“There’s absurdism in the news right now,” [said the director Jeff Wise], “and it’s getting more and more absurd in a very despairing and awful way.”...
“Even in the last few days,” [said the actor Jason O’Connell, who plays Harold, a "Trumpian guy"], “there are elements of the show that played funnier in April that feel a little darker now, and I don’t think we’re doing anything differently with them. I think people are receiving them differently.”...
Night to night, too, sensitivities change. The evening of the October day when 11 people were murdered at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the moment in the show that didn’t work involved Nazis, [the actress Kate] MacCluggage said. At a performance right after a different mass shooting, she recalled, a line that Harold speaks went over like “a stomach punch”: “Whomever has the gun, you see, gets to tell everyone else what to do — it’s the American way.”
November 10, 2018
"Whomever has the gun, you see, gets to tell everyone else what to do — it’s the American way."
A line in Kurt Vonnegut's 1970 play "Happy Birthday, Wanda June," which is revived right now off Broadway and discussed in "Kurt Vonnegut’s Vietnam-Era Play Lands With a Gasp" (NYT).
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98 comments:
(Valid only when there’s one gun)
What a profoundly mistaken view of America. That would be a good description of Europe (and Asia and Africa). For better or worse, America invented the "Equalizer," and the Second Amendment.
It wasn't an American leader who wrote "all political power flows from the barrel of a gun." But whatever truth there is in the proposition suggests that an armed population is the only guarantee of democracy, no?
Sooner or later you have to sleep.
So, how did the Thousand Oaks Massacre affect them?
"There’s absurdism in the news right now,"
Ironic viral meta-meme.
"Whomever has the gun, you see, gets to tell everyone else what to do — it’s the American way."
Notice "whomever" and "gun" in that quotation are in the singular form.
And the left tend to use memes like that to promote the idea that the state should be the single entity with the gun.
Their version of the American way.
So, I just looked up the script, having never read it before. But, doesn't the scene undermine the point since the gun isn't loaded and the woman with the rifle is in no way in control of the situation?
Hell, later in the scene, he takes the now loaded ready to fire gun away from her. The sentence is said about a person with an impotent weapon, and then once the person HAS a weapon, it is easily taken away. The statement is absurdist because the person without the gun is telling people what to do ("Find her the bullet. Load the gun for her. Cock it too.")
Did the audience not get the absurdity of the statement juxtaposed with the situation?
Gun, scalpel, fist, ... With progress, it's the bullhorns, which are used to raise the noise floor, deny people's voice, and color perception.
Maybe I'll read more than just the part directly around the statement, but it seems really odd for the audience to take that as a gut punch since it is undermined and subverted.
Kurt Vonnegut was funny. It's no surprise hi work is problematic in the era of That's Not Funny.
"Whomever has"
Ugh. Pretentious illiterate alert.
Carol: In the script I found online, it is Whoever (which I believe is correct). Not sure why the article uses Whomever.
Use whom whenever a note of austerity and dignity is required.
(Also, just given what I know about Vonnegut, I'm guessing the point is that the guy who is all "GUNS AND VIOLENCE WIN THE DAY" is going to lose out to someone who does something like "speaking the truth" or "Having an idea" because violence ultimately fails in the long run. And hey, look. It was a protest play AGAINST the Vietnam War, so I'm feeling pretty good about that bet.)
“Whomever has the gun, you see, gets to tell everyone else what to do — it’s the American way.”
Fainting couch please. Reading the line first, it sounded like something from the gangster era of the 1930s. It even fits in many westerns.
I wonder how it would have gone over if they substituted "guns" with "bike locks."
Seems more accurate now.
Mao said it first, and it was just an observation about politics since paleolithic times. Antifa, for instance, has taken it to heart.
Jim Acosta: “Whomever has the microphone, you see, gets to tell everyone else what to do — it’s the American way.”
I have read everything Vonnegut has published. He often examines and challenges power, societal, cultural, and political, particularly that of the elites, without regard for political party. He was most certainly a liberal based on interviews I've read, but not today's sort of liberal or progressive. Read Harrison Bergeron - there's even a short film adaptation available - it is a beautifully done attack on SJW politics and the demand from some for equality of outcomes. Breakfast of Champions has offenses for everyone.
Anyone offended (gut punched) by that line from the play is too sensitive to view or read anything that questions or examines society and culture. And so it goes.
Someone always has a gun. Always and everywhere.
Sorry, NYT, but "lands with a gasp" makes me think of a fish hitting the deck of a boat. Or of Tom Wolfe's use of "gasper" to describe a cliche or truism that's delivered as if it were a revelation.
PENELOPE: How do you do. My name is Penelope Ryan. This is a simple-minded play about men who enjoy killing--and those who don't.
HAROLD: I am Harold Ryan, her husband. I have killed perhaps two hundred men in wars of various sorts--as a professional soldier. I have killed thousands of other animals as well--for sport.
WOODLY: I am Dr. Norbert Woodly--a physician, a healer. I find it disgusting and frightening that a killer should be a respected member of society. Gentleness must replace violence everywhere, or we are doomed.
Harold is the guy who says the line about the gun; the guy who from his very first line in the play, is The Designated Bad Guy. I seriously don't get the "We're shocked!" thing. You know from the word Go he's not meant to be sympathetic!
He was most certainly a liberal based on interviews I've read, but not today's sort of liberal or progressive.
None of that totalitarian perfectibility of society for him.
It was a protest play AGAINST the Vietnam War
Vonnegut was pretty much against war period. So the Vietnam part was just coincidental.
Stay away from churches, schools, movie theaters, Walmarts, and country music venues, and you should be perfectly safe from anonymous attacks.
Matthew Sablan said...
So, I just looked up the script, having never read it before....
Did the audience not get the absurdity of the statement juxtaposed with the situation?
Maybe the script was 'doctored'?
EDH: Well, they DID change Whoever to Whomever.
Chekhov said(approx) "if you introduce a gun in the first act, by the third act you have to use it"
Actually, the play is really well put together (for the part I've read top to about Scene 6 or so.) A good cast could make it really fun.
and country music venues
The last year I played, in fact the last time I worked in the one last big venue in our town, I looked around and thought yeah this place is ripe for a shootin..not because the people weren't nice, far from it, but just because it's there.
I was too old anyway. These kids need to get their own bands going. Average age 60 entertaining average age 30. LOL
Vonnegut fought in and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, and then transport, imprisoned, and liberated in brutal conditions. It informed the rest of his life (today, we would refer to it as PTSD).
No surprise that he was able to write about the use of weapons and its effects on people. I disagree with Vonegut's politics, but he made important points.
Knock, knock.
Whom's there?
So, finished reading the play. It plays out as I expected it to do so, with the whole point being that the gun is powerless in the face of Truth (which is that guns/violence are bad.)
Which was... exactly where that scene was telegraphed to go from the opening lines. This is like if parents in a Disney movie gasped when the villain threatened to do something bad. "Oh no! What if Jaffar DOES defeat Aladdin!?"
It's play acting by the audience.
Hands off Vonnegut you weenies. That man had more insight in his pinky finger than 500 of you yapping snowflakes.
For example: I recall an essay he wrote about how demanding that humanity love one another was too tall an order. To hard for us. What we really need to preach, he said, was more common decency. That is a level most of us can achieve even with people we strongly disagree with. The piece ended with the phrase (IIRC): "A little less love and a little more common decency."
Wise, wise man.
I bet Tucker Carlson's wife wished she had a gun.
"See, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig - you dig."
I think he nailed it.
I love it when combat vets are trashed.
Right before “Thanks for your service but we want to take your guns day.”
I think Vonnegut came by his anti-war positions honestly, and I respect him for those positions. I would also put Robert Service and Siegfried Sassoon in that category. About Jane Fonda I don't feel quite so much respect, and I think most of the anti-war left are more like her than Vonnegut.
FIDO said...
"I bet Tucker Carlson's wife wished she had a gun."
Are you sure she didn't? Apparently the idiots outside her house were.
The government has more guns than all of us. So I guess they get to just tell us all what to do. Is that the American way?
(Mind you: I like his writing in general. The play is really well put together, and Harold's flaws are explored on a very honest level compared the standard "Soldier BAD" narrative you'd expect. I think that's what is catching the audience off guard. They expect something a lot more simplistic and didactic than what Vonnegut is giving them. Woodly and Penelope are flawed caricatures too, but their flaws are flaws that the audience sympathizes with. For example, Penelope is more than willing to use violence to get what she wants, despite demeaning Harold for his own violence. Woodly, likewise, is a coward who runs from his problems and hides behind big ideas like peace, etc., but in the end, realizes he has to come into conflict with Harold, but instead, chooses to use words instead of violence -- but the conflict *still has to happen.* Both his and Harold's views have to change; Woodly has to realize that, yes, Harold is flawed and comical, but he's still human and needs to be treated with respect (a respect that Woodly doesn't give him through most of the first two acts), and Harold has to realize that he's deluding himself about how important he is.
It's a much deeper play than I think people are signing up for when they see an anti-Vietnam protest piece, especially in the Age of Trump where they might be expecting some winks at the current administration.
Well, I got about four pages into it. Pretty crude, I'd have to say. There is a salesman. Does he die at some point?
Only in America are guns used to tell people what to do. In Europe the guy with the gun does what you tell him.
"The government has more guns than all of us. So I guess they get to just tell us all what to do. Is that the American way? "
Yes.
Try not paying your property taxes for a couple of years and see what happens.
Hint: At the end of the process, if you do not pay, men with guns will come to your house and ask you to leave.
Perhaps Vonnegut misunderstood his own maxim. Today, it's the liberals who want to be the guy with the gun by disarming the civilian populace. Their whole aim is to restrict gun ownership to police and the military, so that government and only government can tell you what to do.
Tyrone: Read the play. The guy without the gun proceeds to boss everyone else around in the scene to the point he takes the gun away from one of them. You're not supposed to believe him. He's made out to be a bully, a jerk and morally and intellectually bankrupt compared to the other characters.
I read a lot of Vonnegut when I was about 16, I thought the world of him. Thinking back over the little I remember, he had a great imagination, but his characters are pretty one-dimensional. I guess that's OK for the kind of stuff he wrote. He was about illustrating ideas, not exploring ambiguities. Unfortunately, he and his imagination are gone, but his characters are still hanging around.
If the news media is to be believed, Americans are becoming such pantywaists. There’s so much sentimentalism and fragility. It’s not enough anymore to report on significant events and, in the case of despicable acts of violence, for the people to roundly condemn evil. The gender/race studies grads working as journalists must “interrogate” and make grand societal connections and develop narratives and so forth. Somehow there’s always something wicked or rotten about American society that is making people feel oppressed or sad or scared, and the disease must be remedied with [insert liberal ideas]. This article serves a narrative favored by the reporter whether explicitly stated or not.
I don’t believe there are so many people who are so easily “triggered” in the wake of mass shootings. Unless you have some direct connection to a shooting, if you get “triggered” by lines uttered in a play you are either extraordinarily weak or full of shit.
"Vonnegut was pretty much against war period. So the Vietnam part was just coincidental."
Yes, he wrote "Slaughterhouse Five" to protest the war he himself fought against the Nazis. I guess he was an antisemitic, alt-right White Nationalist.
"Carol: In the script I found online, it is Whoever (which I believe is correct). Not sure why the article uses Whomever."
I thought it was to make the "Trumpian guy" sound like the kind of person who makes overcorrection grammar mistakes.
Maybe. Reading the rest of the play, they probably don't need to change much to make him less likable though.
I can't find a searchable text, but I can't believe the NYT would introduce that mistake. It's so egregious.
By the way, it's always bugged me that Bob Dylan wrote: "I pity... that man whom with his fingers cheats" (in "I Pity the Poor Immigrant"). I had once talked myself into believing it was knowingly sardonic.
This is the one I read: http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Happy_Birthday_Wanda_JUne.html
Not sure if that is the accurate text though.
Wait wait wait - we need to know the number of people in that audience that are currently in therapy, on an SSRI, or identify as "PTSD". I forgot how neurotic and prone to overthinking overeducated east coast folks can be. Its been many years since I lived in the northeast. It may have been a huge effort for them to simply GO to the play (without their therapy animals), much less endure the emotions inspired by it.
@Matthew Sablan, but what is Truth? Yesterday Althouse posted a video of Jim Acosta rudely pushing — striking — a young, slender White House intern. Althouse sees what I see. Many others, looking at the same video, write that, no, that’s not what happened. Sanders is lying and so is Althouse. If we can’t agree on Truth when we’re looking at the same video, then there is no such thing as Truth and it might as well come from the muzzle of a loaded gun.
“What is Truth?” That’s a 2000 year old question.
"By the way, it's always bugged me that Bob Dylan wrote: "I pity... that man whom with his fingers cheats" (in "I Pity the Poor Immigrant"). I had once talked myself into believing it was knowingly sardonic."
Maybe Dylan just made a grammatical mistake. Or maybe he wrote or sang it than way for the way the words sound. Lyric writing is not poetry, but it is akin to poetry in that language may be misused (or "creatively used") to suit the writer's meaning, aesthetic purpose, or other.
"The government has more guns than all of us. So I guess they get to just tell us all what to do. Is that the American way?"
And they're BIGGER guns!
Blogger Fernandistein said..."There’s absurdism in the news right now,"
Not sure I understand your comment? "Absurdism" is a philosophy and I don't think the news of today is trying to find one of its tenets" "...efforts of humanity to find meaning or rational explanation in the universe..."
I believe that the true driver in "news right now" is propaganda by the activist MSM to profit economically through simple things like "ratings". The problem is that propoganda in the long run persuades no one, but does erode confidence in our culture, institutions and people.
"Whomever has the gun, you see, gets to tell everyone else what to do — it’s the American way."
As if Americans invented violence. If the ancient Romans had had cameras we'd have premium videos of some real bloody sword fighting. Swords, daggers, spears, hand to hand combat. Guns would look antiseptic in comparison.
The difference between the left and the right: The left supposedly is more urbane, lofty and educated, but the right knows more about history and reality and the accurate meaning of words.
The American way? It's the State's way. And as R. J. Chatt points out above, before there was the gun, there was the sword, the spear, etc. Probably since the mankind first crawled out of the primeval ooze there has been someone wanted to boss others around and take their stuff. And as soon as man had speech, the boss man with the biggest club probably had primeval proto-"liberals" apologizing for him: "It's for the Common Good!"
"What a profoundly mistaken view of America."
Indeed. The American Way is everybody has a gun.
"I think Vonnegut came by his anti-war positions honestly"
I read his letters and there's not a hint of anti-war sentiment in them, at least during and after WW 2.
He didn't submit Slaughterhouse-five for publication until the Vietnam War made it popular to be Anti-war and Anti- US bombing.
Vonnegut's parents were leftist and athiest.
He wasn't a "Rebel" he conformed to his family traditions.
"The government has more guns than all of us. So I guess they get to just tell us all what to do. Is that the American way?"
And they're BIGGER guns!
They have some bigger guns and they have more than I do but they do not have more than WE do.
People who mix some "whom"s in there randomly are usually smarter, so it makes you look smarter if you throw it in now and then. Color blind people should go with louder colors too, as a rule.
"The government has more guns than all of us. So I guess they get to just tell us all what to do. Is that the American way?"
And they're BIGGER guns! "
Indeed they do Mr. Cook. But unlike in your idealized socialist workers paradise where only the State would have all the guns less a number of workers become unruly decide they don't like living on a collective farm we at least have the option to have guns.
I used to think Vonnegut was great when I read him ironically. Once I realized he was in earnest, it made me wonder about Harrison Bergeron.
In an interview with Paul Simon, he explained that one of the criteria in choice of words for a song was it's sound when singing it, so there's that. Vonnegut came by his anti war honestly;you could say he was on the ground floor of the bombing of Dresden in WWII.
Where was he when the Nazis started it? What was his suggestion to bring a war that had already cost scores of millions of lives to a close?
(eaglebeak)
It should be whoever. Whomever is just wrong--it's in the accusative (the case for a direct object); whoever is correct, is in the nominative, the case for a subject.
"I used to think Vonnegut was great when I read him ironically. Once I realized he was in earnest, it made me wonder about Harrison Bergeron."
What do you mean? Vonnegut writes ironically to express earnest ideas. As do all ironic writers.
"What was his suggestion to bring a war that had already cost scores of millions of lives to a close?"
-- Violence is an inherently terrible choice because it shows things have broken down so much to make you choose it. It isn't inherently immoral, but when you reach the point that violence is a viable and good option, it is because at many, many previous junctures, the right choices weren't made.
Violence has been a great oppressor and a great liberator; it's a funky duality.
Real fucking brilliant.
Because there is only one goddamned fucking gun in America.
Jerkoff.
Whoever (fuck that "m") has the air, so they can breathe, they rule. That is Earthian.
You got you some fuckin' air?
You rule. Don't cunt it up.
Dick Mellon Scaiffe ruled, rules, and always will rule.
The entirety of the federal gov. ain't shit compared to our man Scaiffe.
--I wonder how it would have gone over if they substituted "guns" with "bike locks."
Seems more accurate now.--
Whoever has the Nuclear weapon... made some sense in 1945.
Sorry.
We told the fucking Japs* what to do and even with the nukes it didn't matter what we told them.
*Past tense Japs.
"The government has more guns than all of us. So I guess they get to just tell us all what to do. Is that the American way?"
Total active military is just over 1 million.
Total guns in private hands. 357 million.
I don't think the govt has more guns
ALP said...
Hands off Vonnegut you weenies. That man had more insight in his pinky finger than 500 of you yapping snowflakes.
"11/10/18, 11:53 AM
ALP said...
For example: I recall an essay he wrote about how demanding that humanity love one another was too tall an order. To hard for us. What we really need to preach, he said, was more common decency. That is a level most of us can achieve even with people we strongly disagree with. The piece ended with the phrase (IIRC): "A little less love and a little more common decency."
Wise, wise man."
Good point cunt, if all these dumb-assed, uneducated racist hillbilly's treated me with a little more common decency I wouldn't be forced call them cunts so often.
Thank you and please know your contributions are appreciated for you vision of wisdom's portents.
I wonder why preaching lowering standards appeals to some people so much so that they lose their faculties of reason?
Acknowledgment of mediocrity hurts so intensely many, if not most, when given a chance, meaning here excluded from e.g. criminal convictions that force a recognition of sorts, Quixote*.
I learned from the Russell Crowe movie directed by the Scientology whistleblower (Haggis? Paul Haggis?) what ol' Don was about, so maybe others won't have the strength of spirit to agree with me in this case, which is simply understandable.
*as verb.
on a similar note:
https://babalublog.com/2018/11/10/antifa-attack-on-tucker-carlsons-home-eerily-similar-to-the-communist-castro-dictatorships-acts-of-repudiation-in-cuba/
I read a lot of Vonnegut in younger years (though not Wanda June), and like others, thought the world of him. Having said that, some of his political positions seem at this date to be internally inconsistent. E.g, regarding WWII, he said at one point about the Nazis that "Nothing was too evil to do to an enemy so vile". (Approximate quote, from memory. Perhaps somewhere in the "Palm Sunday" book of essays.) In other places he seemed to mock the simple honest patriotism of ordinary Americans, as though they had been brainwashed and were ripe for exploitation for the next war. Well, PTSD perhaps, I cannot judge, he served, I did not (in this case I have the excuse of having not been born yet). RIP Kurt, you did well.
Regarding the earlier claim:
"The government has more guns than all of us."
See the following:
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/08/robert-farago/trace-civilians-70-times-guns-u-s-police-military-combined/
This of course only counts what they call "small arms". The Federales have the big stuff, in practically unlimited quantities. But the real question is, will professional soldiers fire on their fellow citizens? Some will, most won't, I think.
Colin Powell said if you reach your goals, you didn't aim high enough.
Or something close enough to that, whatev.
So Kurt is racist.
Long ago the point was reached where wisdom that had been fought and died for and won was just another mere forgotten thing.
My crew with C.S. Lewis knew.
Authors are mostly the muck of the Earth, one of few professions to be despised as racist interlopers, in general.
Art isn't. Hasn't been for a long time.
Look, I gave you people art just yesterday or two or three or four ago.
So put that in your pipe.
We are all supposed to be smart enough to praise God's divine eternal beauty.
That is where art arose.
Maybe Dylan just made a grammatical mistake. Or maybe he wrote or sang it than way for the way the words sound. Lyric writing is not poetry, but it is akin to poetry in that language may be misused (or "creatively used") to suit the writer's meaning, aesthetic purpose, or other.
Yes, the song "Touch Me" by the Doors has a refrain that includes
I'm going to love you
Till the stars fall from the sky for you and I
That's a common overcorrection, but in the song, "I" rhymes with "sky," and "me" doesn't really work. I suppose they could have written "Till the stars fall to the sea for you and me."
Chairman Mao... "Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party."
Hence tyrants always try to control arms. And that is why citizens need to control to the guns, least the governments, ran by tyrants, control the citizens.
"In other places he seemed to mock the simple honest patriotism of ordinary Americans, as though they had been brainwashed and were ripe for exploitation for the next war."
Uh...well?
"This of course only counts what they call "small arms". The Federales have the big stuff, in practically unlimited quantities. But the real question is, will professional soldiers fire on their fellow citizens? Some will, most won't, I think."
If the soldiers won't, the cops will.
@Cookie, don’t count on it.
" If the soldiers won't, the cops will."
Not very likely.
How is this for a scenario. There are 300 million firearms in the hands of 100 million Americans. If just 1/2 of one percent decided to take it to the streets there aren't enough armed federal employees to go aginst them. Less our military, that is. Not including those thousands of citizens with class three lisciences. Not including those hundreds of citizens that own," destructive devices" . Like tanks and cannons.
And on top of that. rank and file police offiers will side with the armed citzens. C ops like concealed carry laws.
Tuco and Blondie at the end of the greatest Italian Western ever made, The Good, The Bad and
The Ugly, with Blondie (Clint Eastwood) holding a loaded revolver: "You see, in this world there are two types of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."
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