Harrison, In Real Life

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Imagine a place where there is no decisions to make throughout the day. In this place everyone’s career gets chosen for them, and their hopes, dreams, and aspirations are given to them. There’s none of those difficult life decisions to make, because they will be made for everybody. Now despite all these seemingly terrible things, we do get something great from all the sacrifices: equality. In this world everyone is equal; no one person smarter, more athletic, more talented, or better than any other. Everyone in this place completely equal, and all thanks to the government, the authorities, the higher ups, “the man,” or whatever these enforcers’ wish to be called. The world of Harrison Bergeron functions like this. Now while it may seem a tad outlandish to relate every detail of this brilliant satire by Kurt Vonnegut to the real world, it was absolutely written to instill some kind emotion in the reader about reality, or at least where reality could be headed. In this paper I will be discussing Harrison Bergeron and how it relates to socialism. I will define socialism as well as what its affects on the country that adopt it as a viable economic policy, and the reason why it fails. Lastly I will talk about the very scary truth of where socialism can and very likely leads.

Harrison Bergeron is an incredibly cleaver satire written by Kurt Vonnegut. This peace, although it may be fictional offers some very interesting insight into our current reality that we are dealing with here in the United States. The story starts off with the statement “everyone is finally equal,” (Vonnegut) implying that supreme equality is what we are striving for. In the story everyone is forced to be equal by his or her government. The authorities are there ...

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Works Cited

Cannon, James P. "What Socialist America Will Look Like." Marxists Internet Archive. Resistance Books 23 Abercrombie St, 27 July 1953. Web. 18 Jan. 2012.

Heilbroner, Robert. "Socialism: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics." Library of Economics and Liberty. 2nd ed. 18 Jan. 2012. Print.

“Socialism Doesn’t Work.” socialismdoesntwork.com. Capitalist in Chief, 19 April 2011. Web. 30 Jan. 2012.

“Socialism.” Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com LLC, 2012. Web. 31 Jan. 2012.

Vonnegut, Kurt. “Harrison Bergeron.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. 5th ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford, 2003. 1554-1558. Print.

“Why Liberal Politics Lead to Communism.” estopher.hubpages.com. Estopher, 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2012.

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