Kevork Antabian

11/1/15
Prof. Collins
Progression 2 Essay
Prompt: Using a Marxist lens examine the short story Harrison Bergeron in order to determine
whether or not you believe that absolute equality is obtainable without sacrificing freedom and
democracy. First you must give your reader some historical, political, and cultural context: this
means looking at opposing ideologies (forms of government such as democracy vs. communism,
and economic systems such as capitalism vs. socialism) and then using textual evidence to
support your claims. In addition to the text, you must link your claim to the real and current
world: how do real life conditions in the 21st century support your claims about equality in
general, and more specifically whether or not absolute equality is compatible with humanity?

Marxism is defined as the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis for the theory and practice of
communism as well as socialism. Communism is defined as a political theory derived from Karl
Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and
each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. Socialism is defined as a
political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production,
distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. That
being said, the short story "Harrison Bergeron" is about an exaggerated form of communism.
Here's a link to the actual story:
https://moodle.csun.edu/pluginfile.php/3087848/mod_resource/content/1/HARRISON
%20BERGERON%20by%20Kurt%20Vonnegut.pdf
The story plays with the idea of an absolute for of equality among the human populace,
with several forms of "restrictions" and handicaps placed on each human being. For example,
George had above average intelligence and as a result had a buzzer installed in his head that
emitted white noise. Taking it back a notch, throughout history the perfect form of communism
has never been achieved. As seen throughout history, a communist government typically turns
into a form of fascism, as seen with modern North Korea, or causes forms of revolts, as seen in
the former USSR. So in general communism as a government form has failed throughout recent
history. Communist failures aside, absolute equality among a populace is virtually impossible.
Nothing is fair and sometimes circumstances happen to people that don't deserve them.
This point is driven home when the handicapper general kills Harrison Bergeron in the
heavily rushed and over the top climax of the story. The Handicapper general is shown to be
dominant over many others in this final scene, possessing shotgun (an unfair advantage over the

unarmed Bergeron). This situation shows how impossible it is to achieve an absolute form of
fairness or equality ion any populous. One can assume this government that imposes this
absolute equality among their citizens is actually quite totalitarian and dictatorial. Equality is not
the way of nature nor the way of human nature.

Picture found on a random Google image search

There is no real life example of communism that replicates the form of equality that is
represented in "Harrison Bergeron" (as it is an exaggeration) and communism through historic
and modern times has always seemed to fail. Though there have been several Marxist/ NeoMarxist movements in history that have been very positive and extremely successful, they never
developed into a true form of communist government. They all devolve into totalitarian regimes
or break into anarchy. North Korea is the best example of a totalitarian regime spawned from
communism would be modern day North Korea, it's dictator being Kim Jong Un. The USSR was
the closest government in history to maintain a somewhat successful communist governing
system, however even the USSR devolved into a totalitarian dictatorship as well with the rise of
Joseph Stalin.
Communism is a governing system that effectively goes against all of human nature and as a
result is doomed to fail.

Some anti-communist propaganda by the United states during the cold war
Anyway, here's a video that truly drives home the fundamental idea of why communism can
never work;
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfnkvNqXWNM
Moving on from communism, socialism is of the same species, but a different
animal nonetheless. In "Harrison Bergeron", one can assume from the absolute equality that is
seen in the short story that socialism has almost no presence in the government structure. Though
socialism is taking from the same ideals as communism (Marxism), socialism allows more
freedom for the community as a whole to structure their way of life as they see fit. Thus
socialism isn't purely a communist economical philosophy. in fact, the only reason why socialism
should even be mentioned is because of its relations to the Marxist philosophies. Despite its
origins, socialism does have a chance of actually succeeding in the modern world, however, its
practice will most likely resemble that of capitalism more than one may assume.

Some nice anti-socialist propaganda I found

In conclusion, absolute equality is not possible to achieve in our modern world and is
arguably non-humane. A communist government is too susceptible to greed from the higher ups
and anarchy throughout the populace. Unfortunately, life isn't fair, and communism is a
government based around fairness. Communism, in theory, is very beautiful and almost Utopic ,
however, a utopia is a perfect place in an imperfect reality.