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Alright, so I'm guessing when people have to give up personal freedom for collective values, it's called ‘leftist’, right? Like, freedom of personal expression and freedom over one's own body—so men are forbidden from growing out long hair and decorating themselves with trinkets, women have to look ‘womanly’ and to assume traditional matronly roles, homosexuality is outlaw, recreational drugs are criminal as damaging for the society at large. Likewise, people are precluded from spending their money as they see fit, and the state dictates what healthcare, schools, universities and other caregiving establishments look like, such that everybody pays taxes for them. People can't sell each other whatever they want, but have to follow invasive regulation by the state. This all is leftism.


Leftists believe in egalitarianism, but this is very different from giving up personal freedom for collective values across the board. For one thing, leftists generally don't believe the collective values you've listed have value to begin with. It's also noteworthy that your examples target taking from those who already have less.


I understand this criticism but I am not sure what you are posting it in response to or what arguments you are assigning to the discussion. My point is simply that the story focuses on an aspect of life of some emotional and philosophical significance and does what it sets out to do fairly well. It's not attempting to critique social norms as they precisely are but just the general concept of celebrating hierarchy vs. attempting to smooth it over.


That's what I was getting at. As I see it, the story postulates a hardcore version of the ‘equality of outcome’ approach, particularly in the social aspect. I don't think anyone who's not completely marginalized subscribes to full-blown equality of outcome even just in the economic sense, much less in the social perspective.

The US left do advocate for something resembling weak ‘equality of outcome’ in that poor and ill aren't thrown under the bus. However, while the left can be seen as reducing personal economic freedom, the oppression of social freedoms is a purview of conservatives. So ‘Harrison Bergeron’ is closer to a parody of a right-wing dreamland. Perhaps incels would in fact welcome an ‘equal outcome’ social world, where they are on the same level as Chads.


Initially, what I meant by a critique of right-wing ideas is that the Harrison Bergeron character can be read as a Randian fantasy of a great being held back by socialist busybodies. I doubt a right-winger would much identify with the government as parodied, even if I fully concur that they have their own share of oppressive norms and that the notion of the left having the monopoly of restrictions is absurd.

The story itself is pretty light on discussing any specific norm (other than maybe gender, but I think that just wasn't on the author's radar), whether economic or social, but it does tackle the general sense of 'master' vs. 'slave' morality as described by Nietzsche, which is somewhat perpendicular to the left-right spectrum and shows up at both of its ends. Harrison is parodied as the extreme 'master' who justifies seizing power as a natural birthright deriving from his absurd set of qualities, and the government is parodied as the extreme form of 'slave' morality where nothing counts beyond the good intentions of people and any form of competence is seen as dangerous and unfair.




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