by Stephen Soukup
Kamala Harris is precisely the type of politician about whom Kurt Vonnegut tried to warn us way back in 1961.
Sixty-three years ago, the late, great Kurt Vonnegut published one of his most potent and timeless short stories. “Harrison Bergeron” is a fable, a warning to mankind to be careful what it wishes for. In the year 2081, the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the Constitution guarantee utter and complete equality. The Handicapper General ensures that anyone smarter, better looking, stronger, or faster than everyone else is equipped with “handicaps”—weights, distracting radios inserted into ears like hearing aids, black caps on beautifully white teeth, thick glasses, etc. Harrison, the son of George and Hazel Bergeron, is taken from his parents at age 14 and is equipped with several severe handicaps because he is handsome, tall, athletic, and brilliant.
This classic is generally assumed to be a warning that Americans’ obsessions with “fairness” will lead, eventually, to stupid, oppressive, and destructive rules. But there’s more to it than that.
Harrison himself is an ass. When he throws off the chains of his handicaps, he arrogantly declares himself a superior “leader” to any man who has ever lived. And this, he claims, entitles him to total obeisance from society. “‘I am the Emperor!’ cried Harrison. ‘Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!’ He stamped his foot and the studio shook.”
There is no doubt that Vonnegut intended to skewer those who demand perfect equality, making it clear that such aggressive intervention in the natural state of affairs would result in both oppression and the suppression of man’s creative virtues. Perfect equality is classic Gnostic dream-world nonsense that would, in the real world, result in “moral insanity.” Vonnegut, though a leftist, nonetheless understood this and thus railed against the very idea.
At the same time, however, it is also pretty clear that Vonnegut meant to satirize everyone else as well. One interpretation of the story suggests that Harrison’s very intelligent father, George, represents the average American of the era (the story was written in 1961). George has his thoughts disrupted “every twenty seconds or so” by “some sharp noise.” This keeps him from ever getting his thoughts organized and making full use of his intellect. Did Vonnegut mean to say that this was the problem with his fellow post-War Americans, that they were too easily distracted, that they had created an “advanced” “modern” society that, in truth, bombarded them constantly with various sensual stimuli that kept them perpetually distracted and incapable of higher thought? Maybe? Probably? We don’t know. But we do know that George and Hazel, the ostensible protagonists of the story, are not especially likable. They’re pitiable, in fact.
As for the other characters in the story, it’s pretty clear that they were meant to be even more unlikable. Harrison is clearly an anti-hero, which suggests that Vonnegut saw those who are most resistant to equality (again, this was 1961) as self-absorbed, smug, delusional would-be authoritarians who, among other things, believe that even the laws of nature (in the case of Harrison, gravity) do not apply to them. No matter how smart, strong and virile he is, and no matter how seemingly just and noble his cause, even the greatest of men can be brought low when his own arrogance is combined with the most primitive and pedestrian means of resistance—a shotgun, in this case.
Finally, Vonnegut reserves his most poignant critique for those who, by sheer luck, manage to attain power but then use it to do nothing more than accumulate more power. These “leaders” are not leaders at all. There is nothing special about them. They are perfectly “normal.” – e.g:
Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers.
……….
“I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.” Hazel said.
“Good as anybody else,” said George.
“Who knows better than I do what normal is?” said Hazel.
“Right,” said George.
For all their apparent normalcy, however, Vonnegut paints political leaders as vain, jealous, and resentful. Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, is not much different from the utterly unremarkable Hazel Bergeron, who wears no external handicaps of any sort. They are both “average,” physically and mentally. The difference between Hazel and Glampers, however, is the former’s compassion and the latter’s deadly jealousy. Hazel would replace George’s “sharp noises” with dulcet chimes, while Glampers wields a shotgun with remarkable efficiency. In short, Vonnegut makes the case that those who accumulate power in the name of “equality” and the disadvantaged intend, in truth, to wield that power for their own benefit. They plead their case in the name of “the people,” but exercise the authority granted on the strength of that case to compensate for their own deficiencies.
Over the last week, the powers that be in the Democratic Party have decided—on their own, without any input from voters—that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, should be their nominee for President of the United States. Vice President Kamala Harris, like most politicians, is vain, jealous, and resentful. She is also perfectly ordinary, lacking any qualities or features that might distinguish her from the average person. She is of perfectly normal intelligence, has perfectly normal policy insights, possesses perfectly normal reasoning skills, and is endowed with perfectly normal leadership qualities. The two things that set her apart from everyone else are her thirst for power and her belief that “equality of opportunity” is not enough and that the power of the state must be harnessed to produce “equality of outcome.” “Equitable treatment,” she insisted in a 2020 primary campaign video (and in countless speeches before and since), is what we should expect our government to provide, and that means that “we all end up in the same place.”
Kamala Harris is precisely the type of politician about whom Kurt Vonnegut tried to warn us way back in 1961. She is convinced that she knows the solution to mankind’s problems and is equally convinced that those who resist her solutions are, by definition, enemies of the state.
The story of Harrison Bergeron ends when the main character, having thrown off his handicaps, jumps to the ceiling of the TV news studio and kisses his “empress”—a beautiful ballerina who has likewise thrown off her handicaps—only to be shot dead by Diana Moon Glampers. Glampers then warns everyone else in the studio about opposing the state and reiterates the importance of wearing the handicaps the state has provided.
As for the “normal” American people, they’re too distracted to notice:
It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying,” he said to Hazel.
“Yup,” she said.
“What about?” he said.
“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”
Stephen Soukup
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/27/kamala-harris-handicapper-general/
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