Originally appeared in Idei in Dialog
A it's always Demonstratio dystopia through the discount on the absurd; she demonstrates the fallacy of some premises indirectly looking like they have absurd consequences. An image of distopia thickens of the future, showing it as a frightening, inhuman, cruel, miserable in terms of material, etc. And this miserable condition produced by the Government, it's that control up to the smallest details of the private lives of individuals. Is not content with merely owning absolute power. With this note I scored and the difference between dictatorship and totalitarianism: thus, while a dictator may leave some freedoms of action for things related to the private life of individuals (let's think about the situation of enlightened despotism from 18th century Germany, punctuated by Hayek) in a total[1]itarian State absolutely everything is controlled by the Government. Distopii is the novel paradigm for 1984 Orwell. It's the opposite of Utopia: distopia image about the future is not idyllic, happy, but cruel, dezumanizanta and contradicts our usual intuitions about fairness, family, community, etc.
Totalitarian societies are unjust societies. Morality would be to reject the axiom, theoretical premises, infrastructure that has produced and the totalitarian society that works. In Harrison Bergeron, this axiom is equality. In the short story written by Kurt V[2]onnegut, in 1961, it's taken to extreme equality in a society of the year 2081. Not only is the same as lefuri for citizens in communism or a distribution of goods and services after needs. It would just be a soft egalitarianism. In any case it's not an equality before the law as liberal theorists, dreaming of 19th and 20th centuries, but it is an equality in all respects: nobody is smarter than anyone else, nobody looks better than someone else, nobody is running faster than anyone else. Natural inequality between people harshly punished by the Government, mergandu-up to the crime. The era of competition based on natural inequalities between individuals it's seen as one that should be dark and outdated. The desired equality is one of absolute Government.
The society described by Vonnegut is a constitutional State. There's a book with metareguli, with rules to do rules: the Constitution. And equality ensured by e amendments 211, 212 and 213 at the Constitution and imposed by a government agency of handicapare. The main function of it is to correct the inequalities of natural to make people less competitive. For example, someone who had an above average intelligence have a camera in my ear by Government through various transmission signals ii to stop to think, for that would have been unfair advantages towards his fellow men. So is Mary Harrison Bergeron. Because it was and like athletic, have all sorts of devices that allow him to go, get it handicapeze and brake qualities of natural physical development. In the society described by Vonnegut is sanctioned and beauty. A ballerina was supposed to wear a mask so as not to see that it is beautiful to wear weights or to hamper its work. In addition, deviationiste were prosecuted thoughts. Think again Bergeron's father at one point as balerinele on TV would be more graceful without incomodare tools and currently receives in the device or in the ear of the Government signals, noises that allow him to carry forth this thought. As is sanctioned and drop of compassion for his son from prison. Punishments for removal of handicapare are severe. What you must remember is that in Harrison Bergeron I really a totalitarian society. For example, even the voice must be done necompetitiva: a newscaster on TV that have a pleasant voice immediately corrects uratindu and voice so as not to introduce elements of competition.
The story is simple: short novel of Kurt Vonnegut's family that shows they are watching tv, George and Hazel. Their son, Harrison Bergeron, is in prison because he was too brainy, athletic standards environments, supported the society. He manages to escape, appears on TV and commit some acts which violate the idea of equality imposed by Government: get off equalization apparatus handicapare incomodeaza him and just ask for a ballerina, who was then at the TV to do the same. No wonder you lot, because those two are shot by Diana Moon Glampers from government agency handicapare.
The text of our moral intuitions and inflamed legal functioning of a society. The acts incriminated in the society described by Vonnegut does not appear to us in light of our offenses to familiarize yourself with the tradition of the rule of law and with things related to human rights. We do not believe that anyone should be punished just because it's more clever, beautiful, etc. Even though I consider them crimes, seems incorrect disproportionalitatea between blame and punishment. However, Harrison is killed because they removed handicapare appliances. We do not encourage policies addressing smart people, beautiful, athletic, etc. They should have its rights violations as human being. No matter how pathetic, trivial or americana would seem, bourgeois ideology of human rights is the most powerful and most popular ally against utopian engineering projects commissioned by various dictators in their attempt to reform human nature to make us happy. We encourage the development of intelligence that it was a factor of progress in material and spiritual evolution of humankind, not trying to prevent. A consequence of the brake put government intelligence will be pietrificarea, guided by the freezing of egalitarian community.
Also, our intuitions are harmed by family functioning, relationships between parents and children. For parents it's not tragic that their son Harrison e H got people, people of the Government. Bergeron family it's not sad, it's passive, does not react, we don't see anything that would keep basic instinct. At most it's confused his mother that when you would have seen a sad movie, but not a tribal reaction, instinctuala, riot, sfasiere, despair, etc. People are kind of zombies, it's family destroyed by another form of organisation, one violent and abusive: the State (on the same line dezumanizanta is part of the campaign against the Communist Government of the Marat family of tomatoes in Khmer Rouge Cambodia). When the father has a wave of compassion for his son, it is sanctioned immediately by the Government through the disturbing signals transmitted by the device you have in your ear. Vonnegut society principles are against the family: they do not encourage the love between family members, but it's girl top loyalty leaders. Not by chance, his mother, Hazel Harrison, sees Dan Moon from handicapare a model agency and even a look with envy. This feeling of envy is a sample as the principle of equality is not applied consistently because society egalitarian allows inequalities: Government officials are favored, as in Communist States was privileged. The f[3]ilm Harrison Bergeron, in 1995 after Vonnegut novel, shows much more explicitly so.
The text is a classic Vonnegut and bothered since the 1960s colectivistii from all parties and continue to piss off today because they look left, limits the intervention of brutal, dehumanizing living individual to achieve egalitarian ideals. The difference between the policies of the left and the principles on contemporary world works Vonnegut is one of degree, not of kind.
In the twentieth century, distopiile were concurate seriously live versions of communism applied widespread in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. Have been updated and improved versions of totalitarianism and forms of cruelty which were common in ancient times-Egypt, China or Rome[4]. "New man" of the 20th century was built so with procedures and outdated patterns. It was not a breakthrough, but only adaugita Edition of some revized and old barbarisme.
[1] Friedrich von Hayek, the Constitution of liberty, ed. European Institute, 1998, p. 214.
[2] Kurt Vonnegut Harrison Bergeron, http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html
[3] Harrison Bergeron, a film directed by Bruce Pittman, 1995.
[4] Deirdre n. McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce, University of Chicago Press, 2006, p. 37.
