Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron
Short Summary:
Set in 2081, Harrison Bergeron is a dystopic landscape of a despotic American government characterized by extreme egalitarianism. Laws were passed and enforced (through handicaps and other physical impediments) to achieve equality — be it in terms of intellectual capacity, beauty, strength, etc. Harrison Bergeron was imprisoned for being subversive. His parents, patently brainwashed, watched as he escapes and meets his fatal end.
Review Proper:
Like most of Vonnegut’s works, Harrison Bergeron is satirical. By exaggerating certain elements of the story (in this case, ways to achieve equality), Vonnegut challenges the irrational fears (that, for some reason, get translated into actual arguments against socialism) generated by literal interpretation and public malaise. But even if Vonnegut were not a satirist, it still would not make sense to take the work literally on its surface level — as if mere legislation and passage of laws can actually equalize everyone in every aspect, as if realizing equality means going at extreme lengths that violate basic human rights and at the cost of self-determination. To call for equality is one thing, to claim that calling for equality means denying the inevitability of inequality is another. Even Engels believed that though inequality can be reduced, it can never be abolished.
Harrison Bergeron was unlike any other short stories I have read before (though I can pretty much say this whenever I finish a Vonnegut title, particularly 2BR02B). It is as absurd as it is profound. Whether it is a critique of socialism or a critique of critics of socialism is a question many of Vonnegut’s readers still can’t seem to answer. Since it exposes the dangers of equality, many would resort to thinking that it automatically critiques what it narrates writ large and at large. But it would be a gross underestimation to ignore the utter impossibility of such dangers (even under extreme economic and social systems) that they can be considered as good as mere sardonic passages intended to challenge unfounded conflation of any form of equality-promoting system with socialism.
The dystopic setting of Harrison’s society depicted that of collectivism gone autocratic. An oppressive system that has managed to force people into dumbing themselves down and hiding their skills to achieve equality — with little to no retaliation. The pacification of the masses was symbolized by Harrison’s parents’ lack of reprisal and sheer obliviousness even at the sight of their son’s execution. Andbutso Harrison was no hero. He was no champion from the oppressed but still blindly obedient masses. He was no saint. As soon as he got rid of his shackles, he became exactly what he dared to defy. His rebellion replaces collective tyranny (it must be said) with individualist tyranny. His final act epitomized obnoxious individualism — egoistic, elitist, and tyrannical. Harrison was your usual Randian hero — as defined by Gladstein (1999) — a man who perseveres to achieve his values, and only his values. This is where the story examines the false dichotomy between individualism, collectivism and those who understand the two only at their extremes. Thinking that systems only work at their rigid extremes allows the rejection of mechanisms of any ideological spectra. Harrison’s society bears no relation to any system proposed by socialism even at its extreme. When a reader takes the “dangers of equality” espoused by the story way too literally, it becomes suddenly easy to assume that all forms of equality is wrong and must be rejected. Equality (of opportunity, at least) is still very much one of the defining goals of socialism.
Vonnegut also subtly suggested how entertainment (mainly in the form of television) sedates the masses. Television distracts people. It keeps them passive and oblivious of their struggles. I personally think that this speaks volume now more than ever with the onset of advanced technology. In the story, although it was posited a bit too exaggeratedly, television (and, well, their handicaps) has numbed Harrison’s parents so much, they lost their natural instinct to worry and/or grieve when their son was executed right in front of their eyes.
I tried not to mention Vonnegut’s personal agency to keep the distance between authors and their crafts, but for justification purposes, I am compelled to -_- As a man who has quoted Eugene V. Debbs a lot in his works and as a socialist himself, the author pretty much tells us (albeit, implicitly) that there is more to the story that what it critiques — that it cannot possibly genuinely contradict with the author’s socio-political stance — that it cannot possibly genuinely criticize socialism. So why couldn’t he just do it directly then? Whatever Vonnegut’s intentions were would not matter, but it does not help that this work opened the floodgates to opponents of ideologies that support for equality. Without much critical analysis and with all the credibility that Kurt Vonnegut holds, this work can easily justify the antagonism against the left, hence the all-too-common belief that since the work facially critiques equality, it must also criticize whatever ideology promotes equality.
The struggle for equality necessitates the acknowledgement of the responsibility of the privileged by default to empower those who are less empowered. It is about empowering the marginalized and the disenfranchised to create an equally empowered society.
It was a dangerous move to commit deliberate strawman. Vonnegut obviously attempted to attack a particular problem, but he refused to directly state what it is. Even if he did, I could not care less. The fact that it is open to a lot of wild interpretations suggest that Harrison Bergeron is a criticism in constant search of a problem, even to this day.
