Player Piano VIII

“Used to be there was a lot of damn fool things a dumb bastard could do to be great, but the machines fixed that. You know, used to be you could go to sea on a big clipper ship or a fishing ship and be a big hero in a storm. Or maybe you could be a pioneer and go out west and lead the people and make trails and chase away Indians and all that. Or you could be a cowboy, or all kinds of dangerous things.....Now the machines take all the dangerous jobs, and the dumb bastards just get tucked away in big bunches of prefabs that look like the end of a game of Monopoly, or in barracks...” (p. 207)

Comments:

This passage caught my attention in the book, because there are ways in which the world seems more "tame" or less "adventurous" than it used to. Part of that is simply the march of time. We explored the west and tamed the frontier by settling it. Eventually we ran out of land. There are a couple really good books about the psychological impact of wilderness and frontiers if you're more interested in that subject: Nash's "Wilderness and the American Mind" and Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History". But Vonnegut's point here seems to be that technology and "progress" removed opportunities for people to feel "on the edge" or as though they were interacting with something larger than themselves that had purpose and meaning; something they were truly a part of, not just present within; something, dare I say the word, *dangerous*.

It has always seemed to me that a little danger is a healthy thing. I used to go backpacking in Colorado in the summers, and while we took precautions and thought about safety, no such endeavor is ever without an element of danger. But the danger was part of what made the trip worth doing! It was exciting to be in the back country for days. And I was there once when something went terribly wrong, and a member of our party almost died. That would have been tragic, and fortunately two members of our party hiked out and got search and rescue to fly a helicopter in at first light and med-evac the woman out to save her; she's fine. But the reality is, we were in a dangerous place, and if it hadn't been for that element of danger, then we might as well have gone for a walk in our neighborhood park.

I think our culture has tried to strip away risk and danger, and I don't think that it has served us well as a country. I think our entire country and culture ethos was founded on risk taking and embracing an element of danger: pilgrims and settlers who sailed across the Atlantic under adverse conditions to settle in an unknown land; pioneers who went West into an untamed wilderness full of predators and possibilities; revolutionaries who stood their ground and fought a war to be free, because they valued their freedom so highly that they were willing to give their lives for it. Our own Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

So, my message for the day...do something dangerous! Live a little!