Free Will And If You Have Any You Probably Won't Choose to Read Such a Long Post Or Maybe The Moment Is Just Structured This Way

This is my second time reading Slaughterhouse-Five and what has captivated me the most both times is Vonnegut's insights on social class, pointing out the injustices of the maldistribution of wealth in America. The overarching theme of no one really having free will undermines the argument that people who are rich deserve to rich, because they haven't really *earned* anything: everything gained is a multitude of structured moments. This also implies that people who are low income do not deserve to be poor. They are merely victims of fate.

An interesting passage where we see a discussion of America's maldistribution of wealth is an excerpt from the works of Howard W. Campbell Jr. Side note: Howard W. Campbell Jr. is trans-fictional because he was the protagonist of one of Vonnegut's other books, Mother Night.

America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, "It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be." It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?" There will also be an American flag no larger than a child's hand-- glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. (Vonnegut 164)

Campbell Jr. then goes on to say "This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class, since, say, Napoleonic times." This is one of my favorite parts of Slaughterhouse-Five because of how spot-on this American-turned-Nazi's insights are on America's perceptions of the poor. First of all, Vonnegut's portrayal of an enemy being very logical supports his aims to make an anti-war book because a traditional story about war would make the enemy into an evil cartoonish character that sees no reason whatsoever. But what I really like about it is how well it fits in with Vonnegut's theme of people not really having free will. I take his meaning more as an acknowledgment of how the individual cannot be blamed or given credit for every moment of their life, and that we take for granted all the things that happen outside of our power. He even specifically addresses the problem with Americans believing in free will too fully, when Campbell Jr. writes, "Their (Americans') most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who have no money blame and blame themselves." He's right: money is very hard to come by, especially if you're born into dire poverty or your mentally disabled or a number of other things that are left entirely up to chance.

This is where the true insight lies in Vonnegut's discussion of free will. Even things that we do that clearly seem to be acts of free will can be traced back to things out of our control. For example, say you're proud that were accepted to Harvard and this clearly seems the result of Your Hard Work and Dedication, but would you have been accepted to Harvard if your parents hadn't been born to wealthy parents who gave you the best education, cultural capital, and paid for your mission trip to Senegal which inspired you to write that heart-melting college essay? And being born to those parents has nothing to do with free will. And say instead that your parents were dirt poor but you were just ridiculously smart, and sought out the works of Foucault and Nussbaum in your free time to feed your insatiable intellect. But you could just have easily not been born a genius, so where's the free will in that?

Of course there's a lot about the world that is obviously the result of free will. But I don't think that's Vonnegut's point. In juxtaposition with Campbell Jr.'s monograph, he presents the case (or maybe just leaves it up for grabs) that Americans give too much credit to free will and the idea that everything we do is a result of free will. Because really so much of our lives is based on the bodies and minds we're born with. It may seem like a depressing thought, but it actually could offer insight to a lot of Americans with so little empathy for the poor. I was just watching an interview with 'Fox Business' Commentator, Todd Wilemon, and he responded to comments about Tennessee's "third world healthcare" by saying, "IF YOU'RE POOR, STOP BEING POOR." I think this perfectly illustrates how Americans act like everyone has the free will to do anything. And believing this doesn't make it true. In fact it takes away a lot of free will from people who might have the free will to make more decisions for themselves if offered a little help instead of immediately being expected to miraculously exert their "free will" and as Wilemon proposed, "stop being poor." Maybe the American vision of free will is just too individualistic and doesn't sufficiently acknowledge the power of an entire system exerting its free will to make important changes. Now I've gone off on a tangent, and maybe I've strayed too far from Vonnegut, but at least he was my muse.