What attitudes about equality is Vonnegut mocking in the story "Harrison Bergeron"?What statement is he making about individuality? Consider the...

While Kurt Vonnegut may be ridiculing the fears of many
citizens of the early 1960s in the United States who feared the federal government would
in some way propose schemes that would enforce equality of outcome, the story "Harrison
Bergeron" has been more prophetic that Vonnegut could have supposed.  For, the U.S.
government did, indeed, impose quotas on hiring in the 1970s and established Affirmative
Action. During George W. Bush's administration, the No Child Left Behind Law was
enacted, a law which the reader could perceive as being satirized in Vonnegut's story by
having the bright and talented students wear handicaps so that the slower can compete
with them intellectually and physically.

At any rate, what
Vonnegut ridicules mostly is the government's idea that it must be the one to ensure
equality.  This attitude precludes the ability of individuals to rise on their own even
when social restraints are eradicated.  So, in Bergeron's society there is the failure
to acknowledge the innate differences in people and the failure to allow people to excel
if they have talent.  To restrain and punish others for their talents is as criminal as
not allowing someone to excel because of his race or nationality or other
characteristics. Vonnegut takes political correctness and equal opportunity to extremes
in order to get people to understand the dangers of some well-meaning
programs.

In addition to satirizing the notion of
handicapping people to enforce equality, Vonnegut also ridicules the failure of
rebellion, authoritarian government, and the apathy that occurs in people who watch
television.