What Makes Everyone Equal In Harrison Bergeron

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Imagine a world where everyone was equal, everyone is exactly the same. No one is more beautiful or smarter than anyone else. Seems pretty great doesn’t it? Well, it is not as great as someone would think it is. In the short story, Harrison Bergeron written by Kurt Vonnegut, equality goes a little overboard. People who are smarter than average have to wear an earpiece that makes them forget their thoughts. Anyone who is over average in any way have to wear handicaps. Handicaps are machines or items that bring above average people down to average. For example, if you are taller than the average person, then you must wear chains and weights around your neck so you slouch, and are as tall as anyone else. This type of society does not seem that …show more content…
Instead of bringing people down, what if you brought the lesser people up. You could do this by using genetic engineering and biotechnological enhancements. For example, if someone was somewhat slow in learning the government would put a chip in their brain to make them as intelligent as everyone else. Or if you were unattractive the person could get surgery to make them as beautiful as everyone else. One would think that this would be better than bringing people down, but it is just as bad. Since when is everyone being just as beautiful, smart, funny, tall, fast, and athletic as each other pleasant? Sure, everyone would be equal, but life would be boring. It is just like that saying, “everyone is special” but if everyone is special, then technically no one is. In this case, if everyone is super smart and above average, then no one is. If this happened in our society there would be no competition or diversity, and since everyone is exactly the same there would be nothing to do. Imagine being friends with someone exactly like you, that would be boring. People make friends with people different than themselves so their minds can open to new ideas and perspectives. If our world was like this, then everyone would have the same ideas, because their brains would work exactly like everyone else’s. Another example is, say someone is gifted in singing. If everyone got …show more content…
When the doctors are putting a chip in an “average” person’s brain to make them smarter the surgery could go wrong, and the person could die. Also, if one chip malfunctions and makes someone smarter than everyone else, then that person would be above-average, therefore unequal to everyone else. If that happened, and someone was smarter than everyone else, the the whole society that the government created would be corrupted. There could also be the problem of people taking this for granted, and getting everything they want easily, they would not have work hard for anything in life. Society is better with diversity and different people. Sure, problems will occur with people not being thoroughly equal, but since we have diversity and different ideas, those problems can be solved. Diversity in a society is good, because you become exposed to new cultures, thoughts, and ways of life that you would not not normally be exposed to. Diversity allows a person to broaden their horizons, and to consider other people’s points of view when thinking through a situation. Overall, our world is better when everyone is not completely equal, and we should make the best of
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