Player Piano X

"And my husband says somebody's just got to be maladjusted, that somebody's got to be uncomfortable enough to wonder where people are, where they're going, and why they're going there. That was the trouble with his book. It raised those questions and was rejected." (245)

Comments:

At this point in the book, there's a woman who is talking about her husband, who is an author. He had his manuscript rejected by the national publishing company (the only publishing company in this fictional world), and it's basically because his book challenged the status quo and for challenging people to think critically about their culture. There's this ancient idea of the societal "gadfly" as Socrates called himself: this individual who questions and challenges the group currently in power and the cultural status quo. That's exactly what the government in "Player Piano" doesn't want to happen. They don't want people to question progress, technology, mechanization, or any of the developments their organization has brought about. They just want people to mindlessly do their work.

I think this is a perennial problem with groups in power: they don't want anything to change that might cause them to lose their power. Thus, they don't want people to consider new possibilities or think about "where they're going, and why they're going there", as Vonnegut wrote.

I think this kind of loyal dissent is at the heart of what makes democracy work. Without individuals who stand outside the power base and question and prod and challenge, we can never grow. As Vonnegut wrote in an early quote, only those on the edge see the undreamed of possibilities.