Welcome to the weekend!
Yesterday my wife and I attended a victory party. She and her fellow middle school teachers had soundly defeated their students in the “Winter Games.” The 40-year-old tradition of trouncing teenagers in various field games includes the staff getting drinks after school lets out.
As the sort of student frequently on the wrong side of the law, I never considered the possibility of middle-school teachers having fun — why would they? Listening to the happy chatter from behind Friday night fish fry, one could pick out the names of the worst offenders of classroom tranquility repeatedly breaching the surface — names I recognized from my wife’s daily debriefs.
Then I thought about George W. Bush and “No Child Left Behind” — as one does. His pre-9/11 landmark bill for “compassionate conservatism” represented a Republican attempt at equity, one of those odd exceptions to the many mounds of similar legislation suggested by Democrats to close “gaps” — wealth gaps, gender gaps, and inequitable access to sweatshop textiles (Gap gaps).
A few recent examples of the costs demanded by such equity efforts include the loss of National Merit recognition for exceptional students at Fairfax County schools after its strategy plan promised: “equal outcomes for every student, without exception,” leading to policies that limit earned opportunities for brilliant students. Similarly, Columbia’s removal of the SAT application requirement — an objective measure of student competency — is a means to elevate less-deserving students.
Naturally, Vonnegut has a story for such a time. “Harrison Bergeron” is the anti-equity tale — it truly has no equal. In fact, the editors of NR loved “Bergeron” so much in the 1960s that we reprinted it in the magazine. Originally published in 1961, Kurt Vonnegut’s story supposes a world where everyone is finally equal and fantastically illustrates why limitations on the best among us may not be the future we want.
Vonnegut begins:
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.
You can read the rest here.
May yours be a lovely weekend, hopefully spent outdoors. I smoked my first pipe of Spring on Thursday sitting out in front of the garage. There’s something about a Missouri Meerschaum corncob pipe full of English tobacco that feels just right as one reclines in the sun’s warmth on a 35 degree March day.
Author’s note: If there’s a short story you’d like to see discussed in the coming weeks, please send your suggestion to label@nationalreview.com.