The Modern Civil Rights Movement

In the late 1940s, progress towards securing full civil rights for African Americans in the United States began, albeit inconsistently. Major league baseball initiated integration with Jackie Robinson, and the military followed suit in the late 1940s. In the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case of Topeka, the United States Supreme Court declared that the "separate but equal" doctrine from the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case was no longer valid. A year later, the Supreme Court mandated that lower courts use "all deliberate speed" to desegregate public schools. However, in the Deep South, governors, state legislatures, and local school boards resisted, sometimes passing laws to obstruct the ruling. Alongside the landmark Supreme Court decision, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to relinquish her seat in the front of a Montgomery, Alabama bus to move to the back as required by a local ordinance. Her arrest led to a boycott of downtown businesses by African Americans and provided Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., with a platform to begin his civil rights crusade in the South. In September 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower had to deploy the Arkansas National Guard and regular Army troops to enforce desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas schools. In February 1960, four African-American students initiated "sit-ins" by sitting at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Sit-ins became a standard tactic in the civil rights movement, as did the "Freedom Rides" that began in 1961. These busloads of whites and African Americans traveled to the South to support voter registration drives and other civil rights activities. Additionally, in 1960, the U.S. Congress passed another civil rights act, empowering federal authorities to ensure states allowed African Americans the unrestricted right to register to vote. Although the civil rights movement does not directly relate to "Harrison Bergeron," it serves as a significant backdrop, highlighting one of the era's pressing public issues. Vonnegut's exploration of equality in the story does not explicitly address racial context but invokes the fears of many, mostly white citizens, who worried that the federal government might propose measures enforcing equality of outcome. Many perceived the desegregation of public schools and other facilities as a form of tyranny similar to that depicted in the story.

The Cold War and Communism

The government authority depicted in "Harrison Bergeron" both imitates and parodies how Americans viewed the threat of socialism and communism, specifically the Soviet Union (USSR), during the Cold War. This period, particularly in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was marked by intense distrust and fear. Schools across various states introduced courses like Communism vs. Americanism in the 1950s to combat propaganda domestically. The fear of nuclear conflict prompted thousands of Americans to construct bomb shelters in their backyards.

When Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev vowed to "bury" the United States in the late 1950s, the fear of an authoritarian regime overtaking the so-called free world grew significantly in America. Communism, as practiced in the USSR and China, meant tyrannical rule without due process, enforced by secret police and informers, much like the portrayal of the United States in Vonnegut's story.

This fear became even more immediate and personal with Fidel Castro's successful revolution in Cuba, which concluded in 1959. By mid-1960, Americans realized that Castro was creating a socialist state aligned with and supported by the USSR. The Soviet Union's attempt to place missiles in Cuba led to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Trade sanctions against Cuba began in 1960 and persisted into the late 1990s. The establishment of a communist government just ninety miles from the U.S. caused widespread panic among citizens. Vonnegut observed that the practical implementation of communism failed to deliver its fundamental promise of creating a workers' paradise with equality in a classless society.

Television and American Culture

One of the rare academic references to "Harrison Bergeron" appears in Robert Uphaus's essay, "Expected Meanings in Vonnegut's Dead-End Fiction." Uphaus identifies television as the root cause of the catastrophe depicted in the United States government in 2081. He argues, "The history of mankind, Vonnegut implies in the story, is a history of progressive desensitization partly spurred on by the advent of television." Coincidentally, five months before "Harrison Bergeron" was published, Newton Minow, the newly appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, delivered a speech criticizing television. In his address, Minow described television as "a vast wasteland" filled with destructive or meaningless programs. He asserted that television programming was making it easier for people to avoid serious thought instead of challenging them to think. The story uses television as a distraction, a tool to prevent average people from thinking, much like Minow's description. Hazel Bergeron exemplifies this point; despite her "perfectly average intelligence," her short attention span keeps her from remembering why she is crying over "something real sad [she saw] on television": the murder of her son, Harrison. While Vonnegut's satire targets an overreaching, authoritarian government, television also faces criticism for its role in diminishing thought. Vonnegut suggests that television serves the same purpose for average people as mental handicap radios do for those with above-average intelligence.

World War II

Vonnegut's distrust of government power and skepticism of scientific solutions to problems stem from his experiences during World War II. He became disillusioned by the lies told to win the war and the mass destruction caused by scientific advancements in weaponry. As a prisoner of war, Vonnegut survived the Allied bombing raids on Dresden, Germany, in February 1945, where over 135,000 people—mostly civilians—died. This death toll exceeded the combined casualties from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that year. Vonnegut recounted this story in several works, most notably his 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade. In his 1991 autobiographical collage, Fates Worse Than Death, Vonnegut reprints a directory carried aboard British and American bombers during the war, showing "there wasn't much in the Dresden area worth bombing out of business according to our Intelligence experts." Vonnegut emphasizes this issue because the Dresden raids were kept secret from the public for nearly twenty years and later justified by claims that Dresden contained military targets. This act and the subsequent secrecy disillusioned him about his government. This realization that the government can and does lie to its citizens, whether for ill or for good, forms the basis for the distrust of government power in "Harrison Bergeron."

In his book Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s, Kurt Vonnegut reflected on a 1983 speech he delivered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City:

American TV, operating in the Free Market of Ideas ... was captivating audiences with portrayals of one of the two things most people, especially the young, can't resist watching when given the chance: murder. TV, and of course movies, too, were and still are numbing us to killing and death, much like Hitler's propaganda desensitized the German population during the feverish lead-up to the death camps and World War II. ...What I should have said from the pulpit was that we weren't headed to Hell. We were already in Hell, thanks to technology dictating our actions, instead of us controlling it. And it wasn't just TV.

Through these words, Vonnegut is reflecting on themes he explored in his story "Harrison Bergeron." In this tale, television desensitizes Hazel Bergeron, Harrison's mother, to the murder of her own son, which she witnesses on TV. She does cry over what she sees, but is so numbed by her television consumption that she can't remember why she's crying.

In this narrative, Vonnegut demonstrates that he was profoundly influenced by Newton Minow's renowned 1961 speech about television programming, titled "The Vast Wasteland." Minow specifically identified violence as a factor contributing to this wasteland. Toward the end of his speech, discussing programming, Minow urged for imagination over sterility; creativity over imitation; experimentation over conformity; and excellence over mediocrity. He remarked, "The power of instantaneous sight and sound is without precedent in mankind's history. This is an awesome power. It has limitless capabilities for good and for evil."

In "Harrison Bergeron," Vonnegut incorporates some of the concepts Minow discussed, particularly by portraying television as a desensitizing, numbing, and definitely thought-stifling—rather than thought-provoking—medium. When Harrison chooses to go to the television station instead of the Legislature to start his revolution, Vonnegut highlights the awesome power Minow describes in his speech. Vonnegut seems to suggest that Harrison's ability to reach the public and create a new reality (declaring himself emperor) comes from controlling television. Clearly, the government, or at least the Handicapper General, also recognizes that power.

Joseph Alvarez notes in his analysis of "Harrison Bergeron" that Vonnegut presents "a futuristic United States of America in which minds have been so softened or desensitized by television and other forces (fear of enemies) that the people give up their individual rights and aspirations, presumably for the good of the whole society." This sacrifice of personal freedom for the supposed benefit of society does not improve conditions for either above-average or average citizens. The standard of equality appears to be set well below the 1961 average. Alvarez continues, "In the resulting power vacuum, a ruthless central government created by legislation controls people's lives, which have become as meaningless as if they were machines or automatons.... What really is lost in such a process is beauty, grace, and wisdom."

It is clear that Vonnegut is not opposing equality before the law and civil rights in this satirical short story. Karen and Charles Wood clarify this point in The Vonnegut Statement:

Lest readers think that Vonnegut endorses by satire a continuation of the status quo ante (or current conditions) in relation to equality, that is, legal and customary inequality, he has commented publicly that he learned social equality through his attendance at public schools of Indianapolis. Later in life, he endorsed legal equal opportunity on at least two different occasions.

During the Soviet Russian period of glasnost, or openness, Vonnegut favorably referenced in essays and speeches (mentioned in Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons) the contemporary American glasnost experiment aimed at offering women and people of color the same social regard enjoyed by white men.

Alvarez believes that Vonnegut clearly criticizes the type of competition associated with social Darwinism. "Vonnegut has championed a free market of ideas and has fought censorship against his own books, as well as for writers in other countries whose works are suppressed by their governments." Alvarez notes that Vonnegut has fared quite well as a writer in the marketplace of ideas: "even though he does not believe he has received fair critical treatment during his later years. Essentially, he has complained that critics expect writers always to produce their best work; they are not allowed to write a bad or even mediocre book." It is to Vonnegut's credit that he did not let the possibility of writing a bad or mediocre book deter him from addressing the most significant ideas that came to his mind.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. Title VII of the Act creates The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, which bans discrimination in employment based on race, sex, national origin, and religion.

Late 1990s: Affirmative action programs, which set guidelines for the preferential hiring of minority and female workers and students, face significant criticism. Businesses and universities are sued for reverse discrimination by white individuals who were overlooked for various positions and promotions.

1950s: The CIA conducts experiments with different forms of mind control, including the use of LSD, a hallucinogen, as a truth serum on U.S. soldiers.

1993: Rumors emerge that the FBI is contemplating the use of an acoustic mind control device during a standoff with cult leader David Koresh in Waco, Texas. This device, developed by a Russian scientist, is allegedly capable of implanting thoughts in a person's mind without their awareness of the source.

1960s: Young people rally in unprecedented numbers to protest the Vietnam War, racism, and sexual discrimination. During this politically active era, Vonnegut's writings gain significant popularity.

1990s: ‘‘Hate crime’’ legislation introduces harsher penalties for those convicted of harassment and other crimes targeting individuals based on their ethnicity, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disabilities. Critics argue that these laws criminalize thought rather than action and that the severity of punishment varies depending on the victim's characteristics.