Since Kurt Vonnegut died, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has suddenly remembered my intention to read more of his work. I feel bad that, while I have read two of his books, I have only spent the last several years "intending" to read more, and I probably will only be picking them up again because of his death. I have a lot of things I want to read...it's just sad the list is now only being topped by his work because he died.
Regardless, that isn't really what I wanted to talk about. My American Authors anthology for class has one piece of writing by Vonnegut, which, being the only Vonnegut work I own and have easy access to, is the one I chose to pick up in honor of his death. This piece is called "Fates Worse than Death," and I found it strangely relevant to today in general.
The essay "Fates Worse than Death" is subtitled as a lecture given in NYC on May 23, 1982--whether or not this actually I happened I cannot seem to find out. Regardless, this lecture address the fear of hydrogen bombs. The logic Vonnegut seems to present is that dying by a hydrogen bomb is still death, and death is death no matter what. So the question he proposes is, what situation is there that is worse than death, which would make us want to drop a hydrogen bomb? He goes on to question such situations as what we as humans have already done to each other in the past, such as crucifixions, slavery and the situation with Native Americans, and then comes to some conclusions I'm not sure I understand yet. It doesn't surprise me that I probably need to read this agian before I get it. But there's really only one part I want to address: the War.
In this essay, Vonnegut raises an interesting idea. He suggests that the Vietnam war veterans are so "spooky," and the whole war was so terrible, because "They are the first soldiers in history who knew even in childhood, from having heard and seen so many pictures of actual and restaged battles, that war is meaningless butchery of ordinary people like themselves." I think this is incredibly interesting.
Parents protest violence in media all of the time. They say it damages children, desensitizes them. Perhaps it was more harmful when people had no exposure to it all. Vonnegut says that "It used to be that veterans could shock their parents when they came home...by announcing that everything about war was repulsive and stupid and dehumanizing." If people didn't know that before they enlisted, of course they were much more willing to go. Of course they were supportive of the war. No one understood it until they did it themselves. Now, we all know it's terrible. All we have to do is turn on the news and we are repulsed. Even those who support the war, for whatever reasons, cannot say they don't find it repulsive that so many innocent lives are lost in such terrible ways.
Now I'm not trying to start an argument about whether or not we should be in this war, or any war. I'm simply raising up Vonnegut's idea, and my own thoughts. If, because of the media, we are all becoming more and more aware of how terrible war really is, is it possible that in some time we will no longer be capable of supporting a war? What will we do instead? What will we do when we realize that war is just senseless killing of innocent people, on both sides? When we are no longer capable of turning our enemies into faceless monsters, and instead have to look them in the eye and see their humanity? Will we just distance ourselves from the actual killing even more, by making it more and more computerized, or will we eventually just have to stop? Could we as humans actually be made to stop war simply by making each other aware of its repulsiveness? COULD WE ACTUALLY HAVE HOPE??? Maybe I'm getting overexcited, and giving us all too much credit, but this all makes me wonder...maybe we all aren't doomed after all...
