In Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle (dbu library), two big themes are addressed in satirical and paradoxical fashion — science and religion. In both, their power and effectiveness are a dangerous and foolish illusion.
Religion is treated as an absurd game that brings hope but no real progress or betterment of people. Science, and its amoral treatment of consequences, has only to progress in order to destroy and end civilization. Fun stuff, I know. Yet, Vonnegut is so quotable and sharp that reading something like Cat’s Cradle has the same effect as listening to Dylan or Cohen. The words and phrasing jump out in such clear, high definition, you are forced to converse with them and think deeply, something most of us try not to do.
She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than He liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed. She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].
Religion, oftentimes, can be reduced to one’s interpretation of God’s work. According to the story, no one can know what “God is Doing” and if you say you do, you are a fool. I believe that there are Christians who would agree with this statement. In reality, the true fool is not one who thinks he knows what God is doing but one who obsesses over what kind of people God likes more. Is anyone really insightful enough to make this kind of call? And why would we submit ourselves to this exercise when the Bible tells us that, “God so loved the world…” If that is true, we all start from the same place.
Her smile was glassy, and she was ransacking her mind for something to say, finding nothing in it but used Kleenex and costume jewelry.
One of the great lines from the book, the above quote strips away our own pretense and convicts us that our minds aren’t much more than these contaminated and false things, even if we tell ourselves it is better than that.
I just have trouble understanding how truth, all by itself, could be enough for a person.
This quote is said about Dr. Hoenikker, the uncaring scientist who is responsible for much of the family angst and ultimate destruction in the story. His character represents what Vonnegut believes is the destiny of modern advances in science. Dr. Hoenikker’s version of truth was strictly scientific and placed in the box of science. After the atomic bomb, which he, in the story, helped create, was dropped, he was told that “science has now known sin.” He responded with, “What is sin?” He obviously was not aware of the concept from Arthur Holmes that, “all truth is God’s truth.” Could that truth be enough for a person?
Man is vile, and man makes nothing worth making, knows nothing worth knowing.
Every statement made in a book certainly doesn’t have to be the thoughts of the author. Vonnegut likes to make a statement and let it sit there to almost see what will happen. I can almost envision him wrestling with the statement above and wondering if he fits in the nihilistic absurdity that it professes. The fact that this statement was made to one of the most sympathetic figures in the story by one of the least sympathetic says much about where Vonnegut leans in regards to the idea of meaning. He isn’t ready to state that meaning exists but he sure wants his readers to answer that question for themselves.
I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it’s unscientific. No scientist worthy of the name could say such a thing.
With a classic critique of science, Vonnegut, through a Doctor in the story, asserts an idea that objectivity (the physical) and subjectivity (the non-physical) have to be polar opposites. And that somehow subjectivity is subordinate to objectivity. The question arises, why does science have to marry itself to its basic tenets at the expense of its own humanity? Is it somehow less of a discipline if it expands itself to consider the wider expanse of human experience, thinking, and belief? Under this quote, science is only valuable if it adheres to a narrow set of limitations that are “scientific.” Reduction of any field or discipline is a self defeating exercise.
If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.
The twists and turns of the irony of this statement may be beyond my capabilities. Still, the idea seems to be that if creation is full of stupidity then why bother making something meaningful out of it, except to point out its stupidity. Christians, in recognition of the fall, understand human stupidity better than most but have a solution to this stupidity. Jesus Christ countered stupidity with his uniquely human version of wisdom, perfection, and sacrifice. The redemption he brings includes an escape from the inevitable conclusion of human stupidity. Christians now and in the future can raise their hand in praise of You Know Who.
