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Study 068 - Harrison Bergeron & 2BR02B (Patreon)

Published:
2023-11-23 18:22:22
Imported:
2026-06
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It's a Kurt Vonnegut double feature for Thanksgiving as we speculate on speculative stories Harrison Bergeron and 2BR02B!

Special thanks to reader Erik Peabody of the Horror Hill Podcast and Viking Guitar Productions!

Next up: Wabi Sabi and Weird Fiction

Comments

Z.A. Kahan

Cover all the Vonnegut. Ice 9 the literary world.

ESTY

There’s probably a way to use the enemy’s performance-limiters as resistance training for a secret uprising of new, advanced people

Brittney Elmer

The R0 in the second story’s title reminded me of R0 (r naught), a measurement of how many other people a sick person might infect.

REO Jackwagon

First blush comment. I'll admit that I only briefly read Vonnegut before and bounced right off. He came off as very smug te me at the time and it spoiled what were very tightly-writen, super-engaging stories. Thanks for covering him and reminding me that I should probably try his seminal stuff with a more mature eye.

Carter Stepper

Haven’t read Vonnegut but man Dresden was a war crime. Really just as bad ethically (if not materially/human life wise) as anything we did to Japan

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

I first encountered Harrison in a stage production and can't recommend it enough in that format. Very much looking forward to the wabi-sabi discussion. An important motivator in my undergraduate days that got me to Japan and has informed much of my work ever since.

It's a Ghost.

Maybe it’s just a number that Vonnegut settled on, but I find it interesting that he decided to make the population of the U.S. only 40 million people in 2BR02B. That seemed particularly small to me. I then looked up the population of the U.S. throughout its history, and it was the 1870s when the U.S. last had a population of 40 million people. It's true that by the 1870s the U.S. had already acquired all of the land composing the current continental 48 states, but the country certainly was not populated then the way it is today. I’d think that if I was creating a utopia I’d go for a much larger number than 40 million, but then again the world of 2BR02B isn’t exactly a utopia now, is it? Perhaps Vonnegut was trying to emphasize that the world of 2BR02B really doesn’t value human life after all, considering its apparent choice of such small populations.

Patrick W

I didn’t find Harrison as ridiculous as y’all did. The ballerinas brought to mind that masked singer show, and bringing people down to create equality is not an unheard of thought process today (participation prizes only in competition for instance). Also, I didn’t hear you mention it in the review, but the man killed is the son that was taken from them, and they were unable to even mourn the loss.

The Spider Incident

Fun* Fact about the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima: The decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, as well as the choices of timing and targets, was more about showing the USSR what the US was capable of. The US government knew a Japanese surrender was imminent. *This fact is not fun

Saint Fu

Maybe it’s just that I’ve lost almost all faith in satire in the last several years, but it was really hard for me to read Harrison Bergeron as anything but Ayn Rand with sarcasm.

Eric - Speaker in Digressions

I remember reading "Harrison Bergeron" in elementary school, but not what we actually were meant to learn from it. (A few years later, and not necessarily because of having read this story, I went on to read through all the Vonnegut novels my dad had, which was probably all of them available in the early 80s.) Earlier this month, by chance on the same day I learned you'd be covering the story, a Facebook friend about ten years older and even further to the left than I am railed against this story as "evil," taking it at face-value as an anti-woke screed that empowers right-wingers to promote inequality. Numerous friends and colleagues disagreed strongly. I stayed out of it, because I'm learning to pick my battles.

Dan Pratt

00:24:50 Immediately skipped to the outro and was not disappointed.

Ben Gilbert

There was a public tv movie in from the early 70s called Between Time and Timbuktu. It was several Vonnegut stories within an overarching story. A poet is sent to explore a time warp. A poet could supposedly describe it better than others. The poet gets dropped into various Vonnegut scenarios including scenes from Cat’s Cradle, Harrison Bergeron, Player Piano, and others. It’s interesting but not really very good. You can watch it on YouTube. Harrison Bergeron is near the middle somewhere. There was an interview with Vonnegut bookending the show. http://www.whitings-writings.com/diatribes/vonnegut_interview.htm

Dan Pratt

Please tell me you’re going to cover The Strange Feast next month!

Jason Thompson

You forgot the bit in “Harrison Bergeron” where, just before they die, Harrison and the ballerina literally levitate because of sheer awesomeness! …and yet, I *still* think the story is meant to be read at face value.

Jason of the K

Both of these stories remind me of classic Trek and stuff like the OG Twilight Zone, taking something that at face value sounds GREAT and revealing the dirty underbelly that there are no free lunches. "Dys-Utopia" if you will, versus all the "straight to the" dystopian stuff we have today. I'm gonna walk away from Omelas now :P

Steve

This was the first Vonnegut story I read and I've always liked it. Knowing his politics, I see it more as a satire on libertarianism's view of Socialism.

Anne Ominous

Two outrageous setups taken to the meowth degree Satire: for sure Estrangement: doubly so

Clint H

I think that Harrison Bergeron can't ONLY be a straight-faced endorsement of ableism, if only because Harrison's imperial claim is so utterly ludicrous. Harrison is just as much of an absurd caricature as as any other character in the story. His over-the-top proclamations sound like something from a Conan adventure. I'm not sure what this means for how we should interpret the story, but I find it hard to believe that Vonnegut actually thinks that Harrison rightfully deserves to be declared emperor.

Ravewolf

The beauty of unfettered human ability as a thing to behold did shine through here. But the thing that felt the most haunting for me was the determination of someone exceptional like Harrison deciding that he simply must be the one in charge. Does this suggest that the exceptional person will also be exceptionally greedy and domineering? That such is inevitable - a bunch of potentially competing would-be Napoleons among the gifted? If so, what does this say about human nature? Are we doomed to repeat a cycle of exceptional despots forever? Perhaps ironically, it has been shown that it is actually often the least capable among us who are drawn to capable but domineering despots offering a cause beyond one's self. It's a chance to belong to something for those who could not make it otherwise and maybe did not fit in elsewhere, a chance to be a true believer. But then again, are more capable people only able to resist such things due to being content with their own inherent advantages, which are themselves a form of privilege?

Beanz

Just wanted to say I also thought it said 2 bedroom, 2 bath.

James Anthony

I'm a bit behind but the mention of Those Who Walk Away from Omelas has me wondering if you've read the response story by N K Jemisin, Those Who Stay and Fight. They'd make a nice paired reading for the show... though I realize that'd require breaking the "no living writers" rule you've held to.