I'm sorry to pick a nit with your fine piece, with which I fervently agree, but the bombing of Dresden was a combined attack by the RAF's Bomber Command and the U.S. Eighth Air Force.
I was about to ask the rhetorical question of whether the Middle East would be quite the bloody and violent $h!th0le it is if there were nothing under the sand but valueless rock and more sand instead of black crude. Then I thought well, maybe there are other resources there that certain people would want so much to exploit that they would convince their pals in our federal government to stir up popular sentiment favoring going to war over there. This is what made Woodrow Wilson go from "He Kept Us Out of War" to "Kill the Hun".
There are historians who insist that history is largely the record of what a few leaders did or, rather, what they were able to get their followers to do for them; and then there are those who insist that there will always be a leader where there are enough followers. I tend to side with the latter. I believe that everyone falls somewhere on the same leader-follower spectrum. History tends to emphasize the leaders whose names we all know rather than their mostly anonymous followers. IMHO that's why it seems as if, but for a few famous bad guys, human history would have been much less bloody. That may be true; leaders of a caliber lesser than Hitler, Stalin et al. might have led their followers to lesser extremes of the same kinds of butchery. Still, that having been said, it's hard not to imagine how much less bloody and violent the world might be now were it not for certain well-known megalomaniacs whose names I need not mention here.
So my first reaction to Vonnegut is to ask how different, and how much less bloody and violent, things might be were it not for the aforementioned megalomaniacs. But then I think that, without them, other lesser leaders whose names we may never know would rise to take their place, just as the eldest child of a family assumes the responsibility for her younger siblings when they are all orphaned.
It's only the wealthy who have both time AND money; the rest of us have mostly just one or the other, and we spend most of our time and energy just trying to get by. But the wealthy can afford to spend much more of their time pulling the strings of power, and it ought to surprise no one that they pull the strings in such a way as to increase their wealth and power. We may never know their names, because they prefer to operate in secret. But currently their most salient operation, called Project 2025, has become pretty widely known. If it succeeds, we shall certainly see much, much more bloodshed.
The only thing I can think to say is, megalomaniacs have more effect on history per head than good people for the simple reason that it's easier to break or destroy something than to create it.
As for your first question, it calls to mind Golda Meir's quip: "It took Moses 40 years to lead the Jews to the only place in the Middle East with no oil."
Regarding Wilson, what moved him off "he kept us out of war" was Germany's declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare around the British Isles.
I read "Johnny Got His Gun" in high school. Early seventies. Made me vehemently anti-war. I read "Lucifer's Hammer" in the mid-eighties. Made me question my previous stance. My non-commenters handle explains my state of mind since.
This gave me new appreciation for Vonnegut. I thought that my 12th grade English teacher caused me to dislike Slaughterhouse-5, but I realize now I was too young. I didn't have any friends or family who had gone to war yet. I hadn't yet lived in a nation that was surprise attacked. I couldn't yet see the difference between loudly proclaiming to be a patriot and quietly acknowledging service and sacrifice. Thank you for opening my eyes.
I await this post every year to remind me that for all my belief in the possibility of humans rising to the level of angels through "our soul's reason" as Pico said, the price of that ability is our equal or even stronger capacity to sink to the level of beasts.
I've never doubted for a moment that Mark Twain reincarnated as Kurt Vonnegut. I wonder who Kurt Vonnegut will come back as.
I absolutely worship Vonnegut. He's even a character in my novel.
I prefer the musings of Paddy Chayefsky.
For people planning their "holidaze" crafting, Michael's and JoAnn's both have fabulous things - so nobody need set a foot in Hobby Lobby
https://twitter.com/PortiaMcGonagal/status/1723486991680205166
When I was a kid growing up in the semi-wasteland that was Detroit, Vonnegut was the first thing I read that made any sense to me.
I'm sorry to pick a nit with your fine piece, with which I fervently agree, but the bombing of Dresden was a combined attack by the RAF's Bomber Command and the U.S. Eighth Air Force.
I was about to ask the rhetorical question of whether the Middle East would be quite the bloody and violent $h!th0le it is if there were nothing under the sand but valueless rock and more sand instead of black crude. Then I thought well, maybe there are other resources there that certain people would want so much to exploit that they would convince their pals in our federal government to stir up popular sentiment favoring going to war over there. This is what made Woodrow Wilson go from "He Kept Us Out of War" to "Kill the Hun".
There are historians who insist that history is largely the record of what a few leaders did or, rather, what they were able to get their followers to do for them; and then there are those who insist that there will always be a leader where there are enough followers. I tend to side with the latter. I believe that everyone falls somewhere on the same leader-follower spectrum. History tends to emphasize the leaders whose names we all know rather than their mostly anonymous followers. IMHO that's why it seems as if, but for a few famous bad guys, human history would have been much less bloody. That may be true; leaders of a caliber lesser than Hitler, Stalin et al. might have led their followers to lesser extremes of the same kinds of butchery. Still, that having been said, it's hard not to imagine how much less bloody and violent the world might be now were it not for certain well-known megalomaniacs whose names I need not mention here.
So my first reaction to Vonnegut is to ask how different, and how much less bloody and violent, things might be were it not for the aforementioned megalomaniacs. But then I think that, without them, other lesser leaders whose names we may never know would rise to take their place, just as the eldest child of a family assumes the responsibility for her younger siblings when they are all orphaned.
It's only the wealthy who have both time AND money; the rest of us have mostly just one or the other, and we spend most of our time and energy just trying to get by. But the wealthy can afford to spend much more of their time pulling the strings of power, and it ought to surprise no one that they pull the strings in such a way as to increase their wealth and power. We may never know their names, because they prefer to operate in secret. But currently their most salient operation, called Project 2025, has become pretty widely known. If it succeeds, we shall certainly see much, much more bloodshed.
The only thing I can think to say is, megalomaniacs have more effect on history per head than good people for the simple reason that it's easier to break or destroy something than to create it.
As for your first question, it calls to mind Golda Meir's quip: "It took Moses 40 years to lead the Jews to the only place in the Middle East with no oil."
Regarding Wilson, what moved him off "he kept us out of war" was Germany's declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare around the British Isles.
I read "Johnny Got His Gun" in high school. Early seventies. Made me vehemently anti-war. I read "Lucifer's Hammer" in the mid-eighties. Made me question my previous stance. My non-commenters handle explains my state of mind since.
Powerful. I don't know why anyone can function day-to-day, pretending everything is all A-OK.
It certainly is not A-OK.
“It’s a beautiful thought until someone brings AK-47s and grenades to the dance.”
AR-15 libelz.
This was the most mournful, beautiful reflection on war I've ever read. Thank you. Thank you.
Oh, Dok. That was a beautifully written essay. Perfection.
Thank you.
This gave me new appreciation for Vonnegut. I thought that my 12th grade English teacher caused me to dislike Slaughterhouse-5, but I realize now I was too young. I didn't have any friends or family who had gone to war yet. I hadn't yet lived in a nation that was surprise attacked. I couldn't yet see the difference between loudly proclaiming to be a patriot and quietly acknowledging service and sacrifice. Thank you for opening my eyes.
"Perhaps some Palestinian or Israeli teenager will survive to write the great novel about the horror and stupidity of this war in another 20 years"
And maybe we* killed them.
*Yes, "we"
I also just wrote about Vonnegut in these times! Thanks for sharing this
I await this post every year to remind me that for all my belief in the possibility of humans rising to the level of angels through "our soul's reason" as Pico said, the price of that ability is our equal or even stronger capacity to sink to the level of beasts.