One of my all-time favourite authors was Kurt Vonnegut Jr. He wrote a series of very fine novels between 1952 and 1968, including The Sirens of Titan, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse 5.
He always insisted that he wasn’t a Science Fiction writer, which was disingenuous, since all his novels are based firmly in SF territory. But I know what he meant, because he used his stories to discuss great human themes. I thoroughly recommend him to anyone who likes a book that’ll engage their brains.
Short and to the point
The other best thing about Kurt Vonnegut’s novels is that they’re short and to the point. And they’re very funny. I’m sad that he seems to have gone out of fashion.
Kurt Vonnegut also wrote short stories about subjects that are as relevant today as they were in the 50s and 60s. Some address overpopulation and how to maintain or reduce the number of humans on the planet.
A story called ‘Harrison Bergeron’ is about a society that attempts to make everyone truly equal. Beautiful people are compelled to wear hideous masks, those who are athletic or graceful have to carry weights, intelligent people are made to wear headphones emitting loud noises that stop them thinking, radio and TV announcers are chosen for their voice defects or made to speak unintelligibly.
Only nut cases want to be President
My favourite Vonnegut story involves a fictional future America where they take democracy very seriously indeed. All adults are required to be registered, and every five years the future President of America is drawn by lot. There are only three types of exception:
1) anyone currently in prison.
2) anyone recognised as not being competent to vote.
3) anyone who actually wants the job.
According to Vonnegut, ‘Only nut cases want to be President’.
Political rule
We’re currently in the midst of a lot of constitutional discussion about the democracy we so love and abuse. Will we have one or two MPs for the Island? The policies of the Council are endlessly discussed or vilified.
The national political system rewards first-past-the-post and disenfranchises anyone who isn’t a supporter of the three main parties. There’s the interesting suggestion that we should have a Mayor for the Island. The Coalition government is making a mess of constituency boundary changes and reform of the House of Lords.
Hardly anyone votes in local elections because they don’t see the point, but they complain bitterly about those who are elected.
I’d like to suggest a new political rule. If you don’t vote you shouldn’t complain.
Dysfunctional democracy is better than none
To give just one example of how dysfunctional our system is, when the Labour Party took office in 1997 they actually polled just over 40% of the votes cast in the country. However, only about 60% of those who could vote actually bothered.
My appalling maths reckons that they became the Government with the support of one out of every four voters. But they had a landslide victory. How can that be right?
On the strength of that the Prime Minister of the day was able to commit our country to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m not interested at this moment whether this was a good decision or not, just whether such a decision should be made on such a slender basis. Love the Coalition or not, at least the Tories and LibDems collectively can boast a larger percentage of votes.
Change is going to come
We’re going to argue about this issue for years, and change is going to come, but nobody knows what that change will look like. In the meantime I would like to make a proposal.
Let’s follow Kurt Vonnegut’s idea. Like we already do for Jury Duty, let’s all get registered and draw out names of citizens every few years to do the governing, locally and nationally.
They couldn’t do a worse job. Or could they?
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
Image: Cats cradle: Jeff McNeill under CC BY 2.0
Image: Nuts: Genista under CC BY 2.0
Image: Ballot boxes: Keith Bacongo under CC BY 2.0
