`` The Kind Of Nightmarish Dystopia By Harrison Bergeron

When Equality is No Longer Equal â€Å"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.† Equality. One word with one million different definitions. When you hear the word equality, what thoughts come to mind? Do you think of the Civil Rights Movement and Women’s Suffrage, or do you think of the kind of nightmarish dystopia written about in Harrison Bergeron? As a child, my thoughts regarding equality were simplistic and idealistic. Equal everything sounded amazing! I mean, we all deserve the exact same chance at life, and none of†¦show more content†¦But they obviously hadn’t taken a second to ask themselves what talent actually is. If we could all sing like Freddie Mercury or play guitar like Slash, then what they do wouldn’t phase us at all. If we were all equal, t hen talent would not exist. We would all be equally capable of doing nothing at all. Life would be cookie cutter and boring. I don’t know why anyone would wish for us to all be the same, our strengths are found in our unique or strange qualities. Let’s move on to the next ways inequality can be a good thing, which are the incentive to better yourself and the struggle that goes along with it. An example of this in Harrison Bergeron is when George and Hazel are watching TV and the announcer has a very severe speech impediment. ‘That s all right- Hazel said of the announcer, he tried. That s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.’ Now this TV announcer has no incentive to improve himself. He is getting raises for trying, not for achieving. I wonder how far we would be as a people if we had a society structured in this way during the renaissance or some other period of discovery/learning. Brunelleschi would have never finished the Duomo, and therefore never sparked the match that began the fire that was the Renaissance. He would have been commissioned for simply trying and would have no reason to achieve more. It is human nature to be lazy, selfish,