Communism is when your genetically superior superpowers are taken away from you.
You see this trope a lot in children's fiction.
I know My Little Pony had an episode about this.
But what does that actually translate into in real life?
It's not like expropriating someone's property or restructuring how an economic system works. It's more like ... Communism is when all the tall people have to be reduced in height so we're all equals heights ... or something.
The fact that Sato, the stand-in for Henry Ford, is one of the Equalists tells you everything - that "Equal" just means "Evil" and has fuck-ton nothing to do with economic structures, just magical genetic individual superpowers.
there's this short story, Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. I must have been assigned it as required reading at least half-a-dozen times over the coarse of elementary, middle, and high school. This was over several different school districts. If my anecdote is anything to go by, it's probably more widely read than 1984. It helps the teacher can make it through the whole thing in, like, fifteen minutes -- tops. And it's sooo dumb. Like, the Vonnegut absolutely-wrote-this-in-one-sitting-and-forgot-about-it, dumb.
I think that short story encapsulates everything Americans really and truly believe about communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular.
Vonnegut had a lot of conflicting ideas, but identified as a socialist. I think he was in the somewhat confused vein of psuedo progressive we see today that is for lefty economics but is anti-political correctness, and the ease that Bergeron maps onto American antocommunist beliefs shows exactly where that particular strain of thought comes from.
If I remember right people are kept "equal" in all aspects by handicapping those smarter, stronger, faster, etc than average. If you're smart you have a speaker strapped to your head to interupt your thoughts so you're on the same playing field as dumber people, shit like that. And the title character is a super special genius strong boy who has to wear the biggest weights etc to keep him down. then I think he breaks free, gives a Randian speech on tv, and is shot.
Haven't read it for years so that's prob not accurate but I don't care enough to look it up
Communism is when your genetically superior superpowers are taken away from you.
You see this trope a lot in children's fiction.
I know My Little Pony had an episode about this.
But what does that actually translate into in real life?
It's not like expropriating someone's property or restructuring how an economic system works. It's more like ... Communism is when all the tall people have to be reduced in height so we're all equals heights ... or something.
The fact that Sato, the stand-in for Henry Ford, is one of the Equalists tells you everything - that "Equal" just means "Evil" and has fuck-ton nothing to do with economic structures, just magical genetic individual superpowers.
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Communism is when there's only one giant toilet and we all have to use it at the same time.
that was just ancient Rome
there's this short story, Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. I must have been assigned it as required reading at least half-a-dozen times over the coarse of elementary, middle, and high school. This was over several different school districts. If my anecdote is anything to go by, it's probably more widely read than 1984. It helps the teacher can make it through the whole thing in, like, fifteen minutes -- tops. And it's sooo dumb. Like, the Vonnegut absolutely-wrote-this-in-one-sitting-and-forgot-about-it, dumb.
I think that short story encapsulates everything Americans really and truly believe about communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular.
Vonnegut had a lot of conflicting ideas, but identified as a socialist. I think he was in the somewhat confused vein of psuedo progressive we see today that is for lefty economics but is anti-political correctness, and the ease that Bergeron maps onto American antocommunist beliefs shows exactly where that particular strain of thought comes from.
Am not reading that shit so tell me the story pls
If I remember right people are kept "equal" in all aspects by handicapping those smarter, stronger, faster, etc than average. If you're smart you have a speaker strapped to your head to interupt your thoughts so you're on the same playing field as dumber people, shit like that. And the title character is a super special genius strong boy who has to wear the biggest weights etc to keep him down. then I think he breaks free, gives a Randian speech on tv, and is shot.
Haven't read it for years so that's prob not accurate but I don't care enough to look it up
Good.
No, you're right, that's pretty much it.