Say I lived in the future. 2081, to be exact, in the society laid out in Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron." Of course I would have many handicaps because I am better than everybody else. I hope you caught the sarcasm there. In all honesty, I'm not much better at most things than other people.
I would consider myself relatively smart among the larger population of people. I'm no Einstein by any means, but I suppose the government would want to make sure I didn't take unfair advantage of anything. Just as George had to in the story, I would probably be subjected to piercing and disruptive noises in my ear to distract from any intelligent thinking.
Likewise, I am an artistic, crafty person. So in a world where beautiful things cannot be seen because they are of "unequal" caliber to everything else, my artsy projects would be illegal. Perhaps to cease the expression of my otherwordly creativity, the government would make sure my joints swelled up so that I couldn't use my nimble fingers to construct art. If that didn't work, the Handicapper General could resort to breaking my fingers, or cutting them off in an extreme case to ensure that I would not create anything without being in incredible amounts of pain.
Since I like these talents about myself, I don't necessarily want to live in this future society. Although equality sounds nice, I don't think we need to sacrifice individuality for the greater "good" of society. Personally, I'd prefer to keep my brain and fingers intact, but maybe that's just me.
Katie this sounds really sad. Your finger swelling up?! Oh D:. I think you'd have some other hanicaps too...you'd also have a speach impediment so that you couldn't be so nice and polite. We wouldn't want people to feel super confident after they talk to you! Also they'd just have to get a mask to cover up you smiling face! It could ensight rebellion if people realised they could be as happy as you!
ReplyDeleteI would also prefer to keep my brain and fingers intact.
ReplyDeleteI never thought of handicapping someone's artistic abilities, so I think it's really cool and interesting that you thought of doing that as one of your handicaps, even though it isn't a good thing, obviously. I hope that the Handicapper General would just make art illegal, and not cut of your fingers.
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