![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lfs.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/0-Harrison-Bergeron-study-guide-0_.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIn \u2018Harrison Bergeron,\u2019 first published in 1961 in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction<\/em>, Vonnegut blends a satirical and tragic tone in depicting a dystopian future in the United States where constitutional amendments and a Handicapper General mandate that no one can be stupider, uglier, weaker, slower (or better) than anyone else. Vonnegut dramatizes the destruction of people’s lives and talents and the obliteration of basic humanity via a denial of emotions and knowledge that leaves parents unable to mourn a son’s death. \u2018Harrison Bergeron\u2019 exposes and mourns the chilling authoritarian consequences of radical egalitarianism taken to an inhuman and Orwellian extreme that denies individuality, diversity and the opportunity to excel.<\/p>\n The sons and daughters of Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) sent a short statement, in the wry self-deprecating spirit of their father, which was read at the ceremony: “Without wanting to make anyone else feel bad about having written or published less good stories and\u00a0without wishing to appear vain or in any way showy, we are moderately proud of this story, what it\u2019s meant to others and this award.” The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, based in Indianapolis and about to reopen Sept. 22, 2019, in new and larger quarters there, also prepared a longer appreciation and statement, written by the museum’s education director Max Goller and also read in Dublin:<\/p>\n The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis, Indiana, is thrilled to receive news that the short story, \u201cHarrison Bergeron\u201d is being recognized by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS) with the Prometheus Award in the Hall of Fame (Best Classic Fiction) category. For more information about Vonnegut’s legacy and the Vonnegut Museum and Library, visit www.vonnegutlibrary.org<\/a><\/p>\n For more information about joining the LFS, visit\u00a0https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/join.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kurt Vonnegut’s cautionary fable “Harrison Bergeron” was inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame at the 2019 Worldcon in Dublin, Ireland – where acceptance statements by the late Vonnegut’s family and by the Vonnegut Museum and Library were read. In \u2018Harrison Bergeron,\u2019 first published in 1961 in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Vonnegut … Continue reading Honoring Kurt Vonnegut for Harrison Bergeron: Hall of Fame acceptance speeches<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[687,31,37],"tags":[113,115,112,114,117,116],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-award-acceptance-speech","category-awards-news","category-memorial-tributes","tag-harrison-bergeron","tag-indianapolis","tag-kurt-vonnegut","tag-kurt-vonnegut-museum-and-library","tag-palm-sunday","tag-slaughterhouse-five"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-bT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":800,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions\/800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/p>\n
\nSincerely,
\nThe Vonnegut children and cousins and their children and cousins<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThe story, like much of Kurt\u2019s other writings, seems a perfect fit for LFS, who identify as, \u201clibertarians and freedom-loving science fiction fans who believe cultural change is as vital as political change in achieving freedom.\u201d
\nKurt\u2019s principles, in keeping with LFS standards, include passionate promotion of the necessity for free expression in the world. In fact, in 1973 in the very month of Kurt\u2019s birth, November, the school district of Drake, North Dakota controversially burned 32 copies of Slaughterhouse-Five\u00a0<\/em>in the school furnace. Kurt responded passionately in a letter that was later published in the very first chapter of his non-fiction collection, Palm Sunday<\/em>, appropriately entitled \u201cThe First Amendment.\u201d
\nAmong other sentiments in the letter, Kurt stressed, \u201cCertain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am.\u201d
\nThe work recognized for this year\u2019s award, \u201cHarrison Bergeron,\u201d is one of the most widely taught texts in schools around the country. It is often featured during the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library\u2019s annual workshop specifically created for teachers interested in bringing Vonnegut\u2019s messages of freedom of expression and common decency to their own classrooms.
\nSeemingly contradicting the sentiment expressed at the beginning of this acceptance that Kurt\u2019s writings are a perfect fit for LFS, it might be noted that he was not very fond of being known as a science-fiction author.
\nIn fact, in his book Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons<\/em>, he rather succinctly noted, \u201cI have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled \u2018science fiction\u2019 … and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.\u201d
\nThis might sound like a man who did not appreciate science-fiction as a genre, however, in the last of his books published within his lifetime, Man Without a Country<\/em>, he expounded by writing:
\n\u201cI became a so-called science fiction writer when someone decreed that I was a science fiction writer. I did not want to be classified as one, so I wondered in what way I’d offended that I would not get credit for being a serious writer. I decided that it was because I wrote about technology, and most fine American writers know nothing about technology. I got classified as a science fiction writer simply because I wrote about Schenectady, New York. My first book, Player Piano<\/em>, was about Schenectady. There are huge factories in Schenectady and nothing else. I and my associates were engineers, physicists, chemists, and mathematicians. And when I wrote about the General Electric Company and Schenectady, it seemed a fantasy of the future to critics who had never seen the place.\u201d
\n
\nAbove all, Kurt wanted to be recognized not for the genre he wrote in, but for the importance and humanity of his words and themes.
\nIt is the honor of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, therefore, to thank the Libertarian Futurist Society for recognizing the importance and humanity of our Hoosier son, Kurt Vonnegut\u2019s words with this 2019 Prometheus Award in the Hall of Fame (Best Classic Fiction) category.
\nIf he were here with us today, I am confident he would have shared his favorite expression taught to him by his favorite uncle, Alex, \u201cIf this isn\u2019t nice, I don\u2019t know what is.\u201d<\/p>\n