平等对人类究竟意味着什么?
应该制定政策让大家一样的富裕吗?

应该采用基因技术让大家一样的聪明吗?
2018年11月26日,南方科技大学副教授贺建奎对外宣称,世界首例基因编辑婴儿出生且为双胞胎,名为“露露”和“娜娜”。这一消息瞬间引发了一场全球范围内的大争议。
面对科技篡改人类命运的现实,你是选择欣然接受改变呢?还是对未来怀着深深的忧虑?
半个世纪前,美国作家冯内古特已经在其作品中对未来科技进行了非常深刻的探讨。
| 电影《千钧一发》中,人类从出生开始,基因就要决定一切
在小说《2081》中,他杜撰了一个走向极端社会公平的世界。由于宪法第212修正案的实行以及美国缺陷裁定将军的不断监督,所有人都变得很平等:强壮的人要负重;美丽的人要戴上面具;聪明的人要戴上一种特制的听筒,里面会不断发出刺耳的噪音来干扰他们进行思考。
这是一个“人人平等”的社会,但是你想要的平等么?也许到那一天,我们都拥有了一样的心智,一样的幸福,但同时也变得一样平庸了。
迈克尔桑德尔在《公正》一书182页引用了这篇小说,标题叫:
一个平等主义的噩梦。
哈里森·伯杰龙
Harrison Bergeron
文 | 库尔特·冯内古特
《2081》英文原版
哈里森·伯杰龙)

Story Summary

'Harrison Bergeron' is set in America in 2081, during a time when the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments had been added to the Constitution in order to make sure that everyone is equal in every way. This equality is accomplished due to the diligent efforts of Diana Moon Glampers, the United States Handicapper General. As her title suggests, she is the government official who creates handicaps that will bring the stronger or smarter members of society down to the same level as the slower members.
In the opening scene, George and Hazel Bergeron are in their living room, trying to watch ballerinas on television. However, they are both having trouble concentrating. Hazel is so mentally slow that she can't remember anything for more than a few minutes. George is very intelligent, but in order to maintain equal status with the rest of society, he has to wear a little radio that plays sounds in his ear at random intervals. And not just any sounds, but loud, ear-splitting sounds. Imagine trying to concentrate on anything while a 21-gun salute or a siren blares in your ears! The sounds are so debilitating that George is reduced to Hazel's level; he is unable to think of anything for more than a few minutes at a time.
The ballerinas are also wearing government-issued handicaps: sash weights and bags of birdshot that keep them as awkward as other members of society. Their dance is interrupted when Harrison Bergeron, Hazel and George's 14-year-old son, bursts into the studio. Harrison is everything the society is trying to control. He is so strong that the Handicapper General forced him to wear 300 pounds of scrap metal; he's so attractive that he has had his eyebrows shaved off and wears a big rubber nose; and he's so intelligent that he has to wear huge earphones and special glasses that give him constant headaches. In spite of this, the government still considers him under-handicapped.
After breaking into the studio, Harrison rips off his handicaps and begins screaming that he is the new ruler, the emperor. He chooses one of the ballerinas to be his empress and rips off her handicaps, as well. They dance, gracefully and beautifully, around the studio until they are practically floating in the air. At this point, Diana Moon Glampers bursts in, shooting and killing both Harrison and the ballerina. It is only then that equality is restored.

Themes

The theme of a story is the main idea or point that the author is trying to get readers to understand. In 'Harrison Bergeron,' the two themes are centered around equality and government control.
Harrison Bergeron
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic; like bandits from a burglar alarm.
“That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.
"Huh?" said George.
"That dance—it was nice," said Hazel.
"Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really very good—no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They had heavy bags on their backs to stop them from dancing well. George was thinking that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
"Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a hammer," said George.
"I'd think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds," said Hazel, a little envious. "All the things they think up."
"Urn," said George.
"Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?" said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, was very much like the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. "If I was Diana Moon Glampers," said Hazel, 'I'd have chimes on Sunday—just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion."
"I could think, if it was just chimes," said George.
"Well—maybe make'em real loud," said Hazel. "I think I'd make a good Handicapper General."
"Good as anybody else," said George.
"Who knows better'n I do what normal is?" said Hazel.
"Right," said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.
"Boy!" said Hazel, "that was a doozy, wasn't it?"
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed on the studio floor, and were holding their heads.
"All of a sudden you look so tired," said Hazel. "Why don't you stretch out on the sofa, so's you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch." She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of weight in a canvas bag, which was locked around George's neck. "Go on and rest the bag for a little while," she said. "I don't care if you're not equal to me for a while."
George weighed the bag with his hands. "I don't mind it," he said. "I don't notice it any more. It's just a part of me."
"You've been so tired lately—kind of worn out,'' said Hazel. "If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out something. Just a little."
"Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every piece I took out," said George. "I don't call that a bargain."
"If you could just take a few out when you came home from work," said Hazel. "I mean—you don't compete with anybody around here. You just sit around."
"If I tried to get away with it," said George, "then other people'd get away with it—and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would you?"
"I'd hate it," said Hazel.
"There you are," said George. "The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?"
If Hazel hadn't been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn't have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
"Think it'd fall all apart," said Hazel.
"What would?" said George blankly.
"Society," said Hazel uncertainly. "Wasn't that what you just said?"
"Who knows?" said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn't clear at first as to what it was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, did not speak clearly. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, "Ladies and gentlemen—"
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
"That's all right—" Hazel said to George, "he tried. That's the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard."
"Ladies and gentlemen—" said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was not a good voice for a woman to use. "Excuse me—" she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.
"Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen," she said, "has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is underhandicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous."
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison. He was exactly seven feet tall.
Harrison had many, many heavy handicaps nobody else had ever borne. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him bad headaches as well.
And to spoil his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps.
"If you see this boy," said the ballerina, "do not—I repeat, do not—try to reason with him."
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and cries came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have—for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. "My God—" said George, "that must be Harrison!"
The realization was lost from his mind instantly by the sound of an motor crash in his head.
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow. Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, took off her physical handicaps quickly. Last of all, he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
"Now—" said Harrison, taking her hand, "shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!" he commanded.
The musicians got back into their chairs, and Harrison took off their handicaps, too. "Play your best," he told them, "and I'll make you barons and dukes and earls."
The music began. It was normal at first—cheap, silly, false. But Harrison pulled two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while—listened gravely, as though letting their hearts beat with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girl's tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it.
It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.
They kissed it.
And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on. It was then that the Bergerons' television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer. George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. "You been crying?" he said to Hazel.
"Yup," she said.
"What about?" he said.
"I forgot," she said. "Something real sad on television."
"What was it?" he said.
“It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel.
"Forget sad things," said George.
"I always do," said Hazel.
"That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a gun in his head.
"Gee—I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel.
"You can say that again," said George.
"Gee—" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy."

现代大学英语精读第二版(第二册)8B - Harrison Bergeron(哈里森·伯杰龙)

5、移民火星

6、平权行动:美国对黑人的照顾政策

26、制度的力量

27、[智慧漫画]僧多粥少该怎么办?(分粥游戏)

28、《公正》:灾难时期哄抬物价是否正当?

29、为何相信人性恶?

30、公平或扎根于恶意

31、治理结构的三个故事

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