The Reduction Factor

I'd like to take this post to really focus on 'Harrison Bergeron', not to say the other stories we discussed lacked merit and surely they will make their way into my ramblings, but I am struck by the ideas of equality presented in 'HB'. The reader is presented with the world in 2081, where everyone must be handicapped in order to ensure no one rises above anyone else. There's a Handicapper General to ensure an equality throughout the population.

It's really just too easy to compare this to what's going on in the world today. Anyone who's grown up in Virginia public schools knows about the SOLs: those dreaded exams, that for at least some people only served as an annoyance. All through elementary, middle and high school the SOL was present in order to ensure that everyone fits a minimum level of education. Now, I loathed these exams; they wasted my time, and offered no challenge. Then again, I test pretty well and memorize facts quickly. I would read articles about those less fortunate who just couldn't pass the test, no matter how much time or preparation. And everyone of those kids had stellar talents in other areas. I think I recall an Olympic level gymnast who couldn't get the English SOL.

As I watched my fellow students fly through the exam, or struggle for hours, there were the teachers to consider. Every one of them had to "teach to the test." The curriculum was handed down from the state, and I always thought really limited my teachers. Those who taught AP-level courses still had those limitations: all the students still needed to take the SOL, and then the AP exam needed its own prep.

I get the idea that everyone needs a basic foundation, I understand that there should be a common background for the population, but forcing everyone to one set of rules really limits the opportunity for individuality. I think my senior English teacher would have loved the freedom to just play with novels and poetry, instead of getting us into college and past the exam. He found the joy he could with the structures he had, but I wonder what it would have been like to just go for it.

The ballerina's in 'HB' appear to me an extreme example of equality-bringing beautiful and graceful figures down to ugly, ungainly beasts. But in the home of Harrison's parents the reader sees a somewhat above-average man not allowed to think due to a device that creates just enough sound to distract. It's the equality of the everyday-making the average more average, and that bothers me more than ballerinas. It's counter-intuitive to everything I was told growing up. It was always, "be yourself!" "don't conform!" "be all that you can be!" So, what part of that also means, "don't you dare make yourself a true individual. Don't even think about thinking." I can't resolve those ideas of individuality with standardized testing, or the celebration of the unique with the encouragement to be the same as your neighbor.

Well, can't say I got to the other stories, but soap-boxing does wonders for the soul.