Living in a 2081 Society

In 1961 author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. wrote a short story entitled “Harrison Bergeron.” This short story, about a man and his wife living in the year 2081, shows an extreme society brought about by the 211th, 212th and 213th constitutional amendments which have guaranteed equal rights to all. To be in any way smarter, stronger, talented or better looking than another human is to be handicapped. The strong must carry around bags of birdshot to counteract their extra strength, the beautiful must wear ugly masks and the smart have an ear piece blasting noise into their brains to disrupt their thoughts. The story, combining science fiction with satire, showed Vonnegut’s belief that the fight for equality could, or was getting out of hand. Still when we look around today we have to wonder if, in some odd way, he could have been onto something. Modern American society today is becoming like Vonnegut’s 2081 society; which is, inadvertently, conforming our strength, talent, brains, and beauty to a common standard. It seems today everybody wants to be like everyone else, everyone wants to be accepted and we are going to extreme lengths to make that happen.

Working out is more common than ever. Gyms continually pop up everywhere, and having a personal trainer in no longer for the wealthy. Campuses provide a gym, free to students, and almost every hotel or motel has gym faculties. Owning your own gym equipment is also now affordable and space friendly with payment plans and fold up designs. Physical education class is required throughout high school, and many colleges have a requirement for it as well. The reason for this: almost all jobs today have a weight limit that you must be able to carry. Even businessmen and businesswomen often have to lug around computers and other equipment. We are attracted to strength because it is needed to survive.

Unfortunately, it is not only because we need strength that we are attracted to it. Vanity plays its part. The build up of muscle on men and women have changed dramatically in years. Pictures of athletes back in the sixties, seventies and even eighties pale in comparison to those today. Muscles were smaller then, and general body shape was more slender for a man. Women generally had little to no muscle definition in the arms, legs and abs - where as muscle definition is very common today. We are getting stronger. To help us get this way, we drink supplement drinks, down extra vitamins and count our nutritional intake, all to give us the strength desired in society today.

We continue to build on this idea in our institution of reality television shows that award the strong. Shows like “Survivor” are filled with challenges and obstacles where only the strong survive. Even shows like “Biggest Loser,” which is designed to help you reach your goals of weight loss, are filled with challenges meant to help you reach not just the standard of beauty, but strength as well. We may not be putting handicaps on those who are stronger as they did in the 2081 society, but we have created a desire for everyone to be equal in the area. And we are making it more and more possible for everyone to build their strength. But strength is built on a good foundation. Our conformity in the area of talent, however, might not be such a good idea.

We all know them - actors who cannot act, singers whose voices have been digitally enhanced, artists who can not paint, and writers who do not understand the English language. Yet, these people still make it big. Talent is no longer about what you can do, but is about who you know or what you look like. While in “Harrison Bergeron” dancers and singers are all made to be equally bad, today we seem to be trying to make everyone good at what they do, we give an equal chance to everyone and try to find ways around what they are missing giving them as good a chance as anyone else in the field. The music industry is, perhaps, the most known for this; voice enhancement is becoming more and more common, and when these people sing without that enhancement, it is quite clear that they are nothing above average. I personally could go in and have my voice enhanced to sound just as good as a professional, but it does not mean that I have any real talent in the area.

We see this in other professions as well. Many books are published, and yes popular, even though the writer is clearly lacking in understanding of the English language. What makes these books popular? It is mostly plots and character. Don’t get me wrong, I do happen to like some of those books out there, but not too long ago they would have never been considered for publication due to the armature writing.

Still there is more! Actors can get parts not on talent, but on looks or who they know in the business. And if you want to dance, there are show like “Dancing with the Stars,” in which celebrities, with no dancing skills, compete with professional dancers. Even we common folks can make it big on television by losing weight and competing at dancing at the same time. Then there is art. Some modern artist can’t even draw a stick figure, but their paintings sell for thousands of dollars because they chose to be abstract and nonrepresentational artists. Want to try that one yourself? Just claim that knowing how to paint realistically confines and restricts you from expression.

These things are forcing people to conform, making them equal. Anybody can do anything they want, whether they have the talent or not. It might not be the same as weighting everybody down to be equally “bad,” but enhancing everybody to make them equally “good” is still removing diversity; it is still conformity, only, perhaps, in a more pleasing way.

One of the reasons we can make singers out of a talent-less voice is because of technology. And it is because of technology that we are conforming in knowledge as well. A student no longer has to learn how to do math - calculators can do it all for him or her. We find anything we may want or need on the internet. Programs now allow us to check our spelling and grammar. Books are on audio and made into movies. Then there is the continually expanding cell phone; now you can access the internet wherever you are. It has a calculator, texting, planners; you don’t even have to remember where you need to be: your phone will remember for you. This sort of technology is in a way giving us all the same knowledge; we all have access to it when we need it. Search engines will let us find anything we want, whereas before our knowledge helped us to find what we wanted, and the more knowledge we had the more we could gain. Now, a high school dropout can know just as much about rocket science as a rocket scientist because the information is available to all.

Added to this is the public school system in which every kid learns the same things. They are all required to make it through algebra, learn basic government and history, reach a certain level of science, generally biology or chemistry, and have specific skills in English while reading many of the same classics as the generations before them. The variety in classes use to be in shop, technology, art, music, theatre, business and other such classes. However, several schools have been removing many of these classes from their schedules due to insufficient funds or unavailability of teachers. The problem is that without them, everybody is learning the same thing. Schools tell students where to go and when. Set schedules squash creativity; teaching kids no other way to learn or get things done other than a grid schedule. Our time is boxed in; each thing we learn must be done in an hour - gives new meaning to thinking outside the box. The problem is, we can not think outside of that box if we live in it, and it is no wonder we continue to conform as adults.

Beauty is perhaps the area in which a 2081 society is becoming the most apparent. If there is any area in which people desire to be like everybody else, then this is it. The scary part is we can actually look like everybody else. Simple things like make-up and hair dye have been around for a long time, but the beauty industry has expanded. Everybody wants to look like a model, and the beauty standard of the model becomes narrower by the day. Think about it; models no longer have a round faces, big noses, thin lips, or stand under 5’7”. Every model seems to have high cheek bones and long limbs. Even plus size models are held to a different standard than average people.

Today if we do not like it, we change it. Plastic surgery is more popular than ever, and we can even get a loan to pay for it. We do not even have to diet anymore, new surgeries are continually being developed and improved to slim us down to that perfect size. Some plastic surgery out there can even define abdominal muscles or create those desired muscle tones in legs, arms and chest. We have skin pulled back to keep us young; add that to the already availability of make-up, hair dye, skin creams, colored contacts and other beauty products, and we can look exactly like anybody we want.

Magazines and movie stars, as well as models, help to define the beauty standard; all of which are air brushed and touched up. Yet, it is the standard of what someone should look like, and what almost everyone is striving or desiring to be. Vonnegut’s 2081 society uses masks to counteract beauty, the uglier the mask the more beautiful the person. It was about balance. Today, however, we can actually make everyone look exactly the same! The sad part is we are rapidly moving in that direction. Genetics has even been working to find ways that a parent can choose what a child will look like before birth.

The odd thing is we claim we do not want conformity. Yet, in an instant we will look down on another for being different from us. School children are constantly teased because of weight, height, glasses, shyness, clothing and even not having one of the newest product trends. As adults we continue on this path, often more subtly, finding individuals that we do not like for various reasons. While many of these reasons have moved on to personality traits instead of the physical being, we still are looking down on the fact that they are not like us, that they have not conformed to the same things that we have.

That 2081 society seems so pointless and odd to us. We see the rights taken away from them, the lost individuality. We see the conformity in trying to be equal. We know that 2081 society did not distinguish between being equal and treating everyone equal, though it appears we do not value individuality as much as we claim either. Or, perhaps, we simply have not seen the extent we have come to today. American Society has followed that lead anyway: we simply assume that there is a difference in what we are doing, actually making everybody psychically and mentally equal; then what they had done in the story, pretending that everyone was equal and that everyone was the same. But, that difference is not there, we have taken one giant leap in the direction of that 2081 society. We have conformed.

Works Cited

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt. “Harrison Bergeron.” Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 10th edition. New York: Pearson, 2007.