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"I can't be sure, but there is a possibility that my story "Harrison Bergeron" is about the envy and self-pity I felt in an over-achievers' high school in India
by rufus_foreman 4y ago
"I can't be sure, but there is a possibility that my story "Harrison Bergeron" is about the envy and self-pity I felt in an over-achievers' high school in Indianapolis quite a while ago now. Some people never tame those emotions. John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald and Mark David Chapman come to mind. "Handicapper Generals," if you like."
- Vonnegut
- Pxtl 4y agoThat fits. It sounds like it's not the high-minded anticommunist social criticism that conservatives want it to be, but more of just grousing about the tall-poppy problem of high-school that I think most gen-X-and-older nerds would be more than familiar with.
- lliamander 4y agoIt can be validly used as a criticism of socialism, even if not so intended by the author. George Orwell, also a socialist, famously noted that many of his fellow socialists were motivated more by envy and resentment toward the rich than by compassion for the poor. As others have commented, envy could certainly be attributed as the cause of many "social justice" minded policies we see today. Those on the right would argue that (barring some virtuous individual socialists) socialism is at root an ideology for justifying envy.