While reading my article about my panel presentation, I found the concept interesting. Vonnegut is against Tralfamadorianism, states the author. This seemed almost counterintuitive to me, as Tralfamadorianism is portrayed as a saving grace to the poor traumatized little Billy. How could one be against the theology that helped a traumatized war veteran make piece of the world around him? It makes a lot more sense when we zoom out from the perspective of just Billy Pilgrim.
Just looking at it objectively, the tralfamadorian perspective is pretty bleak. Individual choice is a concept, everything is chance and has been sit in stone. It's a very depressing outlook on life, considering one thing many humans cherish is freedom/free-agency. However, by seeing life as preordained, it gives one easy explanations for why traumatic events happen. For example, Dresden was going to happen no matter what, allows one to easily distance themselves from these events.
Clearly, the one thing Billy wants is distance, all throughout the book Billy is zoned out, acting out a separate part of his life, or on a planet hella light years away (Sometimes all 3). While tralfamadorianism allows one to distance themselves from the happenings around them, this tends to breed more apathy than anything else. I for one can't bring myself to agree with tralfamadorianism, but I haven't been a prisoner of war or lived through a firebombing or plane crash, so I can't speak for Billy.
i think the concept is interesting though hard for us to wrap our heads around. We like to think we have free will when good things happen, but less so when bad things happen and ultimately life is so confusing to think about, tralfamadorianism is mind boggling at best.
ReplyDeleteIt's a tough question. One one hand I see how applying this mindset to life could be dangerous if it leads to apathy. yet maybe there is a merit too it. and maybe you can reconcile not having free will with morals and still valuing life
ReplyDeleteI mean yeah, it’s a pretty bleak outlook on life, and certainly not one that I’d wish to partake in, but it certainly seemed to help Billy. I’m not saying that it couldn’t be a dangerous way to view things, but if it works it works. Like, taking Advil or NyQuil isn’t actually that great for you, and if you do it a lot it can be very dangerous, but in specific cases it can make life a lot easier and help people recover much faster than they would have otherwise. It’s kind of like that, Tralfamadorianism is the Advil of PTSD.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that makes this a tough question to parse is the way that "Vonnegut" the author/narrator uses "so it goes" throughout his own narrative to punctuate every mention of death, big or small, a "habit" he claims to have picked up from Billy Pilgrim (whatever it means to pick up a habit from a fictional character in your own novel!). This makes it seem like the author is shrugging off each mention of death throughout his narrative, which can feel disturbingly callous. But we also know that "Vonnegut" in chapter 1 is very much anti-war, having prohibited his sons from taking part in "massacres." He depicts himself as deeply troubled and traumatized by what he witnessed in Dresden, and it doesn't *seem* like he's really taking a "so it goes" approach.
ReplyDeleteIt has been suggested that we read Vonnegut's "so it goes" as a kind of provocation, as if "daring" the reader to assume such a posture. Every time we read it, it's *supposed* to feel "wrong" to us, to remind us how un-Tralfamadorian we really are.
It's interesting to discuss our personal opinions on the idea of tralfamadorianism, because most of our discussion on this topic were focused on whether it's real or not, and not necessarily about what we personally thought of it. It's a difficult subject to have an opinion about, because as you said, we have never experienced being in Billy's shoes. I personally think that tralfamadorianism is extreme and it leaves Billy with no room for hope, emotion, etc., but I've never experienced as traumatic an even as the bombing of Dresden so I wouldn't know whether tralfamadorianism would actually be a helpful way of thinking.
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