An Occasional Series: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
From: Vonnegut, Kurt. Fates Worse Than Death. Part of an address to a gathering of Unitarian Universalists, June 1986.
I listen to the ethical pronouncements of the leaders of the so-called religious revival going on in this country, including those of our President, and am able to distill only two firm commandments from them. The first commandment is this: ‘Stop thinking.’ The second commandment is this: ‘Obey.’ Only a person who has given up on the power of reason to improve life here on Earth, or a soldier in Basic Training could accept either commandment gladly: ‘Stop thinking’ and ‘Obey’. (...)
Now what is it, do you think, that makes Christians so bloodthirsty? ... I think the problem is linguistic, and might be repaired, if the evangelists would only allow it, with startling simplicity. The Christian preachers exhort their listeners to love one another and to love their neighbours and so on. Love is simply too strong a word to be of much use in ordinary, day-to-day relationships. Love is for Romeo and Juliet…
I like to think that Jesus said in Aramaic: ‘Ye shall respect one another.’ That would be a sign to me that He really wanted to help us here on Earth, and not just in the Afterlife. Then again, He had no way of knowing what ludicrously high standards Hollywood was going to set for love…
And look at the spectrum of emotions we automatically think of when we hear the word ‘love’. If you can’t love your neighbour, you can at least like him. If you can’t like him, you can at least not give a damn. If you can’t ignore him, then you have to hate him, right? That’s a quick trip to hate, isn’t it? … It is such a logical trip, like the one from ‘white-hot’ to ‘ice-cold’, with ‘red-hot’, ‘hot’, ‘warm’, ‘tepid’, ‘room temperature’, ‘cool’, ‘chilly’ and ‘freezing’ in between…
There are all these people who have been told to do their best at loving. They fail, most of them. And why wouldn’t they fail, since loving is extremely difficult? ... And when they fail to love, day after day, year in and year out, come one, come all, the logic of the language leads them to the seemingly inevitable conclusion that they must hate instead. The step beyond hating, of course, is killing in imaginary self-defence.
“Ye shall respect one another.” Now there is something almost anybody in reasonable mental health can do day after day, year in and year out, come one, come all, to everyone’s clear benefit. ‘Respect’ does not imply a spectrum of alternatives, some of them very dangerous. Respect is like a light switch. It is either on or off. And if we are no longer able to respect someone, we don’t feel like killing that person… we simply want to make him or her feel like something the cat [dragged] in. ...
I have little hope that my simple reform will attract any appreciable support… The Christian quick trip from love to hate and murder is our principal entertainment.
Posted in Articles (Occasionals,Non-Fiction) by R Cruickshank 09/08/07 06:37 PM Tags: cosmic wisdom, ha ha only serious, occasional, philosophy, politics
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