Respone to Harrison Bergeron

Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut

The story Harrison Bergeron is about a world where everyone is completely equal and no one is allowed to be better.

-Why would the government not allow people to use their talents to their fullest ability?
-What experiences in your life could relate to everyone having to be equal?
-What in today's society would have contributed to the reason the author wrote about everyone being equal?

The government in Harrison Bergeron felt that anyone that was too smart or too pretty or too strong or too good at anything was a threat. People that were smart had to wear aids in their ears and anytime they were thinking of something on a higher level they would hear a noise in their head to make the thought stop. The government thought that people that thought of higher things could think of a way to over rule them. The government was also scared that people that were smarter would make the other people feel bad about themselves. In reality though, the government can't have control over that. They should let people be who they are and let them give what they have to offer.

In school, smarter people are often put into lower level classes becuase they don't want the not as smart kids to feel bad that they aren't in the higher level classes. Smarter people are also not usually challenged as much because the teachers have to wait until everyone else understands it, too. I know this because I fall in the smarter category. I am put in higher level classes, but often times I feel like I am not working as hard as I could because the work that is being given is for the lower level people to understand, too. This is really unfair to me because I feel like I could be doing more, but yet I am not challenged as much as I should be.

The author, Kurt Vonnegut, probably wrote this story because society is being dumbed down. Most people now don't like to think too hard about things or do anything that would require too much work. Most people look for the easy way out. In schools, there is the "no child left behind" law, meaning that kids that are not as smart should be given more chances to pass so that they do not look or feel stupid. The government does not want kids feeling like they are anything less then the smarter kids. That's not what it comes to, though; it's what people have to offer. Someone who is not smart might be an amazing dancer, so they have that to offer. The author wanted to show that what the government is portraying as "right" is not really the right thing at all. He wanted to show that people are not always equal in their abilities, but they should be allowed to use them.