Skip to main content

How do Harrison's views put him in conflict with the government?

In Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron," he evokes a future version of America where equality is legally enforced. It is now written into the American Constitution, and there is an office of the "United States Handicapper General" which is responsible for enforcing this equality. Individuals who are smarter or more attractive than the norm are handicapped: they wear earpieces that make noises to distract their thinking, masks to cover their faces, and so on.


That's the context in which Harrison Bergeron acts. That context matters a lot, because that's what Harrison is acting against. Harrison's views are not well-developed or especially well-explained. They essentially boil down to two or three things. First, Harrison rejects the enforced equality. Second, he has the gifts and abilities to do so: he is extremely smart and physically powerful. Third, he declares himself emperor. He is explicitly rejecting the projected enforced legal equality.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more