CHAPTER 1
Kurt Vonnegut on Death
Dylan Lynch
Utilizing Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano, this chapteraddresses the concepts of human mortality, itswidespread denial in our everyday lives, and thesubsequent difficulty human beings find in livinga fulfilling life while crippled by the omnipresentfear of death. Technological society's inclination todehumanize its population leads to an absence ofhuman connectedness and thus to the pervasivenessof mechanical versus organic and emotional thoughtsand actions. The acceptance of human mortalityenables those who acknowledge it to live a life thatproduces a sense of immortality; the impact we haveon others, our community and our society as a wholewhile we are alive can ensure that our actions are notlost to history.
As a nation, America has been comfortably living in a state of denialfor the better part of its existence. This shadowy reliance on denialis multi-faceted, and exists to varying degrees in many aspects of dailylife – from one's day job to a night on the town. In recent years, it canbe seen on the national stage with the handling of enemy combatantdetainees, or in the microcosm of a parent turning a blind eye to theirchild's obvious substance abuse problems. This state of denial hasthe highest demand and the widest acceptance when dealing withthe inescapable and supreme end for which all human beings aredestined – death.
The defiantly inspirational Hallmark-esque sayings known andadored by most people about there never being sunshine withoutrain nor joy without pain are rarely taken to their logical end – thatwe couldn't truly appreciate the beauty and wonder of life withoutdeath's resolution. Because of their overwhelming fear of death, manypeople live wholly unfulfilling lives. For reasons of convenience wenaively force a connection between accepting our mortality and livinga meaningless life, though no connection exists and this notion couldnot be further from reality. Social Psychologists such as Ernest Beckerwrite – with much popularity – on seeking immortality, which hedescribes as an inevitable part of people's lives. Becker claims that thedenial of death is both natural and unavoidable. But Becker and hislike-minded followers – henceforth referred to as Denialists – fail torealize the full effect that disregard for death has on humanity.
When people fail to recognize their physical ephemerality, theyare denying the foundation of their vulnerability as well as the fullspectrum of emotions that come with it – all of which are essential tobeing human in the fullest sense of the term. To forsake these emotionsis to turn away from what makes life beautiful, worthwhile, andinfinitely precious. To acknowledge and exist in harmony with theseemotions – including a full acceptance of mortality – is what it meansto truly live. Denialists are only repudiating their own humanity, andin turn they are missing out on life.
Kurt Vonnegut – black-humorist, satirist, and a humanist with aunique worldview – recognized what could happen to a society thatattempted to take human emotion completely out of a human-inhabitedworld. In his novel Player Piano, written while working at a GeneralElectric plant in Ilium, New York, Vonnegut created an America run bymanagers and engineers obsessed with efficiency above all else. PlayerPiano was published in 1952, but due to his foresight and humanistleanings, Vonnegut's novel inches closer to social reality with everyadvance in technology. The managers and engineers brought victoryto America during a great war with their industrial ability, theirunfailing efficiency, and their knack for building machines capable ofdoing previously human tasks faster and for less money. Because of itseffectiveness during the war, the system of having various machinesdo every human enterprise – breathing, sleeping, eating, and sex aside– was kept in place after the war. America's democratically electedgovernment became a figurehead, a puppet mouthpiece assentingto whatever production, employment, and legislative decision thehuman-created machines made. The proponents of this system usedas their justification the undeniable practicality of having machineswork production lines instead of humans (waste and cost were bothdown under the new way of life), and the fact that every person whowasn't smart enough to work as an engineer was given a governmentsupported job. Those deemed unqualified for a life of decision makingwere assigned to the army or the Reclamation and ReconstructionCorps, where they were conscripted to work for twenty-five years.After their twenty-five years of work, members of the R&R Corpswere forced to retire to their government appointed house with theirgovernment pension, and allowed to comfortably and uneventfullywait for death. The people who oppose this way of life, whose veryhumanity and instincts drive them to cry out against it, are mostlythose not found by the IQ machines and the job placement machinesto be smart or left-brained enough to hold any kind of decision makingpower, including determining the course of their own lives. Once youfailed the IQ test required to continue on through the undergraduateand graduate educational system, your entire life's course had beendecided.
One of the main reasons for the subconscious denial of deathour culture has so readily accepted is the misguided idea that onceone fully recognizes death's power over life he or she will be unableto function in any useful way. That some people become completelycrippled by fear is no surprise – those suffering from agoraphobia areso scared of the various avenues and events of life that they struggleto leave the confines of their home – but the fact remains that weneedn't fear what we can't control. No one can control death in sofar as keeping it from ever occurring. Some have taken a last-gasp atgaining some modicum of control over death by committing suicide,others try to control death through new medicines, but no one cancompletely overcome death's certainty. The idea of not ceding controlof your life to the fear of that which is beyond your control is essentialfor living a fulfilling life, and it is only through accepting our ownmortality that we can shake off the fear that reigns over our society.
The American citizens in Player Piano were so shaken by fear ofdeath after a long war that they were willing to completely hand overcontrol of their own lives to a Hobbesian industrialized governmentin order to be put at ease. What they received in return for handingover almost every aspect of what made them independent humanbeings was far more than they anticipated. Machines dictated everyaspect of life from conveniences (televisions turned on when youentered the room, whole meals could be defrosted and cooked inminutes, your preferences marked and reviews to alert you of state-approvedbehaviors you are most likely to enjoy) to the more intricatejobs of crime prevention and housing development (security camerasmonitored crime, cities were made up of cookie-cutter housingdevelopments based on designs deemed most efficient). There is noroom in this society for anything organic, creative, or human. Thecreativity that makes murals so beautiful, music so enjoyable, and lifeso worthwhile is cast aside because it is inefficient.
One does not have to look far in our America to see shades of theAmerica Vonnegut created in Player Piano. Take for example the useof geotagging and facial recognition software in the latest iPhone,which are used to ensure that advertisements relevant to a user's tastesand location appear most frequently. The same limitations on humancreativity and ingenuity seen in Player Piano will begin to constrictour contemporary culture.
The novel's heroes, Dr. Ed Finnerty and Dr. Paul Proteus, are twoexceptions to the rule of those in power adoring the efficiency-firstsystem. They are two men who knew early in their careers that theywould advance to the highest levels of the corporate world, eventuallycontrolling most of the decision making for every industrial plant inAmerica. Finnerty and Proteus recognized, however, that there wassomething inherently wrong with the post-war American zeitgeist.Each man came to embrace the spirit expressed so succinctly by TedRosenthal in his poem How Could I Not Be Among You? – that "It's stagecenter for all of us," and there is no better time than now to live full,albeit imperfect lives. The Denialist idea that by ignoring death oneis able to keep it at bay is ludicrous. People often relate versions ofthe expression "you don't know what you've got until it's gone," soit should logically follow that accepting your eventual and inevitabledeath – as well as that of your loved ones – will only increase thepleasure you extract from each day.
While Vonnegut's novel focuses on Proteus and Finnerty'sattempt to escape the evil of an inhuman society, it also follows Dr.Ewing Halyard, a State Department civil servant whose job it is toshow foreign dignitaries around the country. While touring with thediplomats, Halyard would try to convince them to hire Americanengineers to mechanize their less efficient states. In Player Piano,Halyard's charge is the Shah of Bratpuhr – the spiritual and politicalleader of six million people in the Kolhouri sect. During his travelswith Halyard, the Shah asserts that he can't see the emperor's newclothes as he witnesses the strange concept of human beings denyingtheir humanity and instead choosing boredom, comfort, and efficiency.As Halyard shows the Shah around Ilium, the Shah repeatedly andrather accurately refers to the Reclamation and Reconstruction Corpsworkers as "slaves" in his native tongue. After becoming fed up withthe Shah's putative misperception of Ilium's fine citizens, Halyarddecides to take him to the home of an average citizen and prove justhow well each person is able to live under the efficient and practicalrule of mechanized, objective decision making.
When the two arrive at the home of Edgar and Wanda Hagstrohm,Halyard and Dr. Ned Dodge – the local neighborhood manager – makea grand show of explaining the form and function of the Hagstrohm'shome. Houses in this society are sold as a package that includesfurniture predetermined by aggregation of extensive national surveyson furniture likes and dislikes, leaving no room for individualization.Houses also include cooking and cleaning machines and gadgets thatcook meals in seconds and wash and dry clothes in minutes (evenleaving them with a fresh, outdoorsy scent). As Halyard and Dodgefervently and proudly explain each machine and how it does a muchbetter job than people ever could, the Shah – through his translator –asks what Wanda does once she assigns machines to all the householdchores. Frustrated, and without a proper answer, Dodge shouts, "Live!Get a little fun out of life" (p. 164). What Halyard and Dodge failto realize is something that the Shah, with his different paradigm,discerned immediately – there is no room in American society forpeople to truly live. One does not get to choose a career, those decisionsare made by standardized tests. One does not get to design his or herhome, that is done based on the preferences of the country as a whole.One can't take on any challenges since everything is mechanized, andcan't individualize since a one-size-fits-all mentality pervades society.By trying to strip away human error, the people in Player Piano havegone a step further and actually limited their own humanity.
Much like our contemporary American culture, the searchfor immortality is not absent from Player Piano. Early in Proteus'transformation from elitist ally of dehumanization to a man whoadores humanity for its un-machinelike qualities, a machinist namedRudy Hertz lays bare his – and his fellow citizens' – desire to liveforever. Hertz first meets a young Paul Proteus when, fresh out ofgraduate school and looking to make a name for himself, Proteusfound the fastest, most skilled assembly line worker to study. TurningHertz's nimble fingers and unparalleled enthusiasm for work into arecorded sequence in a robot, Proteus was able effectively to replaceand double the speed of Rudy Hertz with a robot version of theworker. Hertz, initially honored by being chosen as the fastest andbest worker in Ilium, quickly realized what he had done to himself andhis fellow workers. As more and more of the Hertz-bots were made,more and more people were laid off. Hertz was excited about the ideaof a piece of him living on forever, but in seeking his immortality hesacrificed what had made his life so worthwhile on earth. He gaveup something that brought him happiness and a feeling of usefulnessin a vain attempt to extend his physical existence. Rudy Hertz wasreplaced by a snapshot of himself, and rather than achieve immortalityby impacting and living on in others, he chose to live on in the form ofa small recording, wasting away the rest of his days in a dive bar withbarely enough drive to get out of bed in the morning.
What the people in Player Piano have created, and contemporaryAmerican society is in the process of creating, is an entire race of IvanIlyiches in whose lives the Real Thing is completely absent. With theiradvancement of the societal norms of absolute efficiency came anintolerance of human emotion, frailty, and character. The computersthat make the people of Ilium's decisions are lauded with high praisebecause of their ability to reach conclusions "free of reason-muddyingemotions" (p. 117). The citizens of Vonnegut's America fail to graspthe Real Thing, much like Ivan Ilyich, until it is almost too late. WhileIvan Ilyich is able to repent only on his deathbed, Paul Proteus and EdFinnerty repent in a more useful way, revolting against the system ofwhich they were once integral parts and waging war on the industrialsociety that had minimized persons' roles in their own existences.As Yeager Hudson states in his "Death and the Meaning of Life," onecan only find meaning in life "as intrinsic within one's life work, hisfamily, his own character ... the promotion of an ideal, or the serviceof a worthy cause," (p. 93). The People of Vonnegut's America haveno opportunity to find meaning in their lives because their society isentirely devoid of causes to pursue and meaningful ways to expresstheir love and friendship. Early in the novel, Proteus expresses thethought that the world was slowly being restyled into an overallpleasant and convenient place to bide your time and await judgmentday. While it is obviously desirable that the world be a pleasant place,our vibrant souls seem to demand that it be more than just convenient.To a varying extent, human beings crave to push the boundaries oftheir own humanity. While some conveniences have inarguably madethe world a better place, for the entire planet to be nothing more than aconvenient place to sweat out judgment day would negate everythingenjoyable about life.
As human beings we treasure challenges, we love risks and seemto harbor a sort of infatuation with those who live fast and dangerous.Human beings want convenience when it is convenient, and otherwisestrive to do that which is inconvenient to prove it can be done. Take,for example, a professional basketball player alone on a breakawaytoward his opponent's basket. The average, energy-efficient and risk-averseplay would be to simply lay the ball in, but nine times out of ten,the player will leap into the air and execute an acrobatic and powerfulslam dunk. The dunk isn't worth any more points than the layup, butit has other qualities that elevate it above a layup in the eyes of manyplayers and fans.
Conflicts and challenges are difficult to get through, and at timeswe wish they had never been brought upon us at all, but humanbeings tend to come out of a challenge with a lesson learned –feeling themselves stronger and a better person because of it. Theexperience can't be duplicated. Many trials and tribulations can (andshould) be avoided, but an equal number prove to be important inone's development as a complete person. As Ted Rosenthal statedin How Can I Not Be Among You?, "get glass in your feet if you must,but take off the shoes." Another place in which Dr. Paul Proteus hasfound intolerable stagnation and even less tolerable convenience ishis marriage to his wife Anita. Proteus even states, "Anita had themechanics of marriage down pat," (p. 17). The reason that Proteus isnot happy – but not at all miserable – with his marriage is that he andhis wife have taken something that is wholly organic and human –love – and done their best to mechanize it. Their marriage follows ablueprint of what previous generations have decided a marriage shouldbe, and despite the fact that they both seem to want to break out of themold into which society has pushed them, both Anita and Paul marchalong to the beat of an anonymous and disinterested drum. This is theultimate denial that takes place in Vonnegut's novel and our society, ashunning of one of the most essential human experiences – love.
