Farewell from the monkey house

The late, lamented Kurt Vonnegut:

Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable.

It's not for nothing I found myself moved to quote Vonnegut (who, in turn, was quoting his son) on the first birthday of this little blog:

I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.

Dr. Mark, who treated my kids a time or two when they were young, looms in this following quote, as well:

In 1975 Vonnegut's son Mark published a book called "Eden Express," about his experiences as a sufferer from schizophrenia. At one point he records a conversation that he imagines he had with his father just after being released from a mental hospital. He tells his father that he has just begun reading "The Brothers Karamazov." His father says this was a mistake - but a beautiful one. Then Vonnegut suggests to his son that he open the book at random. Mark writes: "I let the book (fall) open. About halfway down on the right-hand page, one sentence stood out, glowing, from the rest of the print: The end of time will be marked by acts of unfathomable compassion.' " (Praeger, 1975, p. 176)

As it happens, I was looking up the cited Dostoevsky quote as it paralleled Vonnegut's enduring love for the failed species he knew us to be. I was rather amazed to find it connected to him in this way. Could it be that there's a God who's giving us dancing lessons after all?

As the father of Bokononism knew, it would make for a beautiful lie.

I’ll say this line slowly so you can get it down word for word: Only a person of deep faith can afford the luxury of skepticism. Pretty good one, huh? Some people are just not willing to accept whatever evangelists say to be truth. My family came to America after the Civil War as freethinkers from Germany. They were speculators too, and wanted to get rich. But they also wanted to have their state defined by the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. The concept of freethinker was so specifically German, and thus it became unpopular after the Anti-German backlashes during and after WWI and WWII, when all German enthusiasms became unpopular. To survive, freethinkers became Unitarians — and then humanists. God has not made himself known to us, and thus we expect no rewards and punishments in an afterlife. In our lives, we do our best to serve our community well, behave decently, and treat people well. The biggest advantages of Christianity are the congregations, which can serve as expanded families and close-knit communities.