Why would over implementing equality not work in the human society?

 

In this story, the society is able to achieve physical and mental equality but does not achieve equality in power. It is highly difficult to imagine equal distribution of power in the human society as there are just some aspects that can not be controlled about the human nature. In this story Harrison Bergeron as the example, where he rebels against the system. The government, the people in power,  goes to extreme lengths to make sure that everyone is equal, such as forcing more physically advantaged people to carry weights to weaken them, wearing a transmitter that sends noises every 20 seconds that would interrupt intelligent thoughts. The people were brainwashed to believe that this system is what’s best for the society just like Hazel and George were in the story. Not just that, they were also threatened by the consequences of the laws. For example, George demonstrated his fear of disobeying the law  when he refused to take out his lead balls because he does not want a $2000 fine on every ball taken out and a 2 year imprisonment sentence.  This shows that by trying to over implement equality in the society, the people become mindless sheep and are not able to think for themselves – thus resulting with no freedom or a sense of individuality. Vonnegut is trying to reveal the flaw in this ideology of a world with equality. The ideological belief of having a society in which everyone are completely equal backfires because it ends up creating a society in which they are “handicapped” and restrained from their own individuality.

I picked this picture of a visual representation of an independent individual attempting to escape from the conformist society that enforces “sameness” on everyone (as you can see from the similar uniforms and dull backdrops contrasting with the picture on the right, which speaks of endless possibilities). This strongly reminds me of my internal struggle of conforming to modern society’s expectations of a young woman. I constantly doubt my own uniqueness and wonder if my identity has been molded into the same form as everyone else. I think very few people can claim to be the unique person in the picture- most people are represented by the people on the left without knowing it (such as in the case of Hazel and George)