Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Vonnegut Wherefore?



about government-mandated absolute equality








Some strange doings in my head this morning.  Stranger than usual anyway.  While shoveling new snow so MoSup can go to Mass, I thought of Kurt Vonnegut.  Out of the blue.

I loved the  movie  adapted from his  Slaughterhouse Five, but it was Harrison Bergeron that cemented the idea into my head that Vonnegut was a visionary; someone who could  recognize and extrapolate consequences from emerging tyrannies.   I was quite jolted then by
his celebrated-by-the-left quote ..


"The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected."

And another celebrated by the left quote


"Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler."


If Vonnegut was who I thought he was, it meant that I was wrong.  Despite all evidence to the contrary, Al Gore was the rightful 43rd President of the United States. Bush was the liar; not Gore. Bush and Hitler were good Christians and bad men.  If a Bush agent hadn't killed him by pushing him down the stairs in 2007, what would he be writing today about Obamunism?  Could he, would he,  overcome his biases and see the truth of Obama?  I suspect not, or not until events made it inescapable, and then who would care?


The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. —From " Harrison Bergeron " (1961), a short story by Kurt Vonnegut
What of George Orwell?  He wrote of his participation in the Spanish civil war, "I have seen wonderful things and at last really believe in Socialism, which I never did before."  Then he wrote  Animal Farm. and  Nineteen Eighty-FourIt's true that he hated Stalin, but died believing still in the promise of The State.

What novel would he write about  Obamunism?  Or was that novel Animal Farm II?

I was well into writing this when I discovered that Bret Stephens (Kurt Vonnegut's State of the Union) was channeling me in an article Updating a story about government-mandated absolute equality. Will Hollywood make this movie? 








5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Then they had to execute them all because they were all equally guilty of murder.
ignore amos

Kauf Buch said...

Well, here's ONE version (I liked it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmEOI5zwFMM&list=PL7E455A7EB1217E29

Rodger the Real King of France said...

Thanks Kauffer - Try the Hot Link example and and become an even better commenter.

Jason in KT said...

I read a lot of Vonnegut in my early 20s, in fact, I believe that I read everything he had written. I quit when I realized about a quarter of the way through "the new book," Hocus Pocus, that I was sympathizing with a cold-blooded killer.

The biggest problem I have with Vonnegut is that he tries to battle an injustice by creating a world that is consumed by that injustice. His primarily college student audience will then substitute his writing for real-world experience and grow to believe that the world is as he says it is.

XisDshiz said...

Hitler was never elected in Germany. He was the leader of his party, the National Socialist Party, and appointed Chancellor by Hindenberg.

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