Behaving Decently in an Indecent Society
Mark Von Winkle
Kurt Vonnegut, in propitiation of his humanist nature,
often puts forth to his readers a concept, by no means original,
with which all of them can identify to some extent: the concept
of a lone figure, a figure of lonely insight and ready
compassion, observing the world and the way people live and treat
each other, finding coldness and injustice there, finding
poverty, ignorance, and cruelty there, and rising against it for
the immediate or eventual pleasure and betterment of his fellows.
Vonnegut, influenced admittedly by writers such as Aldous Huxley,
George Orwell, E.M. Forster, and Eugene Zamiatin,(1) uses such
figures with their particular means of remedy to suggest to us
the acceptability of unpopular behavior to better the human
condition; the one hope he cannot conceal behind his veil of
caustic pessimism. The societies gone so awry, requiring fixing,
that are here to be discussed can be distinguished by the major
problem that the rebel attempts to correct. They will be referred
to as follows: Technologically Debaucherized, Self Repressed,
Acquisition Blinded, and Depressed; the societies detailed in
Player Piano, "Harrison Bergeron", God Bless You, Mr.Rosewater,
and Slaughterhouse-Five, respectively. These societies, a more
explicit description of each forthcoming, are alike in one major
respect: the general unhappiness of the common people living in
them. The heroes of the stories in which the misguided societies
occur all share certain qualities as well. They each, sharing
Vonnegut's humanism, have the desire to reverse the polarity of
the public sentiment. They each hold singular insight into the
problem of their particular society, are accessible to the
reader, and are, in some respect, be it high social or financial
standing, great physical or mental strength, or the ability to
travel through time, extraordinary. Their revolutions ever occur
to the great discouragement or at the exclusion of their family,
Vonnegut has it, in order that they become total outcasts, that
their fight is made more spiritually "pure," that they become
"outcast crusaders" of a sort. Vonnegut's own motives for wishing
happiness upon mankind are sadly obvious, as they are undoubtedly
comprised of the sadness, abuses of science and pain he himself
was in such proximity to as a young man. His mother's suicide
before his capture by German forces has made the subject of
suicide a staple in virtually every Vonnegut novel; much as has
his witnessing the needless fire bombing of Dresden made the
subject of mass slaughter, both real and fictitious, a hallmark
of his work. The terrible contortment of a discovery of his
scientist brother's concerning precipitation for military
purposes and a disillusionment with the disinterested members of
the research department at his former employer General Electric
has ensured the scientific community and its frequently fatal
follies page room in his writings for as long as he perseveres.
His identification with Marxist philosophy and the common
decency extolled by Jesus Christ work a strong influence in these
stories of "just rebellion," and are used as tools for achieving
for mankind a semblance of the extended family, what Vonnegut
believes to be the ideal environment for human beings, the
paragon living situation known as the "Folk Society."(2)
Paul Proteus vs. the Technologically Debaucherized
Player Piano's protagonist, Paul Proteus is unique among
Vonnegut's society-savers for his inner struggle as to whether
his crusade for humanity is "right." (Paul's surname,
incidentally, is derived from the word "protean" meaning
"exceedingly variable.") Vonnegut's other champions of humanity
are self-righteous, but Paul's upbringing has given him room to
doubt. The son of one of the most admired and efficient
technocrats of the new automated, depersonalized America, Doctor
George Proteus, Paul is rebelling against far more than the
Technologically Debaucherized system he doubts the virtues of. To
carry through on his plans for a society where opportunity for
individual human dignity and identity is possible is to alienate
himself simultaneously from his friends enmeshed in the system,
his mechanized and social elitist wife, his job as manager of the
Ilium Works, and his roots. To carry through on his plans for
a human-friendly society is to willfully become an orphan.
Paul's aforementioned struggle, it seems, is not brought
on by any one event, but by the new era itself as he often finds
himself retreating to Building 58 within the Ilium Works, which
houses very faulty and inadequate machinery from times before
pre-automation, and is described as a place "where the past
admitted how humble and shoddy it had been, where one could look
from the old to the new and see that mankind really had come
a long way," (3) to receive a "vote of confidence."(4) The two
opposing parts of Paul are the values he has been brainwashed
with all his life and his experience. He has seen the failings of
machines (i.e. the mechanized truculency of a team of machines to
a cat "caught in the gears," so to speak) as well as those of men
(i.e. drunkenness, labor disputes(5)) and suspects that one set
of failings, that of the men, is more manageable. Doctor Ed
Finnerty, a rebel and old friend of Paul's, has no trouble
recognizing that Paul is too busy fighting that psychological
battle to be of much use to the revolution he hopes to incite,
and opts instead for the disaffected and similarly obsessed
societal victim Reverend James Lasher to become his partner.
It may very well be that Paul's motivation is trying to
"reassert the value of human love and compassion in a world that
lauds the ruthless and machinelike,"(6) for even his wife whom he
often turns to naively for that lost "human love and
compassion"(7) is little more than a successful wife machine(8);
pleasing to the eye, sexually adept, capable of any number of
recitations reaffirming her love and devotion, and her life's
purpose, which is to say, ensuring her and Paul's social
advancement, is distracted by nothing.
It is interesting to find that Paul, having had every
reason to suspect that he was the sole dissenting muted voice in
his society, becomes, in the end, the least crucial human element
of either the planners or soldiers in what comes to be called the
Ghost Shirt Society, the anti-machinists. In a twist of fate,
Paul never gains the opportunity to quit the system symbolically
and nobly as he had planned to. It is Dr. Fred Garth who takes
greater action against the managers and engineers by stripping
the bark of the Meadows Oak, one of its most recognized symbols.
It is Reverend Lasher who formulates the vision of the rebellion
and propagates it. It is Professor Ludwig von Neumann who
articulates that vision. If not for Doctor Finnerty, the
Society's co-organizer with Lasher, Paul would never have been
even the figurehead for the cause but would indeed have been left
on the other side of the rebellion. It is his aforementioned
inner struggle that causes this dragging of Paul's feet in making
himself known as a philosophical deviant. His psyche will only
allow him to undertake small, warm-up rebellions such as buying
a house with no electricity and slumming in Homestead, the realm
of the uneducated, with the well known mischief-maker Finnerty.
Paul's pain is that of sightedness in a world of blind
men. To speak out against such a place from within such a place
is a feat requiring the strongest moral assurance, and it is his
looming fear of abandonment and isolation that prevent his taking
a stronger stance.
The Ghost Shirts' Rebellion is only successful in that it
brings their grievance against the inhumanity of machines to men
to the public eye on a grand scale as revolts were staged
simultaneously across the nation in key cities such as St. Louis,
Chicago, and of course, Ilium. As the book closes with the four
leaders of the group surrendering to the authorities, there is
the hope that some good has been done in jolting the public into
giving attention to the way they are living, and questioning
whether it is by the law of men or machines.
Self-Repressed No More!
Vonnegut created the most romantically appealing of all
his reformers when he created Harrison Bergeron to whose
effectiveness, purity of purpose, and methods both his
predecessor Paul Proteus and successors Elliot Rosewater and
Billy Pilgrim, it might be said, emulate to a small degree.
Harrison's effectiveness for the reader benefits from the
story's brevity as well as from his own unbelievable, almost
godlike, intellect and physical might and beauty. He and his
story come to us as does the sound of a gunshot; fast,
impressive, and with an indisputable meaning. With this
character, Vonnegut gives us much more than an ideal to live up
to.
Born in an America which under the 211th, 212th, and
213th amendments to the Constitution handicaps every individual
until he or she is only as capable as the most incapable
naturally occurring citizen with sandbags to inhibit movement,
powerful eyeglasses to inhibit good vision, masks to contain
beauty, and noisy head radios to reroute overlong streams of
thought, Harrison, stunningly endowed in every respect, is
hindered in a stunningly overt fashion.
His mother and father are too distracted by their own
prescribed handicaps to aid him in his revolution. Harrison, as
is typical of the Vonnegutian "justified rebels," fights without
understanding from his family. Taking over a live television
broadcast to demonstrate the true capabilities of not only
himself, but also a previously awkward ballet dancer, and
previously shoddy musicians by removing their handicaps results
in his televised murder by the United States Handicapper General,
Diana Moon Glampers.
Harrison, born perfect, resents the insane manner in
which any ability not held in common with all of mankind is
outlawed in the Self-Repressed United States of 2081. Like Paul
Proteus, he is a natural holder of insight as to the
uninhibitive, free-thinking sort of society men should live in.
His methods, all visual and awe-inspiring spectacles, can leave
no doubt that he desires that sort of society where men better
instead of degrade themselves. He realizes that only through the
use of our natural intellect and strength can any betterment of
mankind as a whole occur. The fact that his short lived rebellion
was televised across America, planting the seeds of yearning for
a more pleasurable existence in the minds of millions of viewers,
leaves us room to ponder whether his invitation to the common
people to be all they can be, and become "barons and dukes and
earls"(9) under Emperor Harrison will be accepted, whether his
dream will be carried out posthumously yet not to his undoing or
discredit.
Saint Elliot of Indiana
Philanthropically motivated to the point of obsession,
allowing that obsession to cause him to live in drear filth,
revolting his Senator father, and opening himself to any trivial
complaint over life on this planet at any time by posting
stickers with his personal phone number in phone booths and on
car bumpers, millionaire Elliot Rosewater is the true "Sister of
Mercy" among Vonnegut's savior types and is indeed the holder of
such of such nicknames as "'The Nut,' 'The Saint,' 'The Holy
Roller,' 'John the Baptist,' and so on"(10) through the cynical
generosity of his own legal firm.
Waging war against the Acquisition-Blinded perpetrators
of unnecessary gluttony (whom he was among before unknowingly
killing three civilians; two old men and a boy, in World War II),
not society as a whole, Elliot focuses on problems held by
common, and often seemingly valueless individuals; dealing with
one problem at a time and apportioning each a set amount of
graveness and conquerability. He sets up shop in dismal and
forgotten Rosewater, Indiana to cater to the emotional needs of
the dismal and forgotten people there. He is condoning of the
many attempts staged by his family to induce him to return to the
"high life," the one he was born for, yet befuddled as to their
lack of understanding for his aims there in Rosewater. "He does
not want to recreate only his own life but those of discarded,
useless, and unattractive Americans."(11) He holds a disparaging
view of the arts and sciences, maintaining that they never helped
anyone, and is sickened by the exorbitant prices rich people pay
for works of art, supposedly for the betterment of the
underclass, when there is more immediate good that could be done
all around them.
Elliot, like Paul Proteus earns severe disrespect, hurt,
and confusion from his family members, who, like Anita Proteus,
are perpetuators of what Elliot considers most foul; the maxim:
"Grab too much or you'll get nothing at all."(12) His wife,
Sylvia, turbulating between active support, callous indifference,
and passive sympathy, by her inability to maintain a stance on
Elliot's cause, acts as an indicator of the rigors of his path of
living charity. His father, ultra-conservative Senator Lister
Ames Rosewater, the progenitor of the Rosewater Law, defining the
difference once and for all between pornography and art, is
convinced that his suddenly unrecognizable and unreasonable son,
since drinking his way from town to town from his swank home
base, New York, is insane. His feelings of self-incrimination for
Elliot's "sickness" only amplify his overall hurt and distress.
It is interesting that the Senator, living in a society made up
of individuals so unlike Elliot as he does, does not fear that
some harm might befall his political career through negative
association with Elliot. The Senator feels secure with his old
school conservative reputation.
The revolution that is Elliot's life, we are left to
think as the book closes with Elliot, much to his father's
chagrin, adopting fifty-eight children (associating him at once
with Abraham) to one day become heads of the Rosewater Foundation
and inheritors of the Rosewater Fortune, will go on working as it
has always worked; on the low-key and personal level on which all
problems of finance, animosity, and spirituality are only as
difficult to overcome as it is for Elliot to make a quick jot
with his check-writing pen.
Don't Worry, Be Happy
The "problem society" depicted by Vonnegut in
Slaughterhouse-Five is none other than late 1960's America; and,
for that one torn by the dramatic public exhibitions on such
delicate subjects as civil rights and the morality of war. It is,
or rather was, a time when the citizens of America were finding
themselves greatly dissatisfied with their President,
experiencing the broadest chasm between the values of parents and
their children in their country's almost two century history, and
were coming to the slow and mortifying realization that their
country's army comported itself no less viciously and
diabolically than any other in times of war. It was from this
society that Billy Pilgrim, World War II veteran and optometrist,
unexplainedly sprung haphazardly through time and space.
There was no shortage of what Billy learns from the
Tralfamadorians, inhabitants of a planet on which he is displayed
in a zoo for some time, to be "bad" moments for this society to
concentrate on, resulting in a prevalent feeling of misplacement
(Vonnegut's borrowed remedy for which I shall describe later),
unhappiness, and general meanness.
Before having his time jumps finally explained to him by
the Tralfamadorians, Billy is a bit of a frightened and
disinterested quitter, constantly surrendering, constantly
refusing to care, suffering from "a combination of angst and
anomie brought on by his sense of the meaninglessness of
life."(13)
Billy's rebellion, preaching the fatalistic philosophy of
Tralfamadore is welcomed, eventually, almost unanimously as
a great comfort and regresser of the widespread depression and
bewilderment heretofore described, as great halls are filled with
those misplaced souls elevating him to a status not unlike that
held by the real world's Billy Graham. The easily summarized
philosophy of the Tralfamadorians, a race that experiences all
moments simultaneously and unceasingly, is this: "Ignore the
awful times, and concentrate on the good ones."(14)
One faction of society not quite as receptive to his
teachings is that comprised of Billy's immediate family; his
daughter in particular. Her concern over his "insanity," however,
springs not from a genuine respect for her sire, but from the
affirmation it gives her own meager self-esteem. She speaks to
him as reproachfully as she would to a child forgetful of his
boots before going puddle-splashing, threatening him with the
possibility of an old people's home in his future if he doesn't
shape up, start caring about material wealth and keeping up his
house again. Despite Billy's calm explanations of why he is
acting as he is, Barbara remains a "bitchy flibbertigibbit"(15)
excited by "taking his dignity away in the name of love." (16)
Billy shares a past trauma with Vonnegut; bearing witness
to an unbelievable and needless loss of human life (specifically
the fire-bombing of Dresden), and lives in question of the
purpose of mankind, which has such a great and often employed
capacity for pain.
The success of Billy's rebellion (exampled by the great
receptivity of the masses to it) has very much to do with the
inactivity it condones for its followers. He does not order
drastic government restructuring or change of lifestyle (indeed,
he proclaims that no action, past, present, or future, is
alterable), but offers merely a new way to more easily digest our
inevitable evils and cruelty; that is, by ignoring them.
Two Calls for Decency
Socialism and Christianity are indeed closely linked by
their assertions that it is best to give when tempted to take,
that it is best to look beyond oneself when feeling generous
rather than the other way, and that collective stability is
preferable to the coexistence of extreme wealth and poverty. Upon
inspection of the materials of which Vonnegut's "soapbox" is
constructed, two very durable pleas for decency and fairness from
these two doctrines are readily identified: one the words of
Jesus Christ's Sermon on the Mount; the other the writings of
Karl Marx. Vonnegut deals most specifically with these works in
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Jailbird. Elliot Rosewater, in
the midst of his days of humanitarian efforts, having amply
aroused the suspicions of his father, is asked point blank over
the telephone: "Are you or have you ever been a communist?"
"...For heaven's sakes, Father," replies Elliot, "nobody can work
with the poor and not fall over Karl Marx from time to time- or
just fall over the Bible as far as that goes."(17)
Marx thoroughly understood the prevailing mindset of the
rulers of those problem societies as is evidenced by his
statement, "The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in
which it is supreme to be the best."(18) Vonnegut's bourgeoisie,
then, includes Senator Rosewater, Handicapper Diana Moon
Glampers, and Paul's father Doctor George Proteus, rebels none of
them. Of all Vonnegut's novels, the saintly political theorist's
spirit is most present in Jailbird, in which the narrator is
a former member of the communist party. The character Kenneth
Whistler, a Harvard-educated labor organizer, was designed after
a real person with the same credentials, a Mr. Powers Hapgood who
responded to a judge's question of "...Why would a man from such
a distinguished family and with such a fine education choose to
live as you do?" with "Because of the Sermon on the Mount, sir."
(19)
The Sermon on the Mount, with it's call for mercy and
peacemaking (20), is the fundament of Elliot's mission. Perhaps
it is recognizing that the people of Rosewater are indeed the
poor in spirit, sorrowing, lowly, spiritually hungry, and
persecuted (21) that initially causes Elliot to treat them with
love.
The Folk Society
The fundamental problem of these Technologically
Debaucherized, Self Repressed, Acquisition Blinded, and Depressed
societies can be found on the personal level, the level on which
the members of the society interact. The similar way each of
these societies is run (that is to say, impersonally) devalues,
in no small way, the citizens' individual appraisal of self worth
and, therefore, their appraisal of the self worth of their
fellows. Having grown up in a large, tightly knit extended family
setting, Vonnegut finds this incontrovertibly wrong. This
upbringing, which he found extremely pleasant and beneficial
factors heavily into his frequent attempts (Slapstick,
unabashedly and unmistakably) at showing us what change can be
wrought by righteous fighters.
As for what we might call "solution societies," what
Vonnegut is nudging us toward with these aforementioned tirades
against the status quo, the author seems fairly enthusiastic over
the idea of "folk societies," tribal sorts of communities which
were the foundation for the monstrous global civilization we deal
with today (and in which many people feel alone, unknown, or
inconsequential); (22) the type of tribal societies which the
human race evolved to its current state living in. During his
1971 address to the National Institute of Arts and Letters,
Vonnegut drew attention to an article written by his former
anthropology professor at the University of Chicago, Dr. Robert
Redfield, which was published in The American Journal of
Sociology in 1947. The article, titled "The Folk Society," put
forth Dr. Redfield's theory that these "tribes" ran the gamut of
possible lifestyles (which is to say they were extremely diverse
in recreation, how they obtained food, etc.) but also held
certain common characteristics as well. (23) These values
included respect for the old, those who were mediums to the
occurrences of the greatest tracts of time, those who were rich
with memories.(24) No specific "division of labor" was to be
found in these ancient groupings of people.(25) All members knew
the guidelines for survival, and met them or died. This knowledge
(or acquired experience) was garnered by all members from all
other members. They were intimate people who held the inner
relationships of their particular society in no low esteem.(26)
Behavior towards their fellow tribesmen was never impersonal.
(27)
Vonnegut then went on to supplement Dr. Redfield's theory
with his own belief that we are chemically, emotionally, and
psychologically engineered to live in mini-civilizations such as
this. It is Vonnegut's faith in this theory that causes the
prisoners of Vonnegut's "sick societies" to either act more and
more harshly towards each other, or become more inward and
depressed out of their confusion: "This is the only world I've
ever known, so why does it feel so unnatural and hostile?" or as
Vonnegut himself puts it: "[Our] chemicals make us furious when
we are treated as things rather than persons... If we become
increasingly apathetic in modern times- well, so do fish on river
banks after a little while." (28)
It is a hope for a return to this "folk society," so
similar to Vonnegut's own extended family, that motivates him
when displaying how corrupt and disassociated from being a proper
type of environment for us our society has or has the potential
to become.
Painful Past
It is evident from Vonnegut's persistent use of the
"justified rebel," of the man willing to behave decently in an
indecent society that he hopes to elicit from us a glimmer of
doubt as to where we are heading as a race. If we become
complacent for too long we will accept increasingly
unquestionable falsehoods as truth. Nazi Germany can occur again,
Vonnegut knows, if we become so used to being good that we forget
we can still do wrong.
The pain in Vonnegut's past, the aforementioned suicide
of his mother, the rape of his brother's scientific findings, and
the pointless bombing of Dresden it seems is of the type
harvested by the inhumane and technologically over zealous horror
societies he so vividly paints for us. His stories serve as
a catharsis to his own troubled soul and as a warning to us, the
possible victims of our own placidity.
References:
1 Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: G.K. Hall &
Company, 1976), p. 18.
2 KV, Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (New York: Dell
Publishing Company, 1974), p. 177
3 KV, Player Piano (New York: Delacorte Press/
Seymour Lawrence, 1952), p.6.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid. p. 33.
6 Schatt, p.19.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid. p.20.
9 KV, Welcome to the Monkey House (New York: Dell
Publishing Co., Inc., 1970), p. 12.
10 KV, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (New York: Dell
Publishing Co., Inc., 1965), p. 10.
11 Leonard Mustazza, Forever Pursuing Genesis: The Myth of Eden
in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut (London and Toronto: Associated
University Presses, 1990), p.90.
12 Mustazza, p. 92.
13 Clark Mayo, Kurt Vonnegut: The Gospel from Outer Space (or,
Yes We Have No Nirvanas) (San Bernardino, California: The Borgo
Press, 1977), p. 47.
14 KV, Slaughterhouse-Five (New York: Dell
Publishing, 1966), p. 117.
15 Ibid., p. 29.
16 Ibid., p. 132.
17 KV, Rosewater, p. 87.
18 Bruno Leone, Socialism (St. Paul, Minnesota: Greenhaven
Press, 1986), p. 40.
19 KV, Jailbird (New York: Delacorte Press/ Seymour
Lawrence, 1979), p. xix.
20 Matthew, 5:7-9.
21 Matthew, 5:3-10.
22 Vonnegut, Wampeters, p. 177.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid. p. 179.
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