Assignment
For your first assignment you will be writing a one-page critical question. While it is entirely up to you exactly how you organize your paper, it should include a paragraph or so describing and setting up the problem, followed by the question.
An effective critical question will be open and invite more than one answer, but it will not be so wide open as to invite any answer. It should dictate the kind of information, both textual and contextual, we will need in order to supply an answer. And it should indicate why the particular subject of the questions poses a problem. It should do this, however, without dictating any one answer. The question should be flexible and open to revision, and it should be analytical. In other words, the question should help us break down the subject and focus on a particular set of relationships. Last of all the question should address something that actually puzzles you. If you already know the answer, don't ask.
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Essay
Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron's world is America in 2081 where the type of equality the utopian-for-some, dystopian-for-others world has is an enforced egalitarianism that requires constant governmental suppression of natural gifts. The gifted, be they smarter or perhaps more attractive, are handicapped to the level of the ungifted or relatively inferior. Such handicaps are physical restraints such as weights for the strong and devices such as noise-broadcasting in-ear radios for the intelligent. Arrangements of such restraints often reflected a "military neatness" as one perhaps expects from such an oppressive government that forces conformity and equality.
This is not the case for Harrison Bergeron, a fourteen-year-old boy who can be regarded as almost superhuman given his extraordinary physical build, mental agility, and intelligence. His restraints, which are often added to haphazardly in a desperate attempt to restrain his growing strength and intelligence, give him the appearance of a "walking junkyard" along with a "red rubber ball for a nose, [shaved off eyebrows and black caps for his] even white teeth". At this description, we may laugh, perhaps not at the comedy of Harrison's appearance so much as at the absurdity of the lengths that the government goes to in their attempts to reduce the near superhuman to the lowest common denominator. At that absurdity, we may almost laugh in disbelief.
We may almost laugh in disbelief because of our current distance from such a society. Vonnegut wrote his this short story during the Cold War Era, an era in which tensions were high between the democratic America and the Communist Russia. To many Americans, the threat of Communism coming ashore felt very real and it was politician such as Senator McCarthy that capitalized on such fears. To Americans, Communism was viewed as oppressive to individual freedoms and a threat to
the free world.
Harrison Bergeron can be regarded as a satire of attempts of achieving equality by any means necessary. In the the world of Harrison Bergeron, people are not only given equality opportunity to succeed but rather, they are given the equality of the result with the gifted being dragged to the same level as the less gifted: Those who are naturally gifted and superior in a certain way will have that superiority suppressed to bring them down to the level of those who are inferior thereby reducing everyone to the lowest common denominator thereby achieving equality of result.
Equality of opportunity is when everyone is theoretically given equal access to opportunities to advance. Equality of result is when people are given equal endings regardless of what they do or did not do. The government in Harrison Bergeron achieves mostly equality of opportunity but to a dreadful extreme. Equality of opportunity is achieved because everyone, regardless of natural gifts or talents, is now on the same level or are supposed to be. Equality of result is not necessarily achieved because the result, the goal of humans is not always to get on the same level as others. Rather, the goal of humans is also happiness and fulfillment which can be achieved in a variety of ways. So just how is equality of result balanced with equality of opportunity given natural differences while to aiding the right to the pursuit of happiness for all?
For your first assignment you will be writing a one-page critical question. While it is entirely up to you exactly how you organize your paper, it should include a paragraph or so describing and setting up the problem, followed by the question.
An effective critical question will be open and invite more than one answer, but it will not be so wide open as to invite any answer. It should dictate the kind of information, both textual and contextual, we will need in order to supply an answer. And it should indicate why the particular subject of the questions poses a problem. It should do this, however, without dictating any one answer. The question should be flexible and open to revision, and it should be analytical. In other words, the question should help us break down the subject and focus on a particular set of relationships. Last of all the question should address something that actually puzzles you. If you already know the answer, don't ask.
________________________________________
Essay
Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron's world is America in 2081 where the type of equality the utopian-for-some, dystopian-for-others world has is an enforced egalitarianism that requires constant governmental suppression of natural gifts. The gifted, be they smarter or perhaps more attractive, are handicapped to the level of the ungifted or relatively inferior. Such handicaps are physical restraints such as weights for the strong and devices such as noise-broadcasting in-ear radios for the intelligent. Arrangements of such restraints often reflected a "military neatness" as one perhaps expects from such an oppressive government that forces conformity and equality.
This is not the case for Harrison Bergeron, a fourteen-year-old boy who can be regarded as almost superhuman given his extraordinary physical build, mental agility, and intelligence. His restraints, which are often added to haphazardly in a desperate attempt to restrain his growing strength and intelligence, give him the appearance of a "walking junkyard" along with a "red rubber ball for a nose, [shaved off eyebrows and black caps for his] even white teeth". At this description, we may laugh, perhaps not at the comedy of Harrison's appearance so much as at the absurdity of the lengths that the government goes to in their attempts to reduce the near superhuman to the lowest common denominator. At that absurdity, we may almost laugh in disbelief.
We may almost laugh in disbelief because of our current distance from such a society. Vonnegut wrote his this short story during the Cold War Era, an era in which tensions were high between the democratic America and the Communist Russia. To many Americans, the threat of Communism coming ashore felt very real and it was politician such as Senator McCarthy that capitalized on such fears. To Americans, Communism was viewed as oppressive to individual freedoms and a threat to
the free world.
Harrison Bergeron can be regarded as a satire of attempts of achieving equality by any means necessary. In the the world of Harrison Bergeron, people are not only given equality opportunity to succeed but rather, they are given the equality of the result with the gifted being dragged to the same level as the less gifted: Those who are naturally gifted and superior in a certain way will have that superiority suppressed to bring them down to the level of those who are inferior thereby reducing everyone to the lowest common denominator thereby achieving equality of result.
Equality of opportunity is when everyone is theoretically given equal access to opportunities to advance. Equality of result is when people are given equal endings regardless of what they do or did not do. The government in Harrison Bergeron achieves mostly equality of opportunity but to a dreadful extreme. Equality of opportunity is achieved because everyone, regardless of natural gifts or talents, is now on the same level or are supposed to be. Equality of result is not necessarily achieved because the result, the goal of humans is not always to get on the same level as others. Rather, the goal of humans is also happiness and fulfillment which can be achieved in a variety of ways. So just how is equality of result balanced with equality of opportunity given natural differences while to aiding the right to the pursuit of happiness for all?
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