The following is a movie based on Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s”Harrison Bergeron”. I don’t know of a release date or how wide it will be, but I want to see it.

We performed this as a part of a group of short plays called Welcome to the Monkey House.

In the story, societal equality has been achieved by handicapping the most intelligent, athletic or beautiful members of society down to the level of the lowest common endowment. This process is central to the society, designed so that no one will feel inferior to anyone else. This is overseen by the United States Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers.

The Democratic party often gets accused of trying to do something very like this, setting up the so called “nanny state”. I don’t think this is the ultimate goal of my party any more than I think a sort of cyberpunk-ish state run by megacorps is the ultimate goal of the Republicans. This isn’t really a political post though, so much as it is a desire to think about “equality” and if we can push the idea too far.
I’m all for trying to level the playing field a bit, by lifting up those who are kept down for whatever reason, but I can’t think of an instance where I would want to handicap someone who has a natural advantage. The Incredibles’ says in a couple of places that if everyone is special or super then no one will be. That won’t ever be our problem, since I can’t think of a way to make everyone special. Doing the opposite, though, is easy.
The easy way out is almost never the best or most moral way. Rather than encourage mediocrity, which certainly happens all too often, how do we encourage the extraordinary? As a country that’s certainly one thing we need to do. Are we doing it? Are we pushing our students and citizens to excel? I don’t think we are.
(cue violin music) There was a time when an A meant that you were in the top percentile. Some people actually got held back from year to year. Getting into college meant you had to work your backside off. While this doesn’t force the exceptional among us to be any less exceptional, it doesn’t encourage going the extra mile. So while we aren’t enforcing mediocrity as has happened in the movie, will we wind up with what is essentially the same thing? Is this the sort of equality we want as a society? I don’t.