Part Five (p. 232-287)

In the first Book of Bokonon, Bokonon writes:

      Don’t be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma! (Foma, of course, are nothing but lies.)

     In the beginning, God created the earth and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

     And God said, “Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done.”  And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man.  Mud as man alone could speak.  God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke.  Man blinked.  “what is the purpose of all this/” he asked politely.

     “Everything must have a purpose?” asked God.

     “Certainly,” said man.

     “Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this, “ said God. And he went away. (265)

In this story of creation according to the Bokononists, God is portrayed as a rather playful character.  Also, the author acknowledges that humans long for the answer of life; however, in the story, God does not answer his creation and instead sends him off to look for an answer himself, and although God sends man out for an answer, he knows there is none.  However, this futile journey does not lie solely on the fault of God, but the human because the human was the one who asked for an explanation.  Also, by sending out man to find a meaning of life, God does not expect man to find God’s own meaning of life, but instead expects man to find his own meaning of life and just live.  This story weaves perfectly into the purpose of Bokononism because the religion encourages its followers to have faith living their lives they way they are believing that they are achieving God’s will.  

          At the last page of the book, after the world has suffered complete destruction through the works of ice-nine, John runs in to Bokonon serenely sitting on a rock in the midst of a chaotic and torn-up world ripped apart by tornadoes.  In his astonishment, John asks Bokonon, “May I ask what you’re thinking?” to which Bokonon replies, “I am thinking, young man, about the final sentence for The Books of Bokonon. The time for the final sentence has come.”  In Bokonon’s hand was a piece of paper that John read, “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.” (287)  Bokonon saw that humanity itself became a lost cause and this is evident when John stumbled upon The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon entitled, “What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope For Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?” Inside this book was the word “Nothing.” (245)  Also, it is ironic that in one of Bokonon’s previous books, the tells his followers to write down the past to avoid making the same mistake twice.  However, through the stupidity and carelessness of mankind, this entire process is pointless.  In his last few words, Bokonon dreams of suicide and mocks the human race because he says he would write a book of human stupidity, which were the Books of Bokonon which his followers devoted their lives to although he told them from the beginning that they were strings of lies.  If Bokonon takes some of the “blue-white poison” of ice-nine, Bokonon would have lived his life without regrets and “as it was supposed to happen”.

Part Four (p. 174- 232)

         John asks a question, “My God—life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?”, to which Julian Castle humbly replies, “Don’t try…Just pretend you understand.” (182)  To further his response, Castle quoted a poem:

            Tiger got to hunt,           

            Bird got to fly;

           Man got to sit and wonder “Why, why, why?”

          Tiger got to sleep

          Bird got to land;

          Man got to tell himself he understand. (182)

Vonnegut really dives deep into exploring the meaning of human life and even exposes the way that humans have tried to understand it.  As an attempt to rid San Lorenzo of what Papa Monzano sees as ignorance led by Bokonon and his followers, he asks Frank, the older son of Felix to be the next president to give them the gift of science.  However, when Papa speaks about science, he is referring to the chip of ice-nine that Felix bribed him with to obtain the position as a major general in San Lorenzo.  Papa only sees the economical and material gains of science and fails to see the intellectual freedom and search for truth that it could also create in the ignorant  land of San Lorenzo.  In a way, Bokononism does the opposite of what Papa is trying to achieve in San Lorenzo by letting the San Lorenzans be happy with their lives as they come.  When John asks Frank what is sacred to the Bokononists, Frank replies, “Not even God, as near as I can tell…Just one thing… Man.  That’s all.  Just man.” (211) With just this one line, Vonnegut implies various things about life, humanity, and religion.  Vonnegut never was a man of religious beliefs and it is clear in this novel that he is not a religious man, but a man of science.  Vonnegut asks the reader to look for truth in the world, but he also acknowledges and respects the characteristics of human beings with humor.  He recognizes the fact that religion can give people certain feeling of companionship when there is nothing there. Although no individual can decipher between the truths and lies in religion, the single most important aspect of religion is the human being that follows it and the way it makes that individual feel. 

Part Three (p. 116-174)

          What I admire most about Kurt Vonnegut is his ability to explore the depths of human nature, while also making his work a piece of classic American literature by examining the American culture and society.  In this section, Vonnegut focuses on the larger aspect of humanity as a whole instead of the individual idiosyncrasies like religion, technology, and family.  Also, Vonnegut introduces the idea of the cat’s cradle which in essence is a metaphor of human life.  Newt Hoenikker, son of Felix, paints a picture of a cat’s cradle and says to John, “For maybe a hundred thousand years or more, grownups have been waving tangles of string in their children’s faces…No wonder kids grow up crazy.  A cat’s cradle is nothing but a bunch of X’s between somebody’s hands, and little kids look and look and look and all those X’s…No damn cat, and no damn cradle.” (166)  Similar to how Newt describes that there is no cat in a cradle in the game, humans tend to see things when there is nothing there and believe in something because it makes them feel better about themselves and better about life, which is similar to Vonnegut’s description of religion.  Also, cat’s cradle is a game of no end, and is a meaningless use of time; however, I do not believe that Vonnegut’s message is that life is completely meaningless because for an author to leave such little hope in a novel would be completely irresponsible as an artist of words. 

          Towards the end of the section, Newt and Julian Castle, the richest man in San Lorenzo who happens to be an American, has a conversation about life and meaninglessness.  Commenting towards Newt’s painting of a cat’s cradle, Castle asks, “So this is a picture of the meaninglessness of it all!  I couldn’t agree more.” Then, when Newt asks Castle about what he thought about Jesus Christ, Castle responds, “Oh, Him…People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say…You may quote me: Man is vile, and man makes nothing worth making, knows nothing worth knowing.” (169)  A simpler example of the meaningless actions of humans are the several attempts of imperialism in Bokonon. “San Lorenzo was not a miracle in any sense.  Many people had taken over San Lorenzo—had invariably found it lightly held.  The reason was simple: God, in His Infinite Wisdom, had made the island worthless.” (125)  Whenever a new country such as Spain, Italy, France Denmark, or England tried to take the land from the previous power, “no one complained.” (126)  Here, Vonnegut shows that humans do not completely think through their actions but act upon material or selfish desires, such as land or money, although San Lorenzo was what John called worthless.  John himself is vulnerable to this mindset when he calls San Lorenzo worthless because he himself is also thinking about the material things instead of the valuable things that San Lorenzo could offer such as a place to connect with nature.  Although Vonnegut shows that many things that human beings do are meaningless or invaluable, he gives hope by allowing for change.   

Part Two (p. 58-116)

          In this section of the novel, Vonnegut more clearly demonstrates his opinion of America, American values, and American morale.  What I liked most about this was the way Vonnegut incorporated the fictitious religion of Bokononism in his message.  At first, he introduces a married couple from the Unites States that John meets on the airplane to San Lorenzo, the Crosby’s.  The Crosby’s are more or less an average American couple, and the husband, H. Lowe Crosby is a bicycle shop owner.  After a brief conversation, Hazel Crosby, the wife of H. Lowe, discovers that John is from a specific area Indiana like her, or a Hoosier.  Then, John introduces the Bokononist idea of granfalloons, meaning false karasses, (karass meaning a group of people put together to complete God’s will).  John explains that “Hazel’s obsession with Hoosiers around the world was a textbook example of a false karass, of a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the ways god gets things done, a textbook example of what Bokonon calls a granfalloon.” (91)  He then continues, “Other examples of granfalloons are the Communist party, the Daughter of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the Internal Order of Odd fellows—and any nation, anytime, anywhere.” (92)  Vonnegut demonstrates to the reader that what the narrator considers granfalloons are foolish things to take part of because it gives a falsified feeling of unity and patriotism.  However, it is surprising that Vonnegut would take this stance in his book that would validate Bokononism when he makes the religion seem futile.   

          Before meeting the Crosby’s on the airplane to San Lorenzo, John met but another American couple, the Mintons.  Horlick Minton, the husband, was to be the future American Ambassador of San Lorenzo.  What makes this couple interesting is their history in the United States.  During Horlick Minton’s career, his wife wrote a letter that spoke out against the United States that put the ambassador in a compromising position.  In her letter, Mrs. Minton wrote that Americans “are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be.” (97)  Mrs. Minton also pointed out in her letter that “Americans, in being hated, were simply paying the normal penalty for being people, and that they were foolish to think that they should somehow be exempted from that penalty.” (98)  In many books, the author chooses a character to speak through and Claire Minton is most likely this person in the novel.  It seems that Vonnegut’s feelings towards America are clearly states and contribute to his passion against the mass destruction produced by the atomic bomb and mankind using science, something that should stand for truth and knowledge, for evil.

Part One (p. 1-58)

          Perhaps the one of the single most interesting thing about Cat’s Cradle is the way Kurt Vonnegut starts his book with a disclaimer to the reader, “Nothing in this book is true. ‘Live by the foma (harmless untruths) that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy’ The Books of Bokonon 1: 5”.  Right from the start of the novel, Vonnegut is giving a clear statement about religion and humanity’s reliance on religion.   When the religion of Bokononism is introduced through the narrator and main character John, who calls himself Jonah, the narrator tells the reader that anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not be able to understand the book.  Even the sacred Books of Bokonon claim, “All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies” (5).  Surprisingly, although the religion of Bokononism openly declares that it is entirely based on lies, it finds many devotees in the land of San Lorenzo, a potential utopia that turned into a third world, poverty-stricken mess of an island.  Bokonon tells his followers that each person belongs to a group, or karass that carries out God’s will.  However, the individual will never fully understand the meaning of his or her life, giving them a chance to live their lives and go along with things “as they are meant to happen”.  Vonnegut’s main message in his introduction to Bokononism is that religion is a social fixation that is meant to comfort individuals and to give them a falsified purpose in life.  According to Vonnegut, religion gives the illusion of meaningfulness and the fact of whether or not religion is a lie is irrelevant to its purpose.

          After John gives and explanation of the religion of Bokonon, he declares the purpose of the book, which was meant to be a factual account “of what important Americans had done on the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan” (2).   It was to be titled, The Day the World Ended.  At the center of the story is the creator of the atomic bomb, Dr. Felix Hoenikker.  Dr. Hoenikker is made out to be an innocent person who is uninterested in emotions, but simply his work as a scientist.  Indifferent to his emotions and his family, he also does not care about the way his research is being used, which is the destruction of mankind.  Although Dr. Hoenikker does not have any malicious intent with his research, he produces not one, but two things that can destroy the world; the last thing that he produces before his death is a substance called ice-nine that turns water into ice.  Ironically, the company that Dr. Hoenikker works for also produces antibiotics.  The technological advancements of the world that offer better lives for millions also offer suffering to many others.

Free-Thinkers

Before the Iraq War became a huge mess in the earliest stages, the media was blamed for having too little to say about President Bush’s foolish policies.  Now, the media is being blamed for being too harsh on the President and also being blamed for exposing only the worst aspects of what is actually happening.  Not only has mainstream media taken a slight turn into being fairly liberal, but the opinions being voiced are getting more liberal as time passes. Can we as Americans not count on our media simply providing the news to let us think for ourselves?   Also, there is the issue of the media-industrial-political complex where there is a symbiotic relationship that ends up skewing the news that is reported to the American citizen.  Amy and David Goodman of Mother Jones News says, “Americans believe these lies not because they are stupid, but because they are good media consumers. Our media have become an echo chamber for those in power. Rather than challenge the fraudulent claims of the Bush administration, we’ve had a media acting as a conveyor belt for the government’s lies.” 

The problem lies in the fact that Americans rely too much on the news that provides them with biased information that companies want the news reporters to say to make the corporations look better.  Also,
America has gotten more liberal over the past few years not simply because it is their way of thinking, but now the media makes it seem that it is “cool to be a liberal.”  I am all in favor of being a liberal thinker, but I do not respect the people that do it because everyone around them is that way.  

Iran Ran Away With the Weapons

When the United States encountered the problem ofNorth Korea’s nuclear proliferation, they handled that problem in the matter of a week.  Iran doesn’t have an atomic bomb-yet, but U.S. officials are convinced that they are hiding something.  The United Nations has known for months now that Iran has uranium stocks that they are enriching; Iran broke the U.N resolution for them to stop boosting their uranium in August 31.  With these uranium stockpiles, Iran is one step closer to creating an atomic bomb.  If Iran has an atomic bomb, this could be a problem for the US since they have not had the best relations with Iran recently, their nuclear bomb could mean the US’ endangerment, or so as the US government thinks.  One solutions that was proposed was limited UN sanctions that forbids the “sale or transfer of all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology which could contribute to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs” (Stephens).  The resolution would also freeze the financial asserts of everyone and everything associated with the nuclear programs.

So why not just le tIran go ahead and let them advance so they can create the bomb?  This would be the best solution.  After all, since it will take ten years for their country to make one, George Bush can just hand this issue to a future president.  He is clearly incapable of handling another nuclear proliferations issue with Iraq sitting in his hands. As William tucker says in his article, “How About nuclear Standoff?” in The American Spectator, “Let’s let Iran have the bomb and the hell with it.  They can have nuclear power.  They can even have nuclear weapons.  But if one of those bombs goes off anywhere in the world, we wipe them off the map.”  Although this solution can sound naïve, it just may work.  At least another disaster like the Iraq War can be avoided by the United States.   

Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems

Today, more than one-third of the uninsured which is 17 million of the 47 million Americans have family incomes of $40,000 or more. (New York Times)  The uninsured does not just include the lower class as would be expected, but the majority of the uninsured are middle class Americans.  Why no help from the federal government?  Is the middle class like the middle child of the family that gets neglected and does not recieve the same amount of attention from the parents compared to the oldest and the youngest?   The wealthier have families have nothing to worry about because they can afford insurance and the poorer families are provided health insurance through the government if they meet specific requirements–extremely specific requirements that make the person applying for the health insurance want to give up altogether.  The poverty line is defined individual earnings of $10,000 a year and $20,000 a year for a family of four; and state governments provide insurance for those who earn up to double the poverty rate.  However, an individual needs to earn at least three times that amount to afford private health insurance leaving those in between living without any medical insurance (Reuters). 

Clearly the health issue is one of major concern to the public, as it should be, or else it would not have gotten support from so many voters. Eighty-four percent of Americans support an expanding a program to make sure all children are covered while sixty percent, including 62 percent of independents and 46 percent of Republicans, said they would be willing to pay more in taxes to pay for universal health care for every American. (New York Times ) This issue has also gotten the support Barrack Obama, Hilary Clinton, and John Edwards.  However, a small 18 percent of the voters in a poll said that they would not be willing to pay more than $500 extra to provide health insurance for all.  For those who hold their money so dearly that they would not even consider spending an Ipod or two’s worth of money to potentially save a life from cancer or a life-threatening illness, watch out for the flu season. Considering that the large percent of Americans are considered middle class, Congress should take a step forward to mandate health insurance programs provided to employees.  A plan like this would help countless people who cannot skip the doctor visit just to avoid the cost of being ill.

Pear, Robert. “Without Health Benefits, a Good Life Turns Fragile.” New York Times. 5

Mar 2007. 5 Mar. 2007.   <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/us/05uninsured.html>

Going Green

 With the dramatic weather changes this winter and the huge pollution going into the air, it is hard to deny the effects of global warming.  American consumers are demanding fuel-hungry SUV’s at all costs, taking a huge toll in the environment, although many claim to be concerned over the gas emissions.  According to Joel Makower, executive editor at Greenbiz.com, Americans are “green hypocrites… Consumers remain depressingly ignorant about the environmental impact of what they do.  They find no irony in getting into their SUVs to drive a few miles and buy recycled toilet paper.”¹

As a response to the overwhelming criticism about regarding the downward spiral of environmental conditions, major industries such as Wal-Mart, Honda, and Toyota started to “go green”.  Honda and Toyota are both building eco-friendly cars which help to reduce manufacturing energy by 30% and CO₂ emissions from each car.  In September 2006, Wal-Mart announced their plan cut packaging by 5% starting in 2008.

However, these “going green” plants do not seem to benefit the environment; the major corporations save a great deal of money in conserving resources.  By cutting down their usage, Wal-Mart will save an estimated $3.4 billion.  Energy-smart companies like GE have reported revenues of up to $10.1 billion per year.¹   Daniel Esty, director of the Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University and co-author of Green to Gold explains, “The environment has become a strategic issue.  It’s something every company must do to stay competitive.”  Although some may say that these corporations are corrupt for profiting from concerned environmentalists, their greed may work in our favor.  Because the federal government is taking their time towards green issues, the human population must find a way to ensure that this world is worth living in thirty years from now themselves.  These industrial moguls may be going green for the wrong reasons but at least they are making some progress towards a green nation.

¹ Walsh, Bryan. “How the Business Saw the Light.” Time. 15 Jan 2007. 56-57.