September 18: Gutless Wonder, Kardashians and Hillarys, More Hopeful

Billy Pilgrim parked his Cadillac in the alley, and waited for the meeting to end.  When the meeting broke up, there was still one boy Trout had to deal with.  The boy wanted to quit because the work was so hard and the hours were so long and the pay was so small.  Trout was concerned, because, if the boy really quit, Trout would have to deliver the boy's route himself, until he could find another sucker.

"What are you?" Trout asked the boy scornfully.  "Some kind of gutless wonder?"

This, too, was the title of a book by Trout, The Gutless Wonder.  It was about a robot who had bad breath, who became popular after his halitosis was cured.  But what made the story remarkable, since it was written in 1932, was that it predicted the widespread use of burning jellied gasoline on human beings.

It was dropped from airplanes.  Robots did the droppings.  They had no conscience, and no circuits which would allow them to imagine what was happening to the people on the ground.

Trout's leading robot looked like a human being, and could talk and dance and so on, and go out with girls.  And nobody held it against him that he dropped jellied gasoline on people.  But they found his halitosis unforgivable.  But then he cleared that up, and he was welcomed to the human race.

Of course Vonnegut is trying to make some kind of profound comment about human nature with this passage.  The gutless wonder robot can bomb innocent people with burning jellied gasoline.  That's okay.  It's just another unpleasant job, like picking up garbage or emptying bedpans or being Donald Trump's press secretary.  Bad breath, however?  Fuhgeddaboudit.

Vonnegut's ciriticism still cuts pretty close to home in the United States.  We are a society that values Kardashians and demonizes Hillarys, unfortunately.  It doesn't matter whether a person is morally or ethically bankrupt.  As long as that person looks like Bradd Pitt or is as rich as Bill Gates, he or she can do just about anything.  Maybe even be elected President of the United States.

There's a lot more going on in that little passage.  A criticism of war crimes perpetrated against innocent civilians.  War's dehumanizing effects of soldiers.  Man's inhumanity to man (pardon the gender-specific language).  Vonnegut's writing in Slaughterhouse rarely operates on one level. 

I appreciate the subtlety of Vonnegut's humor and social commentary.  There are few writers, living or dead, who are his equal in this respect.  But I'm never really sure if Vonnegut believed that humans could rise above their inherent flaws.  Certainly, he shows us repeating our mistakes over-and-over throughout time, never able to make things right.  Dresden will always be bombed.  Billy will always be assassinated.  The universe will always end.  Always in the same way,  Always at the same time.  No escape.

I like to be a little more hopeful than Vonnegut.  Perhaps it's the Christian in me.  I want to believe that people, deep down, are good and kind.  That altruism is stronger than egotism.  That's what I try to teach my kids:  focus outward, not inward.  Instead of complaining about the homeless person begging at Walmart, buy that homeless person a Happy Meal from McDonald's.  Instead of judging a person by skin color or religion or sexual orientation, go to a movie with that person, make a friend. 

We aren't trapped by the past, present, or future like Billy Pilgrim.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for Happy Meals and movies.