Harrison Bergeron (Posted at West Valley College)
by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
Alternate link for Stanford University: Harrison Bergeron

As incredible as it may seem, Kurt Vonnegut wrote a philosophical satire of egalitarianism (and communism). Even more incredible, Peikoff made a point of recommending this story--twice--in his DIM lectures. And to top it off, this story easily could have been written by a talented Objectivist. Easily.

I found the full text posted at two colleges. I don't know the copyright status and the colleges don't mention it, so I merely posted the links. It's a fun story, but a bit sad. Still, Vonnegut's zany wit abounds. (I happen to like his stuff a lot.)

In 1995, a movie for Showtime was made out of it: Harrison Bergeron
Also, there is more information and Vonnegut links in the Wikipedia article: Harrison Bergeron

Michael

Michael,

Yes, “Harrison Begeron” is a tremendous short story and I am glad you provided the link. It is very short and easy to read, and I recommend it to anyone.

I first heard it highly recommended in a taped lecture by Robert Hessen (I think) called “Why Does Socialism Continue To Appeal To Anyone?” It is in the Vonnegut short story collection, *Welcome to the Monkey House*.

For ten years I taught a high school level philosophy course called Great World Ideas. For every class I had them read “Harrison Bergeron,” and they loved it. Before they read that one, I had them read some classic socialism by Gracchus Babeuf, where he advocates radical tearing down of the able to absolute equality of all. Then I hit them with Vonnegut. The students understood without question. Equality sucks.

-Ross Barlow.

This is a good story. I'm happy Peikoff is willing to recommend anything by someone other than Rand or other Objectivists. Thanks Michael!

"Harrison Bergeron" is a classic.

I didn't think Peikoff would know about such a thing, but I can't fault him for recommending it.

Robert Campbell

Love it!!!

Author Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84
By CRISTIAN SALAZAR
Associated Press
April 12, 2007

What a bummer!



Michael

A truly great man. A rebel, scholar, religious skeptic, and radical individualist. He's up there with Douglas Adams, Arthur C. Clarke, and R. Crumb. Even Vonnegut's first novel -- The Sirens of Titan (1959) -- was truly great.

*I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

*Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.

*Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!

*There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

*During my three years in Vietnam, I certainly heard plenty of last words by dying American footsoldiers. Not one of them, however, had illusions that he had somehow accomplished something worthwhile in the process of making the Supreme Sacrifice.

*We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

*A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

*New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

*If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

This sort of thing often happens to me: I quote a guy in a blog, for the first time in years, and he up and dies the next day. I made mention of "The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent" in movies on the 10th (that phrase was from "The Sirens of Titan" I think, and on the 11th he's kaput. Same thing happened when I quoted Hunter S. Thompson. This is too weird.

Anyways, I loved "Harrison Bergeron," but one of my favorites from Vonnegut is this observation of his from "Cat's Cradle":

(These passages are subsequent to an ecological disaster caused by Ice-Nine, a substance which has turned all the world's bodies of water permanently into a frozen state):

"He was up to nothing new. He was watching an ant farm he had constructed. He had dug up a few surviving ants in the three-dimensional world of the ruins of Bolivar, and he had reduced the dimensions to two by making a dirt and ant sandwich between two sheets of glass. The ants could do nothing without Frank's catching them at it and commenting upon it.

"The experiment had solved in short order the mystery of how ants could survive in a waterless world. As far as I know, they were the only insects that did survive, and they did it by forming with their bodies tight balls around grains of ice-nine. They would generate enough heat at the center to kill half their number and produce one bead of dew. The dew was drinkable. The corpses were edible.

" 'Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,' I said to Frank and his tiny cannibals.

"His response was always the same. It was a peevish lecture on all the things people could learn from ants.

"My responses were ritualized, too. 'Nature's a wonderful thing, Frank. Nature's a wonderful thing.'

"'You know why ants are so successful?' he asked me for the thousandth time. 'They co-op-er-ate.'"

Robert, don't you dare quote me -- ever!

-anonymous.

P.S. -- Kurt Vonnegut was a delight. I used his short anti-egalitarian story “Harrison Bergeron” for years in my high school classrooms (as I mentioned above in a previous post). Great writer who could get right to the point.

With Vonnegut's death thanks for the links to Harrison Bergeron. I am reminded that ideas that Vonnegut attacks in that short story. There was book discussed on Book TV where the author said that he would like to abolish private schools in the US. He feels that private schools art the chief source of inequality in the US. The author notes that he supports candidates who want to raise his taxes and complains that the Democrats do not support raising taxes.

My favorite poem by Vonnegut is the following (seen here):


I like quirky, so Vonnegut always was right up my alley.

Sometimes he would say some things I didn't agree with, but even in those cases, there was always a drop of truth in what he was lampooning.

Michael

You're 100% correct: equality sucks. As much as I revere the US Declaration of Independence, it states in the first line of the second paragraph: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."

I beg to differ.

It's crushingly clear that all people are not created equal. That concept is a Great Lie that US society injects into our heads as soon as it thinks we're able to comprehend.

But it IS a lie on so many levels. Not many people have the genetic gifts to play basketball like Michael Jordan. Not many people have the mental acuity to proffer paradigm shifting theories of matter and the universe like Stephen Hawking. Conversely, some people can't tie their shoes or feed themselves. There is a vast spectrum of human ability and noone gets all the abilities.

I could go on endlessly, but the topic here is 'Harrison Bergeron.' It's message is very simple: let those with exceptional abilities be free to explore whatever they find important.

Harrison Bergeron is John Galt, a man of the mind whose only crime is acting on his mind's mandate to reach out and excel.

As Jaques Cousteau said: "When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself."

What else is there to say? Let the geniuses through!

Context! Jefferson was talking about the equality in basic rights: Life, Liberty and the Purfuit of Happineff.

Ba'al Chafatz

So it goes.

Ba'al Chatzaf