George W. Bush as Compared with Certain Characters in Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron"
Created | Updated Dec 4, 2006
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s “Harrison Bergeron” has been analyzed numerous times and construed in many different ways. The political innuendoes of this classic short story serve to warn the citizens of the United States about the dangers of surrendering our precious liberties. First published in 1961, “Harrison Bergeron” has often been interpreted as a parable of the dangers of Communism, understandable given the political climate of that era. More recently, Robyn Blumner has compared Vonnegut’s futuristic vision with today’s Americans with Disabilities legislation, while Joseph Alvarez has made reference to the modern mind being desensitized by television. These connotations are undoubtedly accurate, as are many such interpretations. For me, however, this story has a more personal ethical message. It is my fear that the man I helped elect President is driving this country toward a society not unlike the one presented in “Harrison Bergeron.”
In the United States of 2081 all people are finally equal, albeit by mandate of the federal government. “All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General." Clearly, the issue of equality was an important one to the public because a Constitutional amendment is not a simple thing to initiate – one cannot be created without three-fourths of the states ratifying it. I am reminded of the months following September 11, 2001, when feeding off the panic immediately after the destruction of the World Trade Center, George W. Bush introduced into Congress a bill authorizing a new department of the federal government. This Department of Homeland Security, hailed as the logical consolidation of separate federal agencies, was widely supported by the American public and was easily approved and instituted. In addition, Attorney General John Ashcroft presented to Congress the USA PATRIOT Act, which gave the federal government power to “obtain sensitive private information about individuals, eavesdrop on conversations, monitor computer use and detain suspects without probable cause, all with diminished judicial oversight” (American Civil Liberties Union). Mr. Ashcroft’s request for new police powers was approved with little Congressional debate. Now, the federal government has a streamlined mechanism with which to monitor each individual’s movements. Privacy advocates tell us that in our fear, we have given the Washington bureaucrats carte blanche to chip away at our rights as they wish.
This comparison is further emphasized by the story’s creation of the office of Handicapper General. As we are now experiencing, the formation of a new Cabinet-level agency is a slow and deliberate process. Much money, time, and energy is required to establish the basic functioning of a new bureaucracy. Just as the Americans of 2081 must have supported the installation of a Handicapper General, we supported, even demanded, a Homeland Security Czar. As a result, we have given Secretary Tom Ridge the right to monitor our movements, financial transactions, and communications; to do so at his will, under the guise of “the good of the nation.”
The character in “Harrison Bergeron” who accepts such an honorable infringement of his rights is George, Harrison’s father. George Bergeron is a man of above-average intelligence. In the United States of 2081, this means he is required by law to wear a mental handicap radio in his ear “to keep people like [him] from taking unfair advantage of their brains." He is also required to a “handicap bag" which are weights designed to keep him from using his full physical strength. Because he believes that these steps are necessary for the greater good of society, George resists attempts by Hazel, his wife, to lighten his load, even temporarily. “If I tried to get away with it…then other people’d get away with it – and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else." In his artificially handicapped state of mind he accepts this set of circumstances and even resists the idea of relieving them. He considers the handicaps to be a part of himself, thus surrendering completely to the will of the Handicapper General. I see a vivid connection between George Bergeron and the well-meaning supporters of President Bush. We, being handicapped with a fear of terrorism, are willing to surrender our freedom in order to be shielded from the brutality of a “dark age” of terrorism.
Hazel Bergeron lends a wealth of information about the actual state of American society in 2081. Hazel, being of average intelligence and therefore without a mental handicap, unknowingly reveals that there are unhandicapped government officials behind the obstruction of free thought. When discussing the sounds being transmitted over George’s mental handicap radio, Hazel expresses a desire to hear “all the things they think up." It is Hazel who suggests that George be relieved of the handicap bags while at home because there would be no infringement of the spirit of the law, arguing “…you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around." I imagine Hazel as a symbol of the average American. Quite obviously, she is more enlightened than even she realizes. She has the pieces of the puzzle in hand; she needs only to put them in the correct order to see the clear picture. I would like to think that today’s citizens will eventually take the time to evaluate and utilize the information offered through the media, through political watch-dog groups, through government documents, and through the very actions of Washington officials. I also believe that those same Washington officials are counting on us, the voting public, to be as mentally inept as Hazel Bergeron seems to be.
Hazel provides a valuable reference to the old ideal of equality, a reminder of what true equality is meant to be, when she says of the announcer “He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard." But yet again, she unknowingly reveals one of her society’s secrets. Anyone who gets a raise by “trying…hard” is in competition for money. The elimination of competition is, according to George Bergeron, the very definition of equality in 2081. Apparently, unhandicapped government officials are not the only privileged citizens – select civilians are also afforded the benefits of inequality. This double standard of some people being “more equal than others” is also played out in the disparities of President Bush’s inequitable fiscal policy. In a supposed attempt to offset job losses after the attacks of September 11, Bush gave the nation’s biggest companies a benefit called the Alternative Minimum Tax – a corporate welfare plan that is worth more than $25 billion annually. According to the Cato Institute, it is actually small businesses that are responsible for 85% of job growth, yet no tax relief was proposed for the entrepreneur. The corporate CEO receives the advantages of our tax money and is free to take his operations overseas, while the small business owner is handicapped with the greater tax burden.
Near the end of “Harrison Bergeron,” the title character is killed – gunned down by Handicapper General Diana Moon Glampers with a “double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun." The murder is committed on live television while Harrison’s parents watch. The story then closes with George and Hazel discussing “something real sad on television," the memory of which has dissipated from their minds. It saddens me to realize that the American public has already succumbed to such forgetfulness regarding atrocities committed by the United States against undeclared prisoners of war in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. George Bush feels as though he does not have to answer to either US or International law for the way he treats these captives, because they are not prisoners of war, they are not US citizens, and they are not being held on US soil. In a memo to the US government, Amnesty International expressed a number of concerns about the treatment of these detainees. Among these concerns was the apparent neglecting of the Geneva Convention with respect to basic human rights. This same memo quotes a court document, USA vs. Lindh, which illustrates the Bush administration’s justification of this breach of the Geneva Convention, stating that the detainees in Guantánamo Bay are being held “'…under the President’s authority as Commander in Chief and under the laws and usages of war,' and 'of course, are aliens with no connection to the United States, being held outside sovereign United States territory.'" There has been little recent news coverage of this injustice, nor has there been significant public outcry denouncing it. These so-called enemy combatants have been abandoned by the American people, as forgotten to us as Harrison is to his own parents.
The message I infer from my own reading of “Harrison Bergeron” is difficult for me to accept. As a conservative Christian and a Republican, I supported George W. Bush in his contentious election against Al Gore – an election which now appears to me as more of a coup than a popular vote. While I still believe in the conservative philosophy, I cannot ignore President Bush’s misuse of power. It is my feeling that we as Americans should make every effort to avoid the increasingly oppressive future predicted in “Harrison Bergeron.” To do so, however, we must first reclaim the freedoms that have so recently been stolen from us.
In the United States of 2081 all people are finally equal, albeit by mandate of the federal government. “All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General." Clearly, the issue of equality was an important one to the public because a Constitutional amendment is not a simple thing to initiate – one cannot be created without three-fourths of the states ratifying it. I am reminded of the months following September 11, 2001, when feeding off the panic immediately after the destruction of the World Trade Center, George W. Bush introduced into Congress a bill authorizing a new department of the federal government. This Department of Homeland Security, hailed as the logical consolidation of separate federal agencies, was widely supported by the American public and was easily approved and instituted. In addition, Attorney General John Ashcroft presented to Congress the USA PATRIOT Act, which gave the federal government power to “obtain sensitive private information about individuals, eavesdrop on conversations, monitor computer use and detain suspects without probable cause, all with diminished judicial oversight” (American Civil Liberties Union). Mr. Ashcroft’s request for new police powers was approved with little Congressional debate. Now, the federal government has a streamlined mechanism with which to monitor each individual’s movements. Privacy advocates tell us that in our fear, we have given the Washington bureaucrats carte blanche to chip away at our rights as they wish.
This comparison is further emphasized by the story’s creation of the office of Handicapper General. As we are now experiencing, the formation of a new Cabinet-level agency is a slow and deliberate process. Much money, time, and energy is required to establish the basic functioning of a new bureaucracy. Just as the Americans of 2081 must have supported the installation of a Handicapper General, we supported, even demanded, a Homeland Security Czar. As a result, we have given Secretary Tom Ridge the right to monitor our movements, financial transactions, and communications; to do so at his will, under the guise of “the good of the nation.”
The character in “Harrison Bergeron” who accepts such an honorable infringement of his rights is George, Harrison’s father. George Bergeron is a man of above-average intelligence. In the United States of 2081, this means he is required by law to wear a mental handicap radio in his ear “to keep people like [him] from taking unfair advantage of their brains." He is also required to a “handicap bag" which are weights designed to keep him from using his full physical strength. Because he believes that these steps are necessary for the greater good of society, George resists attempts by Hazel, his wife, to lighten his load, even temporarily. “If I tried to get away with it…then other people’d get away with it – and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else." In his artificially handicapped state of mind he accepts this set of circumstances and even resists the idea of relieving them. He considers the handicaps to be a part of himself, thus surrendering completely to the will of the Handicapper General. I see a vivid connection between George Bergeron and the well-meaning supporters of President Bush. We, being handicapped with a fear of terrorism, are willing to surrender our freedom in order to be shielded from the brutality of a “dark age” of terrorism.
Hazel Bergeron lends a wealth of information about the actual state of American society in 2081. Hazel, being of average intelligence and therefore without a mental handicap, unknowingly reveals that there are unhandicapped government officials behind the obstruction of free thought. When discussing the sounds being transmitted over George’s mental handicap radio, Hazel expresses a desire to hear “all the things they think up." It is Hazel who suggests that George be relieved of the handicap bags while at home because there would be no infringement of the spirit of the law, arguing “…you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around." I imagine Hazel as a symbol of the average American. Quite obviously, she is more enlightened than even she realizes. She has the pieces of the puzzle in hand; she needs only to put them in the correct order to see the clear picture. I would like to think that today’s citizens will eventually take the time to evaluate and utilize the information offered through the media, through political watch-dog groups, through government documents, and through the very actions of Washington officials. I also believe that those same Washington officials are counting on us, the voting public, to be as mentally inept as Hazel Bergeron seems to be.
Hazel provides a valuable reference to the old ideal of equality, a reminder of what true equality is meant to be, when she says of the announcer “He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard." But yet again, she unknowingly reveals one of her society’s secrets. Anyone who gets a raise by “trying…hard” is in competition for money. The elimination of competition is, according to George Bergeron, the very definition of equality in 2081. Apparently, unhandicapped government officials are not the only privileged citizens – select civilians are also afforded the benefits of inequality. This double standard of some people being “more equal than others” is also played out in the disparities of President Bush’s inequitable fiscal policy. In a supposed attempt to offset job losses after the attacks of September 11, Bush gave the nation’s biggest companies a benefit called the Alternative Minimum Tax – a corporate welfare plan that is worth more than $25 billion annually. According to the Cato Institute, it is actually small businesses that are responsible for 85% of job growth, yet no tax relief was proposed for the entrepreneur. The corporate CEO receives the advantages of our tax money and is free to take his operations overseas, while the small business owner is handicapped with the greater tax burden.
Near the end of “Harrison Bergeron,” the title character is killed – gunned down by Handicapper General Diana Moon Glampers with a “double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun." The murder is committed on live television while Harrison’s parents watch. The story then closes with George and Hazel discussing “something real sad on television," the memory of which has dissipated from their minds. It saddens me to realize that the American public has already succumbed to such forgetfulness regarding atrocities committed by the United States against undeclared prisoners of war in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. George Bush feels as though he does not have to answer to either US or International law for the way he treats these captives, because they are not prisoners of war, they are not US citizens, and they are not being held on US soil. In a memo to the US government, Amnesty International expressed a number of concerns about the treatment of these detainees. Among these concerns was the apparent neglecting of the Geneva Convention with respect to basic human rights. This same memo quotes a court document, USA vs. Lindh, which illustrates the Bush administration’s justification of this breach of the Geneva Convention, stating that the detainees in Guantánamo Bay are being held “'…under the President’s authority as Commander in Chief and under the laws and usages of war,' and 'of course, are aliens with no connection to the United States, being held outside sovereign United States territory.'" There has been little recent news coverage of this injustice, nor has there been significant public outcry denouncing it. These so-called enemy combatants have been abandoned by the American people, as forgotten to us as Harrison is to his own parents.
The message I infer from my own reading of “Harrison Bergeron” is difficult for me to accept. As a conservative Christian and a Republican, I supported George W. Bush in his contentious election against Al Gore – an election which now appears to me as more of a coup than a popular vote. While I still believe in the conservative philosophy, I cannot ignore President Bush’s misuse of power. It is my feeling that we as Americans should make every effort to avoid the increasingly oppressive future predicted in “Harrison Bergeron.” To do so, however, we must first reclaim the freedoms that have so recently been stolen from us.
