As I mentioned briefly yesterday I have decided to re-read the entire body of Kurt Vonnegut’s work. I haven’t read Vonnegut in years. He used to be a staple of my life. I could quote him the way most people quote Ricky Martin. But, in recent years I’ve been reading other material. Mainly because I’ve read all the Kurt Vonnegut I can. I’ve reached the end.
However, now I feel that Vonnegut’s work is important again. It provides a salve for my troubled soul. If you asked Kurt Vonnegut what his body of work was largely about he would say:
“If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don't damage children much. They didn't damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.”
I honestly believe this. “That people be kinder and more responsible than they often are.” It all seems so simple. Of course, it’s not. But it just seems like it should be. People should stop being selfish and stupid.
So today, rather than tell you my own personal thoughts I thought I’d share a few pieces of Vonnegut’s mantra. I chose to start with Palm Sunday, rather than go chronologically. Why? Dunno. Reading essays, letters and other various writing.
I started with this because Vonnegut’s first thoughts are ruminations on the First Amendment.
Or, as he so aptly stated:
“’Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’
“How could a nation with such a law raise its children in an atmosphere of decency? It couldn’t—it can’t. So the law will surely be repealed soon for the sake of children.
“And even now my books, along with books by Bernard Malamud and James Dickey and Joseph Heller and many other first-rate patriots, are regularly thrown out of public-school libraries by school board members, who commonly say that they have not actually read the books, but that they have it on good authority that the books are bad for children.”
This leads Vonneugt to say what he said above about the content of his work. He goes on:
“Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.”
I do have a point to all this. It’s coming up. But I wanted to continue with Vonnegut’s thoughts. He goes on to discuss the work of Thomas Aquinas. The Thomist hierarchy of laws states that the laws that govern human beings are organized in this order: 1. Law of God, 2. Law of Nature, 3. Law of Man. This is to say that, God’s law takes precedence over the Bill of Rights. Which is to say, you can have a heart attack before you can defend your First Amendment rights. Life sucks, get a helmet. But it also means that Nature’s law also takes precedence over your First Amendment rights. You are free to stand in front of the tornado and voice your displeasure with its destructive ways. But the tornado won’t care.
Vonnuget attributes each law with a card from a deck. God’s law is an Ace, Nature’s a King and Man’s a Queen. So, we are always at a shortage when we pull our queen because Nature and God hold the trump card:
”Theologians can give us hints of the wording, but it takes a dictator to set them down just right—to dot the I’s and cross the t’s. A man who had been a mere corporal in the army did that for Germany and then for all of Europe, you may remember, not long ago. There was nothing he did not know about divine and natural law. He had fistfuls of aces and kings to play.
“Meanwhile, over on this side of the Atlantic, we were not playing with a full deck, as they say. Because of our Constitution, the highest card anybody had to play was a lousy queen, contemptible human law. That remains true today. I myself celebrate that incompleteness, since it has obviously been good for us.”
The point is: Be careful when you invoke God as your motive. Or as Vonnegut says:
”What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law . . .the groundwork for the lesson, which is this: That no one really understands nature or God . . .I have not said that our government is anti-nature and anti-God. I have said that it is non-nature and non-God, for very good reasons that could curl your hair.”
We’ve seen those very good reasons that can curl your hair. Time and again. Be careful what you ask God to endorse. Be very careful what you do in His name.
Human law is imperfect. But we can understand it. Natural and Spiritual forces we cannot. Be careful how you ask that they be wielded.
What is my point to all of this? Not much, really. Just to say that the First Amendment doesn’t just apply to the press, or to pro-America rallies or pro-Peace rallies. The First Amendment is for all of us. Use it. Often. Speak your mind. Listen to others that speak their mind. I just did. It didn’t make much sense, but it was certainly on my mind.
A lot of anger is being spewed forth lately. Decent anger. But we must make sure that this anger is productive. And that the anger flows both ways. The anger should, and must, bring us somewhere. Otherwise we are all tilting at windmills.
How do we do this? How can we possibly listen to each other? I don’t know. But I’d like to think that Vonnegut has a good idea. And it is a good idea. So simple, so precise. Seemingly so easy to do.
“Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live rationally and if they would contribute mutually to each others' welfare.”
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