hi~ :P (Harrison Bergeron)

[JustinK.]

The last thread is questioning the concept of equality in the story. As shown, majority of you guys disagreed on how the government try to attain equality.

Well, let me ask you. What is equality and how are you gonna achieve it? Put yourself in the government's shoe and think about what are you gonna do to accomplish this "impossible mission".

At first, I thought that simply giving people liberty will do the trick itself, but what it does is just causing more problems.

www.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/opinion/the-downside-of-liberty.html

This is a website that i found written by Kurt Anderson

In paragraph 9, Kurt talked about letting people do their own thing, which leads to the thinking of "If it feels good, do it ..." (Anderson paragraph 9) Which encourages people to do whatever they want. It could be doing drugs, smoking weed, or rebel whenever they want to.

On the other hand, people were "kept and locked in a cage". Like Kevin W. said, what if the people think that it's the right thing to do, then is it a crime? What i think is that if the people are caged in and has no information about the outside world (example: N. Korea), the people will feel that they are in the best society compared to the rest of the world. Another example is China. They used to be isolated from the world due to the geography, which made them proud of themselves.

I'm still kinda lost so what do you guys think

[|Ruchira|]

Well, I agree with what Anderson said, let people do/be whatever they want to. As long as they are not hurting others. And while the point you made about the N. Koreans and the Chinese being in conditions that might seem strange or unfair to us but normal to them is true, you have to remember that in the book, it was talking about the future. I'm not sure what happened in the past according to the author but I would guess that they were a lot like us, now. So, people in the future would question the government because in their past (our present) people weren't forced to wear masks or ear pieces or sand bags. Or, like Harrison, they can realize that they can do much better without the handicaps.

[dwsuh1]

Equality in my opinion depends on person's perspective. As Justin said people isolated think there society is the best compared to world since they have no out side information. But there is no way to fix this since it is part of human instinct, if you look at North Korea they say that they will succeed on making dictatorship but the true meaning of dictatorship as i remeber was everyone in the country is equal which mean there is no such thing as government, king, queen, solders, etc. things to show power but when human gets this power to control over other they can't handle it which goes out of control and they don't want to lose there power. So what you will have to do is make the people you are ruling over feel like they are living in best condition so government of dictator make them isolated to other to not let them notice they are actually in very bad condition.

and I'm pretty sure they are many more reason why government does these things.

[lukejoo1092]

To me this is somewhat a pointless question. The ideas of having people do what they want and having them to follow strict rules are both a bit wrong. People can't achieve want they want all the time unless they stop others from getting what they want. They must compete to acheive their goals. So a society of citizens who do what they want won't guarantee full freedom. On the other hand, follwing strict rules prohibit people from doing what they want, having them to refrain from their desires and doing things that are against their concept of justice. So not everyone would think that the laws are just. There would be those who feel that they are not free. What I believe which is the answer to this situation is a balance between both. Restricting some areas of life while freeing the others. This of course won't achieve total freedom but it probably will be the most relative form of total freedom. After all, most developed societies today have laws but allow people to pursuit their desires as well.

[esther]

Well what I think is this. I think equality is the hardest thing to achieve in a government for their citizens. There are many kind of equality to everybody. For example, some people think that the laws of the U.S. is equal but some don't. Some think that the laws are unfair.
For another example, I want to say about the North Korea. Many people think that North Korea is a communist country and the leader of that country leads the country in a really bad way. But some people might think that the leader of this country is a perfect leader. Some people loves that leader.
Like this, there are many perspectives of how people look towards equality. In conclusion, I think a country can never satisfy everybody with one rule because not everybody thinks the same way. So in the story, some might think it is a country where everybody IS equal, but some might think it is not equal at all.

[sazad100]

I completely agree with Esther in this one. Different people think differently about equality. Some people might think that equality is to see all the citizens of a country in the same manner. No one is bigger or smaller which is kinda commmunism but some might disagree with it. Some might think that equality is to allow everybody to do whatever they want no matter what their background is. The problem as a government comes when people with different ideas live in the same country. If the government takes one of the system the other might get agree and sad and will not find theselves equal to the society. So it is kinda impossible to achieve equality in a country.

[elisalee]

I think that the concept of equality is viewed differently according to people's perspectives. People have different thoughts. Also for equality, people can have many various types of different thoughts. Everybody's opinions can't be the same. There isn't any conflicts that happened in North Korea between citizens. So that proves that it really depends on who the person is, because we have different perspectives.

[junilee26]

I honestly think equality can not be achieved. Everyone has different perspectives, opinions, and beliefs. Equality is a mission impossible. People might think I'm too negative about this. However let's face the truth, in the United States, they have tried their hardest to make everything equal to every citizens. Despite the fact that they tried there were still many racism going on and also looking down on women. Every person on the planet can not agree on one thing because of their backgrounds, culture, and what their parents have thought them.

[linnie]

As Juni said, I also believe equality can't be easily achieved. Esther suggested that people have different perspectives and opinions, thus hard to conclude which is equal or not. Some might believe it is equal but some don't.
Another thing to equality is that there is no exact standard of being "equal". As we read this book, it was example of being "perfect" equality and we could detect lots of defects to this kind of society. Most of the people were satisfied with their lives, not knowing problems that they face. So if we free people, let people do whatever they want, there will be numerous crimes and guilty act will be committed. Since there is no equality, people will don't care about people's rights or equality. These will cause many crimes, corrupting the society.
In conclusion, what I believe is that truly "equal" society can't be formed, and equality and freedom should be balanced well to continue the society.

[munisa]

I am also kind of confused to tell the truth, I am also not very sure what equality is what seems to be equal to one person may seem unfair to the other, So I don't really get what equality is
Well, I think equality can be achieved depending on the person and their beliefs. Some people may think that equality is freedom of speech and being treated fairly by others, but someone else may think that equality can be achieved by getting equal money as the others. Every one has different views of equality. Because of this I think that equality cannot be achieved.

[sergeyfen]

I think people think differently of what is equality because some people are stricked, modest, spoiled, or just somewhere in between. I like the concept of doing whatever they want unless they are not hurting others. It is their problem to drink, do drugs, etc. Smart people have heads on their shoulders to avoid all the problems. Everybody has different view on equality, but i kind of agree with Anderson, it's all about people's ethic to do something or not.

[irin]

I think equaility is to fair to person but everybody has different thinking about equility. I think it is hard to achive equaility because everybody has different thoughts differnent point of view so it is no easy to get equaility. like some peoph le said North Korea is good and some people said North Korea is bad.

[james]

I don't know if i fully understood your question cause I didn't read the article "yet". However, just like what Mr. Joo said(Luke ), I think it is a kind of pointless question. No.1 issue, Letting people do whatever they want to do and no.2, following a strict rule... hmm...First of all, letting people do what they want to do is "wrong". These days, the society has become a playground for all kinds of criminals. Don't you think the world would be a much more massive playground for them if people live their life the way they want to live. It maybe even more, not less.

Following strict rules, this one is much more tricky and complicated issue. Because, it will be much easier for the government to lead their people and make their country better, but on the other hand, it will be taking away their people's human rights and freedom. So.. I am not really sure if this is right or wrong.

[brandonina]

Well, I don't think the concept of equality shouldn't be based on letting everybody to do anything he or she wants. Justice goes along with equality, or liberty. There should be somewhat a limit to people's actions in order to prevent the society from becoming corrupt. Just imagine if you can do anything, especially drugs and crime. There are some, or many things that are immoral to do. I believe this is why the perfect "equality" is probably impossible to achieve because satisfying everybody in a right way and balancing the world are truly difficult.

I like the way how Justin pointed out that some parts of the world have different perspectives on equality and it's actually true. Individuals have their own thoughts of how equality should be based on. Though they are different, however, I think societies should try to seek for the equal society that involves rightness.

[akari]

hello