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.
Harrison Bergeron (1961)
161–170 of 275 posts
Re: Harrison Bergeron (1961)
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The nihilistic modern Libertarian interpretation of "it's not even worth trying to accommodate differently abled people because Harrison Bergeron said so" That isn't what Libertarians think.
Anyone I've ever heard it from was a Libertarian, so it seems fair to use that as a label. I don't know or care if it is a "party plank" shared by "all Libertarians" or "true Libertarians" or "true Scotsmen", it's not relevant to my point.
You're not hearing it from this libertarian.
Libertarianism is not code for rude, thoughtless, meanness, uncharitable, stealing, defrauding, enslaving, etc.
It's code for people doing what they want to, as long as they don't hurt others.
For example, I follow recommendations for making my web sites more usable for people using screen readers. Not because anyone makes me do it - I'm happy to do it.
Re: Harrison Bergeron (1961)
#163This 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/197545/03882696bf... [2] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/04/kurt-vonneguts-socialism-fr...
In literary analysis the author's intention is generally not viewed as the final word on how a story should be interpreted. There's an extensive debate around this question of authorial intent: https://www.britannica.com/art/intentional-fallacy While it's interesting to know what meaning the author might have had in mind, I personally wouldn't view it in a prescriptive sense when evaluating a story.
Thanks for authoritatively clearing that up for us all, z7.
Re: Harrison Bergeron (1961)
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Americans idolize athletic skill and beauty, but look down on intellectual achievement. "nerds"
That's an unnecessary large brush. There are 300 million of us. Are we all the same?
Re: Harrison Bergeron (1961)
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
What constitutes "ability" and "beauty", and what is acceptable/permitted to idolize, is extremely culturally specific. And the story explores a world with a very different view of those.
No, as we learned when morphing started to work, beauty is average. If you average a large number of faces, you get one most humans think is beautiful.[1] Non-beauty seems to be a defect-sensing system.
[1] https://petapixel.com/2013/05/28/what-averaged-face-photogra...
Re: Harrison Bergeron (1961)
#166Captive 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-8...
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 p…
Paris in the Twentieth Century (1863)
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)
Re: Harrison Bergeron (1961)
#167In 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
Re: Harrison Bergeron (1961)
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
There have been school districts lately that have been getting rid of advanced math classes in the name of equality.
Story from a local school: Parents of the more advanced math students in the grade requested some sort of more advanced math opportunities for their kids. School didn't provide any. When several of the kids used a more advanced math concept they had learned outside of school to solve a problem, the teacher told them to not do it that way because they hadn't learned it yet. The school does provide extra classes for ki…
> When several of the kids used a more advanced math concept they had learned outside of school to solve a problem, the teacher told them to not do it that way because they hadn't learned it yet.
This is nothing new. Most teachers are more concerned with being able to manage their classes than they are with outcomes for individual students.
Re: Harrison Bergeron (1961)
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vonnegut was brilliant, but I never found his writing subtle. He generally was pretty straightforward about things. imho, Harrison Bergeron should be taken at face value as his indictment against holding back the gifted among us. Remember that his exemplars aren't great Randian industrialists, but like... dancers. Artists. Quietly intelligent men like himself. Vonnegut isn't saying "the strong should triumph and stan…
You contrast Rand's heroes with those of Vonnegut as if they are all CEO-types, but they also include sculptors, architects, engineers, composers, and philosophy professors. IMO, Rand and Vonnegut are much more similar than their fans would like to admit.
Attempting to compare Vonnegut and Rand without acknowledging that Rand fundamentally believed poor people should suffer for their poorness is comparing a scathing comedian and a clown: you have to accept one has a point, and the other is a clown.
Re: Harrison Bergeron (1961)
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 p…
Ever read "The Machine Stops" by EM Forster? Over 100 years old, and it's got Facebook style interactions!
The most prescient fiction work of the century, in my opinion.