Harrison Bergeron and the New America

The superlatively surpassing sagacity of Kurt Vonnegut

Written in 1961, Harrison Bergeron is a sinfully sardonic short story from the perspicacious pen of Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut was known for writing humorous and sarcastic literature often expressing a darkly fatalistic vision. In Harrison Bergeron, Vonnegut uses his wit and wisdom to express what today is called equity.

The United States, in 2081, has finally reached a state wherein all citizens are total equal. As Vonnegut relates:

They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.

George and Hazel Bergeron lived in this world, a world in which no one is permitted to be better than another, have more than another, excel beyond others - all are forced to be equal in the same sense today’s equity evangelists embrace the term. Exceptionalism is not only discouraged - it is forbidden. Thus, in the story, the United States government has a bureau titled “Handicapper General.” The HG’s office employs agents responsible for devising ways of bringing those who are gifted beyond others, whether in attractiveness, athleticism, aptitude, articulation, anything you can think of, into a state of equality with the rest of the population.

This equity was accomplished through multifarious means. The beautiful are made to wear masks. Ballerinas are made to wear weights. George Bergeron, whom Vonnegut describes as someone whose “intelligence was way above normal,” is required to wear a government transmitter that periodically (approximately every twenty seconds) emits random loud noises - a buzzer, a milk bottle being hit with a ball peen hammer, an automobile crash, a twenty-one gun salute - to disrupt his thoughts. Exception could not be allowed, as Vonnegut explains in one paragraph, “so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.” Does this sound familiar?

Vonnegut projected this repulsive reality would ensue 120 years beyond the writing of the story. We arrived in his dystopian vision 60 years early. Just 63 years post-publication, America is well into the Bergeron era with multitudinous government agencies acting the part of the Handicapper General. While they attempt to obscure the intent of these efforts beneath a diaphanous veneer of “fairness,” everything involved in the pursuit of equity evinces Vonneguts presage.

Of course, just as with the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers, someone has to judge what is “normal” or “average” so that all can be equalized at that level. Hazel Bergeron, like many citizens today, thinks she could do just as good a job. After all, what is this equity based upon? Of course, it is not any objective standard. As Hazel muses, “Who knows better then I do what normal is?” This is the myopic rationale of the self-styled “social justice warriors” today who believe they are thinking for themselves, when they are actually being manipulated into believing equity and equality have the same goal. It is a subjective perspective based on the selfishness and self-centeredness of those who are ironically self-unaware.

Newsflash: equality and equity are not the same. Equality means we all possess equal value and equal rights; equity asserts (wrongly) that we all have equal capacity and should have equal outcomes. Equality is easy to achieve; equity is impossible. Equality elevates the dignity of the individual; equity denigrates all. Equality awards merit; equity awards mediocrity. It is easy to see this when one looks at how those most vocal about equity seek to achieve it. It only comes about by handicapping and coercion.

People are excluded from opportunity if they don’t fall into an allegedly disadvantaged, unprivileged, or oppressed category; others are given opportunity for no reason other than belonging in one (or more) of those same categories. This doesn’t lift anyone up - it hinders those who might excel, and it degrades those who are categorized. Yet job candidates are rejected if they have the wrong melanation or chromosomes, or if they don’t have deviant sexual desires or don’t suffer dysphoria. There is no improvement for anyone - only handicapping. That businesses are struggling because they’ve fallen prey to this narrative should be enough to convince all that this approach is not only inequitable - it just doesn’t work. It is a fact that competition benefits society. For the Bergerons, however, like America today, competition is a thing of “the dark ages.”

As the story continues, Hazel, Harrison’s mother, notices George looking tired. She suggests at that point that George remove some of the birdshot from the 47-pound bag strapped around his neck (yes, another handicap). She exclaims virtuously, “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.” How selfless! How noble! The condescension to allow someone to actually live up to his or her potential!

There are two poignant parts to George’s response. The first is that he didn’t mind it; he had grown accustomed to it. This is similar to the attitude of many today. They simply overlook the handicapping that is taking place in the name of equity and accept that this is the way things are. The second is presciently pertinent: “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?” Rightly recognizing what we now see happening today, Hazel answers, “Reckon it'd fall all apart.”

The vast majority of our elected representatives now see themselves as above the law, regularly violate it, and suffer no consequences. Those entrenched in the alphabet bureaucracy do likewise. District Attorneys in major cities punish those who commit minor crimes (or what should be no crime), then set free those guilty of terrible transgressions. And it’s all falling apart.

This is where Harrison enters the picture. Early in the story, we are told only that, at the age of fourteen, Harrison was whisked by the government away from the Bergerons, but we do not find out why until close to the end of the story. When we finally meet Harrison, he is literally larger than life. Depicted as a genius, seven feet tall, handsome, athletic, and still only fourteen, he breaks into a TV studio that is broadcasting a ballet (with mediocre dancers wearing masks and weights), sheds his “handicaps” and on-air declares himself “emperor” and demands everyone’s immediate obedience.

While he galavants on stage with one of the ballerinas whose handicaps he also removed, and with his parents watching on television, Glampers enters with a “double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun” and kills Harrison on live TV. This is very similar to the government going after anyone who will not prostrate themselves at the altar of equity or woke. Granted the government isn’t (usually?) killing people (that we’re aware of), but they do practice and provoke powerful persecution.

Where it regretfully reflects most accurately our current reality is what happens after Harrison is killed on screen. At some point during the broadcast, George walked out of the room to get a beer. It is unclear whether he witnessed the murder of his son. When he returns, the TV had burnt out and he notices Hazel has been crying. A brief conversation ensues:

"What about?" he said. 
"I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television." 
"What was it?" he said. 
"It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel. 
"Forget sad things," said George. 
"I always do," said Hazel. 
"That's my girl," said George.

As with so many in America today, the travesty was right in front of them, and in a moment, it had been memory-holed, and they are content to live this way. We can see the result of this almost every election cycle. The American voter possesses an incredible ability to completely forget what transpired in politics just days prior, never mind over a couple of years. Our politicians betray us on the regular, then the people re-elect them for another term, completely overlooking any prior malefaction. Such is the state of America today. I suspect if Vonnegut was alive to see it, he would want glasses similar to Harrison’s that were said to have “thick wavy lenses…intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.” At least then he would not have to witness the realization of his dystopian vision.

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If you have never read Harrison Bergeron (or perhaps have but it has been a while), I highly recommend it. It will take little more than the time you spent reading this post of mine. The full text can be found at the following link: Harrison Bergeron