In God We Trust (20th of March 2011)

Michael Moore mentioned Kurt Vonnegut in the dedication of his movie "Sicko" from year 2007. At the end of the movie a sentence appears "Thank You Kurt Vonnegut for Everything". While I was reading "Jailbird", what came to my mind was not "Sicko" but another Moore's movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story" from year 2009, which I bought a couple of months ago in one of the biggest supermarkets in Croatia (!). The movie is not bad, I can recommend it, but Jailbird is faaaaaaaar better. It is Kurt Vonnegut, after all...

But, both works have something in common - they deal with inhuman face of American capitalism. That was obviously a permanent obsession of Vonnegut, it is all over "Galapagos" and it also dominates Vonnegut's memoirs, "A Man Without a Country". In "Jailbird" Vonnegut managed to persuasively transmit his obsession to the reader. It is not that I need special persuasion in order to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with capitalism, but I already got tired listening to mute and foggy, fluid and unreasonable attacks on capitalism from people that do not have painful experiences with it. Luckily for them. Vonnegut shows that there are those with lot less luck and that glorious American history is full of good people that were spent, executed, made sick, sentenced and humiliated by capitalism. In God We Trust.

That conflicting relation between American understanding of capitalism and relation to thy neighbor, but also to God can be seen also in the fact that Americans pledge to God on their currency. Vonnegut depicts this relation particularly emotionally. And although he declared himself as atheist or agnostic many times, in "Jailbird" he takes the position of a believer, of the one who cares for his neighbor and who sees salvation from shiny American capitalism in Christianity, at least only ideologically. Vonnegut's main character naively believes, and it is more likely that he deliberately fools himself, that the American capitalists can perhaps be brought to God, since they pledge to God, even if it is only on their currency. That is what Walter F. Starbuck, born Stankiewitz tried to do a couple of times. Unsuccessfully, of course.

Harvard university is the leitmotif ot the novel. There, at least according to Vonnegut, the American capitalists send their children to learn to lead America in a happy American capitalistic spirit as their forefathers did. The hero of the novel also passed the required training, but mostly coincidentally, and it didn't help him much. After all, he was and he remained only a son of a chauffeur of a respectable capitalist. The problem with Harvard is that the people that get out of it and that are considered to be the most qualified to reach just verdicts that serve the community, do not live to these expectations. Perhaps the darkest part of the novel is the one where Vonnegut describes how three respectable and wise Harvard men, without a trace of hesitation, sentence to death Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarchists and syndicate workers for the alleged robbery and murder. And although it is clear from elementary physical insights (a person can not be in two places at the same time) that Sacco and Vanzetti couldn't do it, wise Harvard men sentence them to death, because it will surely benefit America. In the end, they are rebellious syndicalist - anarchist worker trash. And here is how Vonnegut defines anarchists:

It is clear to Vonnegut that capitalism is a horrible system, causing huge injustice, but it is also clear to him that nobody really knows how that system actually functions, not even the ones who allegedly "hold all the cards". The whole system is in fact not a system at all but rather a legalized greed of those who already have much more than the rest. There is no special cleverness or reason to it. Here is what Vonnegut says about that:

From all Vonnegut's works that I read thus far, "Jailbird" is the most complete, and I also think the best one (I must exclude Bluebeard here). It is not only due to exposing the true nature of capitalism, it is also because Vonnegut manages to include many human notes, alienation, sadness and happiness of those that are ruthlessly kicked around by the system.

A definite must-read !

I made a portrait of Rabo Karabekian (the image that opened the post) two days before he left the jail. There he ended up completely accidentally and totally unjustly, neither guilty nor owing, just like Walter F. Starbuck ended there.

Last updated on 20th of March 2011