Vonnegut: Your guess is as good as mine

[billr]

BY KURT VONNEGUT

Most of you, if not all of you, like me, feel inadequately educated. That is an ordinary feeling for a member of our species. One of the most brilliant human beings of all times, George Bernard Shaw said on his 75th birthday or so that at last he knew enough to become a mediocre office boy. He died in 1950, by the way, when I was 28. He is the one who said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” I turned 83 a couple weeks ago, and I must say I agree.

Shaw, if he were alive today, would envy us the solid information that we have or can get about the nature of the universe, about time and space and matter, about our own bodies and brains, about the resources and vulnerabilities of our planet, about how all sorts of human beings actually talk and feel and live.

This is the information revolution. We have taken it very badly so far. Information seems to be getting in the way all the time. Human beings have had to guess about almost everything for the past million years or so. Our most enthralling and sometimes terrifying guessers are the leading characters in our history books. I will name two of them: Aristotle and Hitler. One good guesser and one bad one.



(snip)

Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting.

They think that the whole country is sick of it, and they want standards, and it isn’t the gold standard. They want to put us back on the snake-oil standard.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2421/

[NorCalDem]

1. Recommended!

[salukidem]

2. does anyone know if he still gives lectures?

[jhain]

3. been sending this to people all day

Thanks for putting it here- it needs to be seen.

[ananda]

4. So, does that mean..

.. you -can- teach an old dog new tricks?

Hope so. I ain't done learnin by a long shot.

[understandinglife]

5. "They want to put us back on the snake-oil standard." In_deed.

Recommended -- and welcome to DU.


Peace.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Ah, Kurt! You are always so apt! I think you may have something there.

We've just gotten too smart. So we have to get dumb.

[petgoat]

7. Vonnegut is Still the Wisest Wise-Ass Going

He's endorsed the World Can't Wait statement.

Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.

Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.

Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.

Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

Your government suppresses the science that doesn't fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.

Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.

Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

<snip>

History is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.

The World Can't Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!

http://www.worldcantwait.net/



They just ran a full-page ad in the NY Times today.

A .pdf can be downloaded here:

http://worldcantwait.net/flier/nyt.pdf

[CrispyQ]

10. Thank you for this link.

I had not heard of this site before. I especially like this:

There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into "leaders" who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.

I printed & downloaded the flier. Very nice. Tempting to put inside my holiday cards. It will definitley be an insert in all those pre-paid credit application envelopes, though!

[druidity33]

11. brilliant! BRILLIANT IDEA!

why have i not heard of this? Did you think of this (to the credit card co. thing)? i too will download flier... heh, love it, makes me giggle. Thanks for the good idea....
try my site for another giggle...
www.littleflagart.com
a couple of new series' in the works...

[orpupilofnature57]

8. MSM has helped blur what is useful and what is meant to steer us

[bloom]

9. Thanks for posting.

:)