Kurt Vonnegut, Taoist Sage

     Yes, I am one of those insufferable late-boomers who, when flopping about in high school, found fun and meaning and insight in the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, who died yesterday.  I am sure there will be many "counter-cultural" recherche du temps perdu in the coming days.  Yet I cannot help but add my own to the chorus.

      Slaughterhouse Five affected me the most of all of his works.  The "unstuck in time" device resonated with me, sparking perhaps the first glimmering of a Taoist sensibility.  We are not in control of a linear, singular path in life.  Rather, things move as Way would have them move, sometime here, sometimes there, sometimes left, sometimes right.  Yet within the flux and chaos, the anti-war theme comes through powerfully and clearly.  This is in keeping with what I want to believe about Taoism (but which is debatable): that, ultimately, it rejects wanton killing and war as contrary to the natural unfolding of Way.

     The Tao-esque quality of Vonnegut's absurdity and satire, comes through in this excerpt of a summary of Slaughterhouse Five (Wikipedia is not my favorite source, but it will do here in a pinch):

This illogicality of human nature is brought up with the climax of the book. Ironically the climax occurs not with the bombing of Dresden, but with the execution of a man who committed a petty theft. In all of this horror, death, and destruction, so much time is taken on the punishment of one man. Yet, the time is still taken, and Vonnegut seems to take the outside opinion of the bird asking, "Poo-tee-weet?"

 We can hear Chuang Tzu reply:

People think we're different from baby birds cheeping, but are we saying any more than they are? (21)

     The NYT obituary also reminds us of how Vonnegut linked a sort of detached fatalism with a trenchant critique of his times:

“Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round,” Mr. Vonnegut wrote at the end of the book, “was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes.

“Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes. And every day my Government gives me a count of corpses created by military science in Vietnam. So it goes.”

 We could, without doing damage to the feeling or intention of the line, make it "So Way goes."  Things unfold beyond our control, sometimes horrible inhumane things, but still we go on, Way goes on, essentially unperturbed until, perhaps, some big final human ending, which is not an ending of Way at all.  The Times piece suggests the cultural significance of the line:

One of many Zenlike words and phrases that run through Mr. Vonnegut’s books, “so it goes” became a catchphrase for opponents of the Vietnam war.

 But its not really "Zenlike" - there is no promise here of some ultimate escape to nirvana or the like - it is more Taoist, a simple acceptance of the unfathomable cosmic dynamic that surrounds and infuses us, the vastness and ubiquity and incomprehensibility of Way.....

Comments

[The Humanaught]

I hadn't thought of it so directly, but Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five) also played a direct role in the formation of the Taoist parts of my beliefs. Excellent post.

[Casey Kochmer]

I remember when I first met him, he was solid, yet also so frail.

he made me smile

so it goes...

[Chris]

Excellent indeed. There's another part of Slaughterhouse Five that would seem to fit here, though I loaned out my copy, so I can't quote accurately. Apologies if I've dismembered this too atrociously.

Billy Pilgrim had a prayer framed on his wall:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Billy knew that what he could change was nothing.