Harrison Bergeron By Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

As I read the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I found it to be intriguing and strange. I was so glad it was a science fiction piece and not a reality. In the stories futuristic society of 2081 the leaders took drastic measures to “lift up” the non-gifted and ensure equality among the people. If someone was better looking “their faces were masked” (Kurt Vonnegut) and if someone had more strength than others they made to wear “bags of birdshot” (Kurt Vonnegut) also known as handicap bags. These efforts were put in to place so that no one was better than anyone else was and so that everyone was equal. In essence, these efforts took away the individual identity. While these efforts were used to form an equal society, it also took away the individual identities of the people.
I would imagine instead that the future scientist of 2081 are genetically modifying people so that “they were equal every which way” (Kurt Vonnegut). Some advantages to genetically modifying people to achieve equality among them would be a more united society free from some discriminations. These ultramodern geneticists could choose that all the people would be the color purple and there would be no more racial discrimination. They could also choose that we all had the same height and weight so no one was faster than or stronger than another