction. Bradbury knew how people worked and what we'd try to make. If you haven't read The Murderer, please do so.
- ren_engineer 4y ago
  he basically just worked from first principles of human nature and took it to the logical conclusion
- mpettitt 4y ago
  Ever read "The Machine Stops" by EM Forster? Over 100 years old, and it's got Facebook style interactions!
  - scandox 4y ago
    Yes and video calls that are "good enough".
  - devindotcom 4y ago
    The most prescient fiction work of the century, in my opinion.

cableshaft 4y ago

Several years ago I participated in a local writing anthology that was about "Near Myths", i.e. taking existing myths and fairy tales and twisting them in some way. I wasn't feeling inspired by any until I thought of Harrison Bergeron, which was a childhood favorite story of mine and left a lasting impression. I decided to twist the story and make it about a world in which everyone had to constantly be coming up with new ideas, and couldn't think of the same ideas twice, or else they'd be punished (squeezed by a collar, that I called Doublethought Inhibitors), as the world craves novelty and new ideas and the government recognized it and decided to enforce it. There wasn't any TVs anymore, as those showed the same images to people, just individual Inspirators that showed unique imagery to everyone to help them come up with new ideas. One cute thing I just remembered now that I'm reading it over again for the first time in a couple years. In Harrison Bergeron, the couple is named George and Hazel. In my story, I decided to name my couple Curious and Nut. You have to compare their names in both stories to catch the joke there. It's not the same story but I did refer to the original while writing it and kind of kept similar beats. Ended up calling it 'Fatterson Boogieton', just what popped into my head when I was trying to twist the original name. It's mostly a humorous story anyway, that tends to be what I write. The paperback of the anthology is on Amazon pretty cheaply at the moment, if anyone is curious. They never made a Kindle version, which is unfortunate. https://www.amazon.com/Near-Myths-Tim-Yao/dp/1977642527/ https://www.amazon.com/Near-Myths-Tim-Yao/dp/1977642527/ I should probably get the story online somewhere. It's been long enough I should be able to do so now. Not sure where though, without creating a proper personal website again.

Vecr 4y ago
Similar to the r9k 4chan board and the xkcd post that inspired it, yeah?
- cableshaft 4y ago
  Wasn't aware of that, but yeah, kind of. Thanks for sharing, that's pretty interesting.

hprotagonist 4y ago

ahh, yes. Repudiate the diana moon glampers of the world, no matter their intentions.

germinalphrase 4y ago

There is a fairly good cinematic adaptation called "2081" with Armie Hammer playing Harrison.

cowllin 4y ago

The ~25 minute short film titled 2081 of this story is amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GVHgpCnBmk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GVHgpCnBmk

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hirundo 4y ago

falcolas 4y ago
Nah. Abelist is expecting that everyone is capable of and should perform to Harrison's level - that not performing to Harrison's level is a failure by the individual.
axolotlgod 4y ago
No. Ableism (not sure why the quotes, comes off as a little sarcastic) is expecting and demeaning individuals--either purposefully or implicitly due to environmental design--for not achieving some arbitrary standard of “normal”. No one advocating for better treatment of people is suggesting a Bergeron-esque reality where those who are performing must be handicapped for equality. It is more about making social systems and attitudes welcoming for those who were traditionally seen as worthless (especially in a system that valued productive work above the health of the individual). Making room for others doesn't mean dragging others down, you know?

travisgriggs 4y ago

This is one of my favorite stories ever. I have never seen it as particularly anti socialism per se. Through most of KVs parables, there is a satire of what happens when we use forced constraint and compulsion to achieve a desired behavior. History has examples of how things go pear shaped when religious/right movements force people to behave a certain way, from the crusades to the current arguments about women’s rights in both the US and Iran at the moment. I’ve always seen KV’s tales as a warning to lefter leaning ideologies, that if you use the same compulsory means to achieve your left leaning goals, you’ll end up with equally wonky results as using the same means to achieve right leaning goals. You can’t _make_ people good. The people of a society have to choose to be good (for whatever arbitrary measure of morality your society has created).

motohagiography 4y ago

Revisiting mid-century dystopian fiction seems like it might yield some insights about the present. I didn't know who the story was by until the last line. I studied his work in 9th grade english class, and it just clicked how meaningful it is that I was part of a lot of experimental education programs as a kid. One could legitimately say I escaped from a lab, and my phone has also been on silent mode with alerts turned off for at least a decade now. Maybe we can attract the eyre of the very-concerned about old sci-fi and let them make it into a moral panic?

absolutelynobo 4y ago
Ire?
- motohagiography 4y ago
  Indeed, ire. I was mixing it up with someone's name when I dashed that off. Should remember it from Dies Irae.

falcolas 4y ago

Ironically, I personally have always felt a kinship to the character George Bergeron. Why? Because it's a shockingly accurate depiction of how ADHD's lack of control over one's own concentration feels. Normal stimuli can be like the sounds coming from his earpiece. Unique, unpredictable, and they wreck utter havoc on your ability to concentrate. But sometimes the sounds don't come for hours, and your mind won't - can't - break free of its current task without those sounds. Anyways. Always a favorite story of mine.

DubiousPusher 4y ago

Honestly, I hate this story. As a disabled kid with an IEP and getting government aid I really didn't need to read this in high school.

LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago

/me thinks reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Basis_of_a_Backward_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Basis_of_a_Backward_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_selection_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_selection_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality would be more productive.

greenie_beans 4y ago
i think this: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-c...
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  Could be. Tabbed for later. Thx. edit: I have that site bookmarked already, and browse there from time to time.
  - greenie_beans 4y ago
    conquest of bread is a fundamental anarcho-communist book and kind of addresses some of those themes you linked if you draw your own conclusions while reading it
falcolas 4y ago
Not everything related to learning requires perfect efficiency. Fiction is a fantastic way to take dry principles and make them relatable. Read those wikipedia articles and Harrison Bergeron if you really want to get the most out of those factual articles and fictional story. To put it another way, productivity is not - nor should it be - the milestone by which we evaluate our lives.

elmer007 4y ago

What's going on in the reviews? Benjamin Khavasov coming in hot after 6 years.

ineedasername 4y ago
Yes, I thought the same thing. And the review Khavasov was replying to referenced other reviews that i didn’t see. Very strange.

notenoughbeans 4y ago

As someone that struggled with envy as a kid, this story spoke to me. It made me think twice about trying to tear people down that I thought were hogging the spotlight. Although, I'm sure there were people in my class that identified with Harrison and thought that everyone else was holding them back.

snarkerson 4y ago

The enforced equality of outcome is extended into the extreme. So is it of value when not in the extreme?

davidw 4y ago
One of the many reasons I hated this story when I read it in high school was because it's kind of a straw man with no shades of gray or nuance, and thus felt like kind of a dumb thing to discuss.
LanceH 4y ago
Bringing people down for the sake of equality? Depends. Bring in more tax money from the rich and build a safety net...that's pretty popular. Don't allow a student advanced math classes because he'll get ahead of his peers. Unfortunately this is actually being pursued. Title IX in the US might be used for either side of the argument. Everyone should have equal access in education -- positive. We need to get rid of men's soccer so we can balance the scholarship numbers (bad for men's soccer players). No idea why we can't balance football scholarships with academic/art/engineering/architecture/whatever scholarships.

mikewarot 4y ago

I've known that something like this story exists forever, it seems, but upon reading it all I can think about is the woke-ism that seeks to cripple society by making every little non-conformity a problem, and not celebrating differences. It made me really angry... took a moment to wind down. Diana Moon Clampers -- the perfect social justice warrior.

dublin 4y ago
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Vonnegut, to his credit, died long before he would have had to hear someone accuse him of writing a short story about “wokeism.” The story is about envy. Vonnegut said as much whenever he was asked about it: it’s directly inspired by his own feelings of creative inadequacy. Shoehorning it into some execrable 2022 political statement is embarrassing.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > The story is about envy. So is most 'wokeness.' Envy and power.
    - hombre_fatal 4y ago
      And, as Douglas Murray points out, resentment.
  - rmatt2000 4y ago
    I always read the story as a warning against forced collectivism. Specifically, forcing people to act against what they believe are their own individual interests, and instead sacrifice those interests in order to advance the goals of the wider society.
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    Yes the story is about envy. And wokeism is also about envy. So the comparison is fair.

jcynix 4y ago

BTW, there's a Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis which does (or did) digitize Vonnegut's work: http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2011/12/digital-libraries/kurt-vonnegut-memorial-library-tackling-digitization-other-projects-with-76k-in-grants-and-contributions/ http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2011/12/digital-libraries/kur...

tromp 4y ago

> like something the cat drug in TIL that drug is a valid alternative to dragged. In fact about as common according to #google hits.

dublin 4y ago
Google hits reflect popular usage, not proper usage. In many cases (like this one, and the even weirder "snuck") there is a big difference between those two...
- faut_reflechir 4y ago
  Factoid: "snuck" and "drug" have in common that the irregular conjugation is the non-standard one, but are different in that "snuck" is a neologism of the 19th century whereas "drug" is in fact the older standard form, gradually supplanted by "dragged."
- unwise-exe 4y ago
  Today's popular usage often is tomorrow's proper usage. Even if it is sometimes a bit unfortunate.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  I'd consider Vonnegut a more legitimate measure of proper usage of English than a dictionary or grammar textbook.

jasonhansel 4y ago

I've always seen this story, less as a parable about our treatment of the disabled (or the gifted), and more as a lesson about envy. It shows what happens when you try to eliminate envy from society by bringing everyone to the same level, so that nobody has any "unfair" advantages. edit: I think the telling line is: > their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in The point isn't to make people equal for the sake of an abstract egalitarian principle, the point is to stop anyone from feeling envious. edit 2: There is one obvious problem with this attempt to prevent envy. When you handicap someone, if the handicaps are visible, you can still tell by looking at the handicaps who has the greatest talent, as happens in the story. A more dystopian version would make the handicaps invisible.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
This seems similar to a common justification for school uniforms. If everybody is made to dress the same way, we can eliminate the bullying that comes with letting people choose their own fashion. Of course, the bullying continues anyway.
rcktmrtn 4y ago
I agree, especially considering the version of the story Vonnegut previous told in Sirens of Titan [1]. In that story (written earlier), the people are shown willingly embracing handicaps out of love. Definitely makes an interesting contrast. My theory is that he wrote the later story (Bergeron) is to clarify the distinction you mention. Loving people will want to "handicap" themselves for the sake of solidarity, but you can't turn it around the other way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron#Parallels_with_The_Sirens_of_Titan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron#Parallels_wi...

antiquark 4y ago

Equity equalizes downward.

falcolas 4y ago
In this story, yes. In reality, it can be done in either direction. You can give a short person a step more easily than you can chop the legs off a tall person.
- prottog 4y ago
  In reality, the step has to come from somewhere.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Well, it sure didn’t come from the tall guy’s legs.
    - prottog 4y ago
      In the end, the "step" (as a metaphor for production) comes from those who produce more to those who produce less, whether due to differences in ability, desire, or circumstance. It's redistribution. And it's entirely fair for you to argue that such redistribution is just, fair, or beneficial for society as a whole, but someone had to work for that step.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  "You can give a short person a step more easily..." Once you get into the territory of cognitive abilities, it is the other way round. Making a dumb person smart is nigh impossible, while you can dull a bright intellect with all sorts of external interventions (various medications or drugs come to mind).
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Are people asking for that? I’ve never heard anybody ask for that. What I have heard people with mental disabilities ask for is accommodations. Don’t put someone who gets panic attacks on call. Let people take medications that helps them without stigmatizing it. Don't mock someone with Tourette’s syndrome when they have a vocal tick. Provide plenty of pto to those with chronic migraines. Small boxes like those help more than you might imagine.

sireat 4y ago

I recently asked twenty college sophomores whether they knew OF Kurt Vonnegut. Not a single person knew. These were twenty bright young persons double majoring in CS and Business Administration. Now there is a disclaimer: the students were mostly from Eastern Europe. However they speak fluent English. In fact I envy how well they carry on their day to day conversations. To add fuel to the fire Vonnegut was widely translated in former Soviet Union. My librarian colleagues almost had a stroke when I told them this story.

softcactus 4y ago

I always interpreted this work as a satire of Ayn Randian style objectivism/exceptionalism. It's funny that in school we were taught that it was a criticism of communism/socialism when I think it's really a criticism of the popular perception of communism/socialism. The underlying premise is a misunderstanding of equity that persists today. The idea behind leftist ideologies is not to handicap the brilliant and able, but to extend the material buffers that allow brilliance to flourish to everyone: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” But at the time and today, people (leftists included) thought that leftist ideology must have been based in envy or some inferiority complex. Harrison Bergeron is that 'meta-ideology' taken to its extreme.

flanbiscuit 4y ago

There was a 1995 adaptation for Showtime starring Sean Astin. It's on Youtube. I remember watching it once back in the late 90's but haven't watched it since, so I can't vouch for its quality but it's definitely a nostalgia trip. The more recent "2081" adaptation might be better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBcpuBRUdNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBcpuBRUdNs

causality0 4y ago

I can't say I really understand the intended meaning behind the story. The ending is obviously fantastical and the author was a socialist, but it also depicts an absurd and brutal form of social equity. Is the whole thing supposed to be sarcastic in the sense of "look what those silly capitalists/individualists think of us and themselves"?

jobs_throwaway 4y ago

Vonnegut, whether you agree with his moral tilt or not, is an absolute master of writing dramatically, thematically simple stories that leave you thinking them over for days, and sometimes years. I read this story in high school and it still comes to mind a handful of times a year.

Animats 4y ago

I've seen this obscure story on HN three times in the last month. I read it decades ago. Did some mainstream event make it popular?

dusted 4y ago
This is the first time I saw it, but to be honest, it was referenced by another article which I did read on HN, so it's possible that the author of that article previously found it via HN.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
I don't think any single event made it popular. I think it's a reaction to the 'DEI' zeitgeist generally.

gojomo 4y ago

Thankfully, internet attention-harvesting business models have provided us with an emergent, decentralized 'Handicapper General' functionality. That saves us from the abuses that a formal, centralized agency that enforces equality-of-outcomes might entail.

possiblydrunk 4y ago

In a similar vein ... Now there's no more oak oppression For they passed a noble law And the trees are all kept equal By hatchet, axe, and saw Rush - The Trees

mikewarot 4y ago

I think that such a society would rapidly collapse as there would be nobody left smart enough to maintain the infrastructure, nor handle a crisis.

squeaky-clean 4y ago

Vonnegut may be my favorite author, but I always felt this story was a bit too on the nose. I actually didn't even realize he wrote Harrison Bergeron until many many years after reading it.