Moderate Giftedness in a Globalized World (Kurt Vonnegut)

I think that could go back to the time when people had to live in small groups of relatives - maybe fifty or a hundred people at the most.  And evolution or God or whatever arranged things genetically, to keep the little families going, to cheer them up, so that they could all have somebody to tell stories around the campfire at night, and somebody else to paint pictures on the walls of the caves, and somebody else who wasn't afraid of anything and so on.

That's what I think.  And of course a scheme like that doesn't make sense anymore, because simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that.  A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to do into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions.

The entire planet can get along nicely now with maybe a dozen champion performers in each area of human giftedness.  A moderately gifted person has to keep his or her gifts all bottled up until, in a manner of speaking, he or she gets drunk at a wedding and tap-dances on the coffee table like Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers.  We have a name for him or her.  We call him or her an "exhibitionist."


Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut, Ch. 9

Doomed to Repeat the Past (Kurt Vonnegut)

"As the philosopher George Santayana said, 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'"

"Is that a fact?" she said.  "Well - I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what.  That's what it is to be alive.  It's pretty dense kids who haven't figured that out by the time they're ten."

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut, Ch. 10

War Fatigue and the Patriotic Imagination (Kurt Vonnegut)

That was an ordinary way for a patriotic American to talk back then.  It’s hard to believe how sick of war we used to be.  We used to boast of how small our Army and Navy were, and how little influence generals and admirals had in Washington.  We used to call armaments manufacturers “Merchants of Death.”

Can you imagine that?

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut, Ch. 8