How is radical mediocrity achieved and enforced in "Harrison Bergeron?"

Mediocrity is merely the state of being ordinary or normal. The concept of radical mediocrity suggests forces which compel individuals to remain ordinary, or which compel them to tamp down any special abilities or talents that would elevate them above the norm. In Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, the entire society appears to be structured around the concept of radical mediocrity. The opening paragraph notes that three amendments to the United States Constitution (211, 212, and 213) are enforced by an official titled “the United States Handicapper General,” which communicates to the reader that federal law requires people to behave in ways that conform with official ideas about normalcy so that everyone can be seen as equal.

The first concrete example of radical mediocrity comes in the third paragraph when Harrison Bergeron’s father, George, is described as being outfitted with a transmitter because of his above-average intellectual abilities: “Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.” We soon learn that George also wears a canvas bag filled with birdshot around his neck in order to make his physical status equal to that of other people. When his wife Hazel suggests that he might feel better if he removed some of the lead balls to make the bag lighter, he describes the legal sanctions he would face as “two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out." These severe legal penalties demonstrate how the government enforces mediocrity through the requirements that people continually wear devices that neutralize any kind of above-average mental or physical abilities.

Further evidence of the harsh nature of the government’s insistence on radical mediocrity is seen on the television, where George and Hazel’s son Harrison begins dancing with a beautiful and talented ballerina. Harrison has escaped from prison and arrived at the television studio, where he removes his physical handicaps on air. He removes the physical handicaps which had been hiding the ballerina’s beautiful face and impeding her movements, and insists that the musicians in the band play abnormally good music, unlike the radically mediocre music required by the government. 

The final act of the enforcement of mediocrity occurs when the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers, arrives at the studio with a shotgun and kills both Harrison Bergeron and the ballerina. She then turns her attention to the musicians: “Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.”

The story ends when the noises in George’s transmitter make it impossible to remember what he has just seen on television, while his wife’s normal intelligence insures that she, too, has forgotten, as soon as the television goes dark.