The Sirens of Titan
Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan begins by tearing apart the structures of American (and Western) culture and then replaces the values of hedonism, pride, and religiosity with those of kindness and love.
The primary method he uses to tear down the old value systems is a cynical, satiric black humor. For instance, on Titan, Salo, a Tralfamadorian, has built statues modelled on the human behavior he has seen. Here is one: There, at first glance, was a young man without vanity, without lust--and one accepted at its face value the title Salo had engraved on the statue, Discovery of Atomic Power. And then one perceived that the young truth-seeker had a shocking erection. (288-89)
And another: a Neanderthal man, his mate, and their baby. It was a deeply moving piece. The squat, shaggy, hopeful creatures were so ugly they were beautiful. . . . The title he gave to the Neanderthal family derived from the fact that the baby was being shown a human foot roasting on a crude spit. The title was This Little Piggy. (289)
In these statues, human behavior and values are ruthlessly satirized.
Religion is just as thoroughly derided. After a failed Martian attack on Earth, Winston Niles Rumfoord, who, by virtue of being able to see the future, controls much of what happens in the book, creates a new religion, "The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent" (180). This religion takes as its central tenet that God does not care and preaches that "puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God" (180). An excerpt from a sermon is provided as an example of the way the religion works: O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain! (215)
With this, Vonnegut masterfully uses religion's own rhetoric and stylistic flourishes against it, showing how ridiculous it all is, while simultaneously presenting an approach to the world that is fundamentally based on the rationalist belief that freedom from the "big eye in the sky" and its demands is as true a freedom as there can be.
Most of the book is in this satiric mode and is most certainly not a happy, touchy-feely treatise on how to love one another, but, in the end, the only value that Vonnegut espouses (apparently) uncritically is that of love, as illustrated by Boaz's relationship with the harmoniums of Mercury and by Constant and Beatrice's eventual falling in love. Boaz, given the choice to leave Mercury with Constant, opts instead to stay with the harmoniums because he can make them happy. He tells Constant,I ain't never been nothing good to people, and people never been nothing good to me. So what I want to be free in crowds of people for? . . . I found me a place where I can do good without doing any harm, and I can see I'm doing good, and them I'm doing good for know I'm doing it, and they love me, Unk, as best they can. I found me a home. And when I die down here some day, . . . I'm going to be able to say to myself, "Boaz--you made millions of lives worth living. Ain't nobody ever spread more joy. You ain't got an enemy in the Universe." (213-4)
There's perhaps an element of madness in his decision to live out the rest of his life alone in a cave in Mercury, but his logic can't be faulted: he is happy and he is making others happy. What else is there? Vonnegut reinforces this idea later in the book as well, when Constant tells Salo that "a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved" (313).
The primary method he uses to tear down the old value systems is a cynical, satiric black humor. For instance, on Titan, Salo, a Tralfamadorian, has built statues modelled on the human behavior he has seen. Here is one: There, at first glance, was a young man without vanity, without lust--and one accepted at its face value the title Salo had engraved on the statue, Discovery of Atomic Power. And then one perceived that the young truth-seeker had a shocking erection. (288-89)
And another: a Neanderthal man, his mate, and their baby. It was a deeply moving piece. The squat, shaggy, hopeful creatures were so ugly they were beautiful. . . . The title he gave to the Neanderthal family derived from the fact that the baby was being shown a human foot roasting on a crude spit. The title was This Little Piggy. (289)
In these statues, human behavior and values are ruthlessly satirized.
Religion is just as thoroughly derided. After a failed Martian attack on Earth, Winston Niles Rumfoord, who, by virtue of being able to see the future, controls much of what happens in the book, creates a new religion, "The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent" (180). This religion takes as its central tenet that God does not care and preaches that "puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God" (180). An excerpt from a sermon is provided as an example of the way the religion works: O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain! (215)
With this, Vonnegut masterfully uses religion's own rhetoric and stylistic flourishes against it, showing how ridiculous it all is, while simultaneously presenting an approach to the world that is fundamentally based on the rationalist belief that freedom from the "big eye in the sky" and its demands is as true a freedom as there can be.
Most of the book is in this satiric mode and is most certainly not a happy, touchy-feely treatise on how to love one another, but, in the end, the only value that Vonnegut espouses (apparently) uncritically is that of love, as illustrated by Boaz's relationship with the harmoniums of Mercury and by Constant and Beatrice's eventual falling in love. Boaz, given the choice to leave Mercury with Constant, opts instead to stay with the harmoniums because he can make them happy. He tells Constant,I ain't never been nothing good to people, and people never been nothing good to me. So what I want to be free in crowds of people for? . . . I found me a place where I can do good without doing any harm, and I can see I'm doing good, and them I'm doing good for know I'm doing it, and they love me, Unk, as best they can. I found me a home. And when I die down here some day, . . . I'm going to be able to say to myself, "Boaz--you made millions of lives worth living. Ain't nobody ever spread more joy. You ain't got an enemy in the Universe." (213-4)
There's perhaps an element of madness in his decision to live out the rest of his life alone in a cave in Mercury, but his logic can't be faulted: he is happy and he is making others happy. What else is there? Vonnegut reinforces this idea later in the book as well, when Constant tells Salo that "a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved" (313).