Harrison Bergeron

[|Ruchira|]

You might have discussed this is class but do you agree with the concept of equality that's in this story?

I personally find this ridiculous. Equality, to me, is treating everybody the same, not hating on people for how they look or how they chose to live their lives etc. It's more of an emotion, how one treats others. Not so much of changing others' intelligence or appearance to make them "equal" to others. The story doesn't do that. For example instead of saying that everybody is beautiful, they make "beautiful" people wear masks to make them the same as the "average" people. What do you think?

[brandonina]

I agree with you Ruchira. It's not equal if everybody isn't treated equally, which I found it very easily in the story. It's even ridiculous to judge people if they're beautiful or not, which is determined by the government. Forcing "beautiful" people wear masks to make them "average" people seems very absurd as well. To me, that's not right at all and is against the idea of seeking for "equal" society. . As we talked about it during class, equality should also be based on racial, gender, economic stability, and other factors that might seem more important that beauty and intelligence. Therefore, the story tells us how society is more concerned with making "beautiful" people ugly and "intelligent" people malfunctioning. Therefore, I believe the definition of "equality" in this story isn't what we, in this society, should pursue in real lives.

[sorn]

I also agree with you Ruchira. I think that everyone in the society should be treated the same. People should not be judge from what they look like. People also should not be judge from their level of intelligent, their race, their personal background, their strength, etc. Everyone is born differently with different ability and different way of approaching something. If everyone in the society is the same, then their will be no developments, discoveries, knowledge, ideas, etc.

For me I think that people who are talented and has great accomplishments are rather "inspiring" for me. Cause they inspire me to become a better person and to be able to stand in the place they are now. I wouldn't want to put on "masks" or "special handicaps" on those inspiriting people to make myself better. Rather than making them look bad, I would try my hardest to make myself as good as they are and challenge my abilities (both physically and mentally).

[sazad100]

I agree with what you said Ruchira. The government in this story is trying to make everybody equal by putting stupid things on them to make them average. If i was there in a situation like this and saw other people wearing masks, earpieces and heavy bags for their beauty, intelligence and strength and if i had none of them then i would feel bad for myself because i would feel like i'm not strong,beautiful or intelligent, I would know by this handicaps that i naturally I am not equal to them. The government is doing this to make everybody happy, but if it was reality would anyone be happy? I don't think so. This government is clearly a communist. The government makes all the decision and people are not free to do anything.

[sergeyfen]

I agree with you Ruchira. It is very ridiculous, people cant choose to be born prettier or smarter than other people. Government is doing a big mistake in making people into average. Everybody has diferent view on average, for some people average is way higher than to the other people. Instead of making people into average group, they should motivate other people to be the best that they can. There is no point of making people into average if they are capable of being more than an average. Also life is boring if eveyone is same, people want to be happy and live a happy life, but it turns out its like a prison to do something that is the most normal thing into paying fine or inprisoning people. Im kind of going a little bit of topic, if to imagine a family those are people closest to each other but if wife or husband wearing masks how stupid is that? You want to see real person that you want to have kids and be with that person forever and you cant even see their face, its just not logic.
Basicly i think governemnt should give people freedom and not force them to do something they dont want to especially wearing masks if just they were born pretty or smart. Government should help those people who werent that fortunate to be born with those features or who werent working to get it, so at the end people would be happier and just better people. Governemnt is just being ridiculous because they are doing whatever they want to and not getting punished for that.

[gb1708]

I agree with you Ruchira. In the story, the Handicapper General didn't wear any handicap and why any people didn't be jealous about it? The author mentioned that people who had higher level about intelligence, beauty, strength were forced to wear handicap. What about dump, crazy, deaf, blind... people ? The government will make them become better like average people or make all become dump or crazy. I think Handicapper General and government want to control the world.

[KevinW]

C-c-c-c-combo breaker! What combo did I break? The "I (also) agree with you Ruchira." combo of course! I found it interesting that all four (EDIT: Now five) replies begin with that line first and foremost.

I also find it rather funny, from my current perspective, regarding the posts. You all are lobbying for something that seems most logical - to try and enforce civil rights equality as opposed to physical equality. In the story, it's the latter they enforce. But I suspect Vonnegut is poking a hole at our concept of equality. Here's why:

In our world today (this holds true for earlier society as well), wealth, fame and power are all acquired first by crafty and capable men and women. They hoard resources, fame and gain power through their skills and talents - be it singing as a celebrity, managing a business, or manipulating and backstabbing as some rogue politician. This creates a vast imbalance in society, and their heirs inherit these wealth and[/b] may use it to acquire even more wealth!
Just about what we'd call the vicious cycle of greed. Later generations continue from their parents until someone screws up, but with money at your disposal, how well of an education could you buy? As opposed to someone in Shanty Town, you have far better chances at finding your talent, becoming smart, or developing into some sort of genius.
As the rich accrue riches the poor may find it difficult to play catch-up. Socialist government steps in, and tries to move the wealth from the rich people back down to the poor. Why? For equality of course! Now we are treating them differently from a civil rights perspective to compensate for not being able to regulate them from a physical perspective.

It's funny, to me at least. Or was there some terrible flaw in my logic? I am slightly dozy right now, so that may be it.

[ExtremelyExtremeExtremist]

The ludicrous society of United States stroke to me immediately after reading. I am speechless that the government and Handicapper General accomplished a nearly-impossible mission to make completely equal.

To me, making everyone equal by forcing them to put on handicaps is like sending everyone to labor camp and torturing them brutally for a lifetime. Everyone is struggling physically and mentally, but the government doesn't know what they are doing wrong.

Aditionally, I would like to say that the government is made for torturing purpose. They forced everyone to wear handicaps, punished them if they didn't put it on, and killed a "normal person" who did a right thing for the future.

[linnie]

From the beginning of the story, I didn't like the concept of equality. I agree with Sergey's opinion that there are no practical standards that divide people from pretty or ugly, smart or not. All people have different opinion and perspectives, thus everyone has different standard of things. Some people might say she is pretty but some might not. This process is unfair compared to other people, because government just set their perspectives as laws, not regarding their citizens.

Another thing to this story is that if our society is created like this, there would be no competition. Since everyone is equal, there is no competitor to compete with. Everyone will have same thought, idea, opinion, skills. If the situation is like this, we would have no improvement and development. If everyone is equal, there would be no technology like smart phones, lights, TV. To improve themselves, they need competitors to compete and compare with. Some would have learned in economics class, competition is one of the big factors to be successful, improve in their skills, and sell objects with cheaper price and such. We can find another real life example with competition. To improve your grade, do you think studying with friends who get low grade will help you improve? Obviously you can help them, but you would hardly improve. If you study with friends with high grades, you would feel more competitive than studying with friends with low grades. So if everyone is equal, the city or country will soon corrupt, I believe.

[esther]

When I first read this story, I thought that if I lived in a society like this where everybody is equal, there would be no problem. There would be no fights and nobody would say that he or she is better than others. But now that I talk about it with you guys, I agree with the fact that there is no equality at all. For example, some people might think that the ballerina in the story is really pretty but some might. It really depends on how people think, so determining 'equality' can never satisfy everybody in this story.

[KevinW]

Aug 28, 2012 9:56:20 GMT -5 ExtremelyExtremeExtremist said:

The ludicrous society of United States stroke to me immediately after reading. I am speechless that the government and Handicapper General accomplished a nearly-impossible mission to make completely equal.

To me, making everyone equal by forcing them [1]to put on handicaps is like sending everyone to labor camp and torturing them brutally for a lifetime. Everyone is struggling physically and mentally, but the government doesn't know what they are doing wrong.

Aditionally, I would like to say that the government is made for torturing purpose. They forced everyone to wear handicaps, punished them if they didn't put it on, and [2] killed a "normal person" who did a right thing for the future.

[1] Is it torture if you aren't aware of it? If you can't feel pain, don't feel resentment, don't think badly of it, is it still evil? If you believe it is the right thing to do, would it still be torture?

[2] ....you mean the fifteen-year old kid who just declared himself emperor of the world?
...doesn't seem like much of an improvement. I can see him quickly falling into another regime...time and time again we've seen this in our world.

[JustinK.]

Why is the government in the story doing something wrong? If you were to be the government, what would you do? Isn't it better to take advantage of the people and gain wealth and absolute power, rather then dealing with rebels that will eventually rise up. For example, Harrison rebelled, but got killed right away, which prevents further gathering of rebels. You can't control what people like or not like. No matter what you do as a president, there will be people out there that disagrees, which can lead to overthrowing the government (you).

Imagine that you are the president of XXX (country name) and you have control over anything, you have military forces to support you. Everyone warships you like god. Won't you like it?

[nadiraamalina]

I would definitely do things in a different way from Diana Moon Glamper's. First of all, if it was her idea to impose the handicaps upon the people at all, at least her heart's in the right place. Shooting Harrison and the ballerina was the only way she knew how to protect the people from change that could potentially be damaging. Besides, trying to put everyone on the same level is a good idea, but it could perhaps be done in a way that was less extreme.
And in fact

In my opinion, however much the government tries to equalize everyone, it takes all kinds of people to make a world, both ordinary and extraordinary. So the government should instead try to put each man in their place, finding the exact balance of expertise and the requirements needed for each job. The government should provide people with salaries appropriate to their expertise and the effort needed to accomplish the task. They should also provide the same opportunities to each people, such as housing, medical care and education.

[dwsuh1]

Yes what you said is right ruchira having handicap and living with the handicap. Also i wonder while i was reading same as you why is handicap going to make people equal to others? I guess author was also trying to tell us that we all talk about equality over world but it really can't exist for real since the same thing will happen as in the story.

This story actually tells us what the limit of equality is just think of us living in world same as a story as everyone saw in the story Hazel couldn't actually remebr things that happened 10 seconds ago and the government used that as average. Then people that is more talented then others will have to have handicap and also people who is known in now days as normal will also wear handicap to make themselves equal to other. So the idea of giving handicap to other to make them equal is actually the worst thing I actually can think of and if that comes true I'll just decide to give up my life in that time or fight against the government.

[elisalee]

I totally agree with Ruchira. Even if equality is something that people should be consider about, but in this story, people's rights are completely ignored. Just because some people are good looking or smart, it doesn't mean the government can just ignore their own rights. The government just force them to wear earphone, masks, etc to just make the world equal. I really don't think that this is a smart choice for the government. People can't choose to born handsome, pretty, and intelligent.