How modern society is like '2081' (Harrison Burgeron)

Apr 07, 2023

I was exposed in school to a short film called '2081'. The film is based upon a book called 'Harrison Burgeron' by Kurt Vonnegut. I have not read the book, and so I'm going to base this post on the concepts presented in the film, which most likely mirror those presented in its written companion.

The film depicts a dystopian world in which everyone has been 'made equal' through government mandates designed to limit the ability of highly intelligent or creative people to use and express their gifts, so as not to 'upset' those of lesser ability. The protagonist of the film is forced to wear heavy weights around his neck and waist, and is also subjected to a sharp ringing in his ears every 20 seconds or so, which prevents him from ever engaging in my meaningful thought.

The protagonist's wife does not need any impediments due to the fact that she is already docile to the point that she could or would never present any threat to the established order. She even suggests that she would make a good 'Handicapper General' (this person has the job of developing and overseeing all the impediments of the society).

Early in the film, the protagonist has brief flashbacks which reveal that his son had previously been abducted by a SWAT team, and was being held in prison with very heavy weights attached to him due to his extreme intelligence and physical power. He was of course branded a 'domestic terrorist' by the government. The images briefly rouse the protagonist from his slumber before he receives another major 'shock’, which returns him to his stupor.

In the climax of the film, we see his son escape prison and make a speech on live television before eventually being re-captured. This initially startles and awakens the protagonist out of his stupor - that is, until his next audial 'shock', which once again catapults him right back into his trance. The film ends as if nothing ever happened.

I feel that our society actually mirrors '2081' in a more significant way than most viewers may otherwise make the connection. While people in our society aren't literally made to wear heavy weights or receive audial shocks, there are many ways in which human beings are traumatized and dumbed down to the point of being rendered incapable of engaging in truly transformative action.

The most prominent example of this in my mind is the way young people are treated in our society, and in particular the globally enforced 13 year prison sentence that everyone born onto this planet is mandated to serve. During this sentence, young people are forcibly crowded into oppressive buildings where they are compelled to blindly obey the every whim of authority figures, lest they risk emotional or physical abuse from school authorities or their parents; they also risk the chastisement of their peers. We live in a world in which young people are not acknowledged as having any rights at all except those 'granted' to them by parents and state authorities; oftentimes youth will have devices taken away, be 'grounded' (aka, put on effective lockdown), or otherwise experience a smorgasbord of horrific abuses and curtailment of their freedom as a result of displaying any form of disobedience (ludicrously known as 'oppositional defiant disorder' in the mental health industry) to their assigned lot in life as effective third class citizens.

I feel quite confident in stating that everyone alive is massively negatively impacted, and often severely traumatized, by the youth experience; the fact that we live in a society where the utterly barbaric youth torture program known as 'school' is considered 'normal' and 'part of life' is absolutely sickening to me, and is reflective of how utterly despotic our world has become.

Other examples of built-in societal 'impediments' include the poisoning of humanity through the drastic reduction in overall food quality; the posting of the air through pollution; the poisoning of water with fluoridation, pharmaceuticals and other contaminants; and so on.

The end result is that even the most wise, ancient and capable souls born onto this planet have an extremely difficult time overcoming the 500-pound weight of societal dysfunction which is forcibly hung around their neck.

The following quote from a document called 'Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars', which I believe to be a wholly accurate description of the 'elite' mindset and strategy regardless of its source, is highly relevant to this discussion:

"The quality of education given to the lower class must be of the poorest sort, so that the moat of ignorance isolating the inferior class from the superior class is and remains incomprehensible to the inferior class. With such an initial handicap, even bright lower class individuals have little if any hope of extricating themselves from their assigned lot in life. This form of slavery is essential to maintain some measure of social order, peace, and tranquillity for the ruling upper class."

In short, it is not necessary to physically strap people with 'equalizing' devices in our world - the same end result is created through a wide collection of societal 'impediments' which converge to render us impotent, stupified and entranced, to the point that our ability to even recognize our existence as one of barbaric servitude, let alone rise up collectively to do anything about it, is rendered an extreme challenge, if not altogether impossible.

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