When I was in high school, I read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I honestly don’t remember much about it. There were other authors that had more of an impact on me. I do remember the dark humor in the novel along with a collection of short stories that he authored, Welcome to the Monkey House.
Vonnegut was born in 1922 and was a child during the Great Depression. He also volunteered to serve in WWII and was shipped to Germany where he was captured and at one point imprisoned in a slaughterhouse.
These events influenced him.
I recently read two quotes by him. The first seems to describe not only the excesses and abuses of the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties, but also the modern financial excesses of the 1990s and the last few years. In these periods, the divide between the rich and the poor grew. As Vonnegut wrote:
Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.
I highlighted the section that most spoke to me as being prescient, for it describes not only what occurred in times past but also what is happening now. As inflation rates rise and industrious people struggle to pay bills even though they work long hours, the rich continue to get richer. Hedge Fund managers and CEOs skim their pound of flesh whether or not there are any profits.
The excesses of the 1990s led to the bankruptcy of Enron in 2001. While the people at the top, the ones who had run the company into the ground, walked away with their golden parachutes, the workers lost their retirement accounts. This kind of thing continues to this day.
During the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age, we had similar disparities between the rich and poor.
The Labor Movement came about due to the excesses of the rich, described in novels such as The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Prior to that, slightly before what historians consider the Gilded Age, Mother Jones became a labor organizer in 1871 after her dress shop burned down during the Great Chicago Fire.
Another great quote by Vonnegut:
America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves…. It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters.
Is it a crime to be poor in America? Does our system do its best to remove the burdens from those least able to carry them, or do we pile on to their backs until they are crushed from the weight?
Many cultures around the world have fairy tales and folk tales that illuminate the importance of spiritual traits such as wisdom, goodness, and generosity. Whether you read the myths of Africa or Europe, Native American folk tales, or those from Asia, the values of those societies are made clear. In most places, the elderly are treated with respect, which is obvious from these tales. Honesty and helping others who are poor or in trouble are rewarded.
What about in America? Do we value those traits?
Well, let’s take a look at who we idolize. The wealthy and the beautiful. We don’t venerate the kind, the wise, or the virtuous. If you are rich and powerful, you can get away with raping children, stealing other peoples’ ideas, abusing your employees, and all sorts of other despicable behavior.
Eventually, apparently, some go to jail as happened with Ghislaine Maxwell, but it’s amazing how differently the rich are treated. While poor urban youth and rank-and-file military members are treated with harshness for all sorts of petty crimes, Nancy Pelosi’s husband can get away with a warning for drunk driving (which would land the rest of us in jail) and Ivanka Trump can steal other peoples’ designs with few, if any, consequences.
As inflation continues to rise and the middle class in this country continues to be under assault, we have to ask ourselves if have learned any lessons from history. Vonnegut was extremely perceptive and, I think, unfortunately, prescient.
I am fighting stage IV cancer. If you can help with medical bills, I would really appreciate it. Or if you enjoy my writing and would like to buy me a cup of coffee, that’s great too. Maybe someday I can return the favor.
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This post was previously published on Shefali O’Hara’s blog.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | Why I Don’t Want to Talk About Race | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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