April 29, 2007
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Kurt Vonnegut
For some time now I’ve been trying to think of what I can say that
would pay appropriate tribute to Kurt Vonnegut who recently passed
away. I had virtually forgotten how big of an influence he had been on
my thinking during my early education. I haven’t read a book he wrote
in years and I didn’t follow him or listen to his speeches or public
appearances. He kind of fell off my radar until it was unannounced
that he had died. I deeply regret the missed opportunities to have
listened to him and learned from him these past years.Back when I was in High School, I read all of his books that were out
at the time. I can’t honestly say that I loved every word, but I did
enjoy them on the balance. But more importantly they forced me to think
more deeply about things I’d only mused about in the past. And they
made me feel more comfortable with the idea of expressing complex
thoughts in allegory and symbolism. I wonder if I hadn’t read Kurt
Vonnegut back then would I even be writing at all today? Would I ever
have found a voice or ever have thought that writing could matter? Or
would I have simply found some other pursuit and repressed the abstract
thoughts bumping around in my head as unacceptable for “civilized”
conversation.There’s no adequate manner in which I can express my gratitude to him
for taking the time to write. There’s no mechanism I could use to
really explain to people how deeply I wish to honor his memory.So instead I will simply give to you some of his own words. Not quotes
from his books as anyone can find and read those, but from the
interviews and appearances I have been listening to since his death was
announced. These I feel shed some insight into the mind of an
extraordinary being.“I make posters suitable for frames you hang on the wall. And one of
them is ‘Dearest Iraq, Do like us. After 100 years let your slaves go.
After 150 let your women work. Love you madly, Uncle Sam.’ Only within
the previous century did we start to become just.”Interviewer: “What do you think of a community like Second Life… Do
you think it’s possible to get actually something done in such a place?”“It’s actually possible to get a better life for individuals. And you
know I am frequently an enemy of new technologies, but I love cell
phones. Because I see people so happy and proud walking around
gesturing you know? I’m like Karl Marx I’m up for anything that makes
people happy.”“Technology has ruined us. You know with “A Man Without a Country” a
title I considered was “The Fifty-First State” and that would be the
State Of Denial which we’re all living in now because the game is all
over. We are in the process of irreversibly ruining the planet as a
life support system and nothing’s going to be done about it. I think
the motto now is “Don’t spoil the party.”"Interviewer: “IF you were to build a country that you would consider
yourself a proud citizen of what would be three of its attributes?”“Just one. Great public schools with classes of 12 or smaller.”
Interviewer: “That’s it? It’s sort of important what’s taught there right.”
“No. Just do this and the students will teach each other.”
Interviewer: “What advice would you give to a scientist who wants to
drop out of the system and start writing, or anyone who feels
creatively trapped.”“I think everybody should practice at heart. And one thing I hate about
our criticism is that what you do has to be original. Just do it for
god’s sake! And it’ll make your soul grow. People should be painting
pictures or drawing pictures or singing or dancing. And it doesn’t
matter if you’re lousy at it. It’ll still make your soul grow. And also
you’ll find out more about what’s inside you. Writing? Yes. Look there
are all these books that are no longer read. It doesn’t matter. It’s
the thrill. The big pay off is when the author wrote it. The act of
creativity. So please experience that. It doesn’t have to be justified
afterwards by fame or money. The big pay off is doing it. And I have
asked different sorts of real artists, professional artists, when,
excuse the term, when they get their rocks off. A sculptor is happy
when he finds out when his piece is going to live.”Interviewer: “Where do you think the self consciousness over art comes from?”
“From the critics. It say’s that if you can’t do something original don’t do it.”
Interviewer: “How would you describe Second Life?”
“I can’t see anything wrong with it. I think it’s human resourcefulness at it’s best.”
“I have a message for future generations. And that is, please accept
our apologies. We were roaring drunk on petroleum and we in fact still
are. And everything that distinguishes our era from the dark ages since
we still have slaves and torture chambers is what we’ve been able to do
with petroleum. And that is going to end very soon. Of course no one
will say how soon it’s going to end. I think the next couple of years
is going to see the price of fossil fuels go through the roof. And
there will be no substitutes for gasoline and I think that my reading
of history is that the only fun most human beings have ever had, any
feeling of power, respect has been driving automobiles. And so they’re
not about to give that up. And you know you get in a car and everybody
really respects you. So people are not going to give that up easily so
eventually we will run out of fossil fuels. And uh I think the world is
ending.”“This was my Uncle Olux. I had a good uncle and a bad uncle. The bad
uncle was dan but the good uncle was Olux. And what he found
objectionable about human beings was that they never noticed when they
were really happy. So whenever he was really happy, you know we could
be sitting around in the shade in the summertime in the shade of an
apple tree, drinking lemonade and talking. Just sort of back and forth
buzzing like humming bees. And Uncle Olux would all of a sudden say “If
this isn’t nice what is!” And then we realized how happy we were and we
might have missed it. And the bad uncle Dan was when I came back from
the war which was quite painful, he clapped me on the back and said
“You’re a man now.” I wanted to kill him.”Interviewer: “You were a POW during the firebombing of Dresdan… You
must have great empathy for the troops oversees… Everybody agrees
that it must be hell for those guys.”“Well not only that but they’re being sent on fools errands. I’ve read
about they go on patrols. And they’re in awful danger and the patrols
accomplish almost nothing. Sure that strikes me as a nonsensical war.
That isn’t how you fight.”Interviewer: “It strikes me that maybe you are not the biggest fan of the president of the united states at this juncture.”
“Well… he is what in my grade school we would have a called a twit
and what in High School we would have a called a twit and so I’m sorry
that we have such a person as a president.”“Of course we have only a one party government. It’s the winners.
Everybody else is the losers. The winners are divided into two parties
the Republicans and the Democrats.”“No cabinet has ever had a secretary of the future. And there are no
plans at all for my grandchildren and great grand children.”“Look we’re awful animals. We can start with that. You know it’s the whole human experiment that’s what we are.”
Interviewer: “At heart we’re awful?”
“Look after two world wars and the holocaust and the nuclear bombing of
hiroshima and nagisaki and after the roman games and after the spanish
inquisition and after burning witches in public. Shouldn’t we call it
off? I mean we are a disease and should be ashamed of ourselves.”“I think our planet’s immune system is trying to get rid of and should.”
“You know everybody’s been so mean to the president lately as though he
caused the hurricane, and he didn’t. He didn’t cause that hurricane.
And I’d like to say something good about him. He is not the dumbest man
at the top of our government. The dumbest man at the top of our
government is the secretary of defense. He is so dumb he thought he
could take over a country and its oil, population 27 million I
believe, muslims. He thought he could take it over and the oil which
was after with a whole bunch of big bangs you know? And then 200,000
American soldiers who didn’t even know how to say ‘hello’ in arabic.”“I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy because you know
we’re experienced in it. In democracy, after 100 years you have to
let your slaves go and after 150 you have to let your women vote, and at the beginning of democracy quite a bit of genocide and
ethnic cleansing is quite ok. And that’s what’s going on right now.”“I have hear a list of liberal crap I don’t want to hear any more. It
say’s for instance “Forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those that
tresspass against us.” Nobody better tresspass against me you know I’ll
cut him a new you know what.”Kurt Vonnegut said he saw the publication of Slaughterhouse five as a
kind of liberation: “I think it not only freed me, I think it freed
writers. Because the vietnam war made our motives so scruffy and
essentially stupid that we could finally talk about something bad that
we did to the worst people imaginable, the nazis. What I saw, what I
had to report made war look so ugly. You know the truth can be pretty
powerful stuff if you’re not expecting it.”“You know Karl Marx got a bumb wrap as all he was trying to do was take
care of a whole lot of people. Of course socialism is just evil now.
It’s completely discredited supposedly by the collapse of the soviet
union. But I can’t help noticing that my grandchildren are heavily in
hock to communist china now which is evidently a whole lot better at
business than we are. You know we talk about the collapse of communism
and the soviet union. My Goodness this country collapsed in 1929. I
mean it crashed big time and capitalism looked like a very poor idea.”“When I worked for General Electric again this was soon after the
second world war. You know I was keeping up with new developments and
they showed me a milling machine. And this thing worked by punch cards.
That’s where computers were at that time. And everybody was sort of
sheapish about how well this thing worked. Because in those days
machinest were treated as though they were great musicians as they were
virtuousos on these machines. And after that demonstration everyone was
thinking what’s going to happen to these wonderful men who have been so
useful to us. We have to give people something to do with life.”“It’s obvious through the human experience that extended families and
tribes are terribly important. We can do without extended family as
human beings about as easily as we can do without vitamins or essential
minerals.”“Well that’s exactly what I am. The trouble with being a secular
humanist is that we don’t have a congregation we don’t meet. So it’s a
very flimsy tribe. Well there’s a wonderful quotation from nature.
Nature said “Only a person of deep faith can afford the luxury of
skepticism.” It’s something perfectly wonderful is going on I do not
doubt it, but the explanations I hear do not satisfy me.”“Ink on paper doesn’t matter any more. Television is the whole story.
It is ‘the’ way to communicate now. There was a time when ink on paper
really mattered but it doesn’t any more.”Interviewer: “Can humour be found you think in the devastation of New
Orleans and all the those other communities along the gulf coast after
the hurricane?”“My faith in the American people is deep. And I imagine there have been
wonderful jokes made down there. The darkest jokes possible. But again
there are many people who were absolutely helpless. And it would be
very human if one of them made a joke.”Interviewer: “How important has art been to your work?”
“Well it’s a perfectly agreeable innocent thing to do and it’s a way of
being human. What I hate about public school systems that cut out the
arts because they’re not a way to make a living. It is such a human
thing to do and it is the experience of becoming. If you make something
that wasn’t in the universe before. And that feels so good to human
beings and to cheat kids out of that is criminal. Everybody should be
painting now or drawing or whatever just as they should be singing or
taking walks or falling in love or whatever. It’s so human. And not to
teach kids how to do this is to cheat them terribly.”“What music is I don’t know. But it helps me so. And I mean it’s just
noise but it’s such magical noise and enchanting to me. Why it works so
well I don’t know but I know that I can find relief listening to music.”“You can’t remember pure nonsense. It was pure nonsense the pointless
destruction of that city. And I kept writing crap as they say.”Interviewer: “Did the bombing and the stench of the bodies you were
digging up afterwards haunt you? Do those memories haunt you?”“No. If you were imagining it yes of course you would. And so the
person would be colored for the rest of his life by this stench in his
nostrils and all that. This was a wonderful teenage adventure in my
life. I wouldn’t have missed a moment of it. It did not wound me at
all. It was things that happened when I was six years old would go a
whole lot… will explain far more thoroughly what I am then dresdan.
No, it was a great adventure. I loved the whole thing.”Interviewer: “You really did?”
“Oh yeah, and I liked being in the infantry and I wouldn’t have missed it.”
Interviewer: “Umm… I’m just so surprised to hear that.”
“Well it’s wrong for a pacifist to like war that much. I found nothing to object to.”
“For one thing, one of the filters I had seen it through was war movies
about world war 2 and war books. And of course they featured Frank
Sinatra and Duke Wayne and all that. And it took me a long time to
realize that this war was in fact fought by children. And not these
middle aged 4f movie actors.”“Absolutely nothing was gained by it. And I’ll issue the challenge
again here. Nobody in this whole world benefited from that air raid but
me. That not one person got out of auschwitz a microsecond earlier. Not
one german soldier fell back from his fox hole on the russian front or
the american front. Nothing was changed at all. And I’m the only person
that benefited and I got three dollars or maybe four dollars for every
person killed there.”Interviewer: “So you think because of the economics of writing that
it’s very difficult for writers to be full time novelists any more?”“Right and one consequence is that you are going to, your novelists as
you will have them are people who are rich or what have married rich.
And so you are going to get more and more stories about Andover and
Brown and Harvard and so forth. And these lives certainly deserve to be
reported on, but I think you’re going to have an upper class literature
because only the upper classes will be able to afford the time it takes
to write a novel.”“Well that’s all they want to publish now in many cases. That’s all
their interested in. It’s these people in business schools have come up
with this wonderful idea is “Hey why don’t you publish nothing but
bestsellers.” You know, it’s why waste money on anything else? And so
some extremely good writers in this country are having trouble finding
publishers now because they only sell 25, 30 thousand copies which is
nothing any more.”“Reading was a lot more fun too. I’ve always read for pleasure. I never
had to explain afterwards what the author had done to prove that I had
understood the book at all. And when I enter into literary
conversations now I don’t have the vocabulary, I don’t have the
critical approach that most people have who have come through seminars
and all that. So I really can’t speak literature very well.”“Writers will come out of almost any department but the English
department. This is not to insult english departments when I say this
in a lecture everybody says “oh yeah ho ho what a bunch of jerks in the
English department”. Well that’s not the purpose of an English
department to turn out creative writers. It’s to turn out literary
historians, cultivated people and people who will in turn teach people
the wonders of their language and their literature. But one thing an
English department will do is teach you good taste too soon. And so
when you can’t write very well but are starting out, you’ll be
horrified when you compare yourself with James Joyce at the peak of his
powers or Proust or Mark Twain or whatever. And so when I was in the
chemistry department at Cornell writing for the Cornell Sun I thought
everything was wonderful that I was doing, you know, I didn’t know any
better so I dared to begin.”“The newspaper style has always seemed to me wonderfully honest. It’s you tell as much as you know as quickly as you can.”
“I think people are really influenced by novels between the age of 12
and 24 say. And whatever I am today, whatever my literary tastes are,
whatever authors I admire, whatever my politics are, is largely
determined by books I read back then. That was a long time ago.”***
That last has the most poignant meaning for me. For if there was ever a
writer whose novels I read “between the age of 12 and 24″ that
determined to a great extent my literary tastes and my politics and my
beliefs it is certainly Kurt Vonnegut. I will miss him.These quotes come from the interviews with Kurt Vonnegut on NPR, FreshAir, the SecondLife interview through The Infinite Mind, PBS, and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Most of these can be listened to on youtube or through the npr web site.
