Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday and I felt a profound loss.
He wrote about the essential dignity of the human experience amogst the absurdity of every day life. A writer, teacher, secular humanist and above all, a critic of the absurdity of war as a societal policy, Vonnegut influenced the intellectual development of a generation.
He was what I read when I was your age.
His best "economics" was a critique of socialism from 1961 titled "Harrison Bergeron". The point he made was very capitalist, and free market- and against the perils that come with affluence. I think that Vonnegut was really talking about free will and choice.
But you should interpret it as you like.
Please do.
9 comments:
I think this is a great story, and a great way to scare people away from socialism/communism. I love the points Vonnegut makes, and I agree totally with his ideals. It is for the reasons he exposes in this story that I beleive so strongly in a free capatalistic society. As to the perils of affluence, he makes another point that if we become affluent enough, we will be able to afford to have people's human capital removed. anyhow, i love the story and the point it makes: Vonnegut is supprting freedom, and with it all the competition and seemingly unfairness that creates the world we see today, with its horrible inequities and its beautiful human accomplishments, all of which are a part of life.
This isn't the first time i have read this story. Both times I have read it I have had the same reaction. I think it is a weird concept to think that the world will someday be equal. The concept of giving people who are advanced "handicaps" is something that seems so unreal. As wonderful as living in a balance world may seem it would probably destroy it.
i agree that Vonnegut was really talking about free will and choice and that this is a very dramatic exagerated way of expressing the "naive idea of human equality." but in a lot of ways it makes sense what with everything becoming seemingly generalized (like how the "honors" program is only really supposed to be the top 2% of the class or something like that and its really like 40%)although people say that everyone should feel special about themselves and no one should feel left out, we obviously shouldnt generalize ourselves to this degree. but i thought this was a very interesting story
Harrison Bergeron is a good story, and a good metaphor for the capitalism vs. socialsism fued. In the story, everyone in has to be equal, no individual talents are allowed to show through. Athletes are physically haddicaped, smart people are mentally haddicapped, etc... The grim society that this produces is a good arguament for capitalism. If everyone is alowed to shine at what they do best, then everyone is better off. Specialzation in trade = individual talents.
OMG is that Rudy!
Although Kurt was most likely talking about freechoice and will his writings have an equally strong revelance to economics. The ideas show how when everyone is set equal and not allowed t ouse their own special talents that everyone suffers.
Harrison Bergeron is a pretty good story, an okay movie, and a clever analogy for the socialsism/capitalism agruement. Everyone was forced to be the same and many talents have been lost because of this underutitliziation. The society and economy would be better off it everyone was allowed to do their special talents.
i think the story is an interesting look into what life would be like with out free choise and how it would be a great down fall to the world for governments to make every one dumb down to a lower but equal level we would lose much more than we would gain by the feeling of being equal people would not be able to specialize in a trade because they might surpass making for an efficiant but unequal addvantage
True Story:
When Sports Illustrated was just starting out, it hired a young Vonnegut, who admitedly knew nothing about sports, as a writer. One of his first asignments was to write a caption for a picture of a horse at a horse show. Vonnegut typed one sentence on the typewriter and walked out of his office, never to return again. He typed, "The horse jumped over the f**king fence."
What a badass.
Never heard that one.
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