Selfish or Altruistic?

When reading Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene", I have discovered that I read in a different tone than when I read a novel. It is different to read science because one tends to have to pay much more attention to everything you go through, you cant afford to doze of because you than all that you have read because one must understand things in a chain to be able to get them straight. In novels and other books, you can sometimes doze off a few paragraphs and then get once more involved and you still understand everything that is going on. In "Slaughter House Five", for example it isn't as bad to doze off. plus the experiences told in the novel usually make it easier for you to doze of because it leads you to think about your own experiences or you get a point of view or perspective in a certain topic so you doze off. In this book it is even less worse since it doesn't have a straight time line so you can go back and forth with the thoughts and you wont really get lost. "The Selfish Gene" has also gotten me involved in a topic that i actually enjoy and would like to learn about.
In this book the author says he will discuss why humans are selfish and how this characteristic has gone from generation to generation. He says its not just a human trait but many animals have it and it is actually indispensable for evolution and survival. However he also talks about altruism and how it may help for survival but that there will never be a completely altruistic group since selfishness always develops and takes over. It also talks about individual selection and how one may survive and then transmit to others that characteristic. He talks about selfishness being necessary for survival and a natural thing in creatures.
One thing that actually impressed me was the fact that he wasn't going to talk about nature vs nurture since he didn't really consider it that important. I , on the contrary, believe that that is very important because society really can transform you in some ways but that there are other things that you inevitably inherited and there is nothing you can do about it. Last year, in PDR, we actually did a debate on this subject and we concluded that both are very important on the development of a person. So it actually surprised me when the author specified that this would be one of the topics which he would not discuss.

Looking At Things from One Point Or The Other

In Slaughter House Five, Billy pilgrim meets the Tralfamadorians and learns from them a new way to interpret and view life. He gets to understand that there are things in life that he cant change and that he doesnt have any any power over. He even gets to believe he doesnt have power over anything, not even his own decisions. That everything is happening, has already happened and will happen at the same time. He even learns a prayer in which he asks god to "grant him the power to accept the things he cannot change." So its just as Epictetus sugests it, one has to choose the way in which one sees and interprets life. "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well. "So, he just suggests to "accept what you cannot change" and to actually enjoy it and see it in a positive way, and the way to do it is by actually convincing oneself that is what you want.
Both works talk about life perspective. The way we look at things, people and life. They try to tell us how to interpret each one and how to handle them in a way that will make us happy or atleast that we dont suffer about them. Vonnegut found a way to get council from all the pain he had from war, he accepted a belief of no free will and of destiny. He got himself atached to people that died and suffered for it but then found a way to ease the pain. Epictetus, instead, suggests a way in which one can avoid the suffering from the begining but one would probably avoid the bond and friendship as well, so you never gain it but then you cant loose it. Its just self persevernce and keeping a sane mind.

Anchors Away!!

In Epictetus they suggest a very detached life. I talks about detachment from many things, personally I don't consider myself capable of doing so. "That is how it is in life too: if you are given a wife and a child instead of a vegetable and a small shellfish, that will not hinder you; but if the captain calls, let all those things go and run to the boat without turning back." This really makes me think how one can simply let go of these things. I guess that it matters how your priorities are set up in life, and in my case, it would be very hard because family is really high up on my list. I also wonder, in the analogy, what would the captain be in real life? It compares kids and wife with the vegetable and selfish but then what is that big power that calls and you have to answer? It really confuses me because it is kind of contradicting. It says not to depend on anything but then it says that one must answer the "captains call". I would really like to know who the captain is. It talks about the boat "being anchored" and about you running to avoid being "left behind." What do all these mean? The boat is what: Life? And then what, kids and family are just a detour? It talks about getting "fresh water", so what is that, like a rest? a rest from what? something new to try? Wouldn't it be unfair with your wife and kids? One day you just decide you want your old life back and leave them? except that I guess that if everyone followed Epictetus´s Handbook, then the kids and wife would also consider him just a "stop" and wouldn't really mind him leaving. I guess it would be a matter of perspective and the way in which people live so if we all follow Epictetus's way, then we all think of others as things that we are fond to but that nature can take away at any point. So I guess, we could all live his way, its a matter of getting used to it.

How Much Dethatchment is Good Dethatchment?

The first five of the aphorisms of Epictetus Handbook lead you to question the way in which you interpret life. It talks about a person suffering or feeling disappointed or averted because they do not live in the "correct" way. It tells people that to accept life as it is, and to avoid all the suffering and confusions in between if you don’t, one must separate things in life in what is up to us and what isn’t. This way we can’t suffer upon the things that weren’t under our control but we instead accept them as natural because it was supposed to happen. Through this, we avoid disappointments and instead we change our way of thinking. We get detached from things we can’t actually own, such as our family and therefore don’t feel sad when they die or live because they were just a few more human beings that can be replaced. So it’s all about our perspective and how we view things and how we think. "What upsets people are not things themselves but their judgment about the things." So it all depends on the way we react to each occasion and how we deal with ideas and opinions. The text also got my attention when it says that an uneducated person blames others, a partly educated person blames himself and that a well educated person doesn’t accuse anybody, it just understand that there are things that happen in a certain way and one can’t control and that there are other decisions that one takes fully conscious of what one can obtain and what one cannot.

I do believe that there are things that one can’t change in life and should accept but I also think that detaching oneself from all these will not get you a satisfactory life. I do think that one should be careful in the choices one makes avoid getting hurt but I think that one has to accept the things that will hurt you as they are and accept that they hurt you. I believe that to experience happiness and joy one must also suffer because you won’t otherwise enjoy it because you’ve got nothing to compare your happiness to. So when it says you won’t get harmed than it might be right, but you won’t get good feelings at a high rate either. So yes, one should accept some things as they are, yes one should have a good perspective in life and avoid getting confused because you are experiencing a bad outlook, but NO, one should not avoid getting completely dethatched from all that you can’t own because even though one cant own them physically, you do own them sentimentally and they are an important part of your life and a support that always keeps you going, even at the worse moments.

Poo-tee-weet?

This final chapter is kind of like the first. Vonnegut begins and ends his book by communication with the reader directly. Once more he is telling what he feels and what he thinks instead of narrating sections of Billy's life. I really liked this closure since it once more lets us knows Vonnegut's direct thoughts. He is sharing with us what he wants us to know and he is closing the book he spent so much time and effort on. He now gives his perspective about death and even continues his "So it goes." to show that he still tries to give death as little importance as possible and that it means much to him but that it is also just something natural that had to happen.
He continues to talk about Dresden and about the human condition it developed in him. "I suppose they will all want dignity" (212) He keeps on emphasizing such points that he tried to get across throughout the whole book.
We also get to see that Billy and Vonnegut are not the same person since he says "Now Billy and the rest were being marched into the ruins by the guards. I was there. O´Hare was there." Or we can interpret them as being the same person. One can be "Dante" and the other can be the "pilgrim Dante. " Another thing that caught my attention was how Edgar Derby dies and how stupid and ridiculous the whole situation is. Even though they had already announced his death several times throughout the book, I was kind of expecting some more details but there were none. So really why is his death so important? because or if irony or is there a deeper message that I haven't yet deciphered.
"Poo-tee-weet?"-That's the last word of this book. So, what does it mean? I think this last word can have many interpretations. As I had discussed with several of my classmates, this phrase can be a sign of hope because even after all the horrible things that have happened there is still a bird that sings, It can also be seen as a mockery to our behavior, it being so horrible and terrifying that even the birds question what it is we are doing. It can also be seen as an end to all the bad things Billy has lived, as if the bird was saying, "Its OK, you're back now, you can get back to your normal life and go on with it. " Or it can be an Irony as well: as if it was saying that even though all these terrible things happened to them at Dresden, the rest of the life was just going on with their lives and even birds were just living their own circumstance and had forgotten about them and now they are welcoming them back to the real world.
By the end of this book I had answered many questions but I also have many new ones. This "unstuck in time" thing is something that really got my attention and I was glad to have read this book not only because it gave me some knowledge on common history but also because I got to experiment with a new kind of structure. I was used to a linear story with maybe a few flashbacks and foreshadows here and there but i had never read such a mixed up book. I guess the closest Ive got to it is "Crónica de una muerte anuncida" by Gabriel García Márques which also jumps around in time and space. Still this was a novel that also made me question my current life and my actions and human nature in general. I liked about this book that every interpretable part had several interpretations and each reader gets to find their own and look at the circumstances in their own way. So, what was this book to each and every one of you?

Are we Predestined?

Are humans good or evil? Do we have free will or are we predestined? Is there an excuse or justification for our actions? What and why do we act upon?
These questions are very common. I guess we could even call the cliches, still the way in which we react to them is unique and personal for each individual. Even Vonnegut has these doubts and relates his book to these questions. He is constantly highlighting human cruelty and how we are always making so many wrongdoings. he even highlights our perversion at one point. ´"That's not what you want, for Christs sake." He told Billy."What you wants in the back."´ Here the bookstore salesman is referring to the back part of the store where all the porn is. He is amazed and actually laughs at Billy when he realizes hes not interested in porn but all he wants to do is buy a Kilgore Trout book, their display "garbage".
Vonnegut also indirectly relates his book to human dignity. He kind of tells people that the only way to justify such horrible human behaviors is to think that things happen the way they do because it is meant to be that way. By looking at things this way, the Tralfamadorian way, he gets to calm some of his uncertainties and some of the things that probably haunted him after war. He stops taking all those actions personally and stops questioning them and just accepts them.
Vonnegut reaches an interior peace, or at least gets close to it because he takes away human guilt and human will. It is no longer our decision what we do but we just end up doing what we are meant to do. This theory takes away our blame because it means that it wasn't us who CHOSE to do all those bad things, we just had to do it so that things would work out. We did not have the bad intentions and we did not wish anybody evil. This is also taking away the reason for why we decided to act in one way or another because we just did it so that the future could complete itself. However, the fact that Billy/ Vonnegut found a way to clam himself down doesn't mean I found a possible satisfactory answer, I still wonder about these questions as they pop into my mind every once in a while.

SO IT GOES...

Throughout the book there is a phrase that constantly comes up: "So it goes." At first I didn't really understood why Vonnegut wrote it. Maybe he just doesn't care about others and every death is just one more death. After having Mr. Gunther go and talk to us during class, I understood the real reason for this phrase. Its actually almost completely backwards to what i had thought. It all connects to the fourth dimension and to the tralfamadorians.
Through the class discussion I got to understand a new concept: the fourth dimension. I may not be like a genius at it or anything but now I have a basic guideline on how it works. Vonnegut included the tralfamadorians in his story to show the reader that there is another way of seeing life. That one is able to perceive it from another point of view, from one in which you don't only see the stars as "lines" instead of "dots" but you also see the complete course of a lifetime. The concept of time doesn't exist in its normal way but is no longer a constraint in life. To the tralfamadorians, life doesn't consist of a future, a present and a past, it consists of something called a time worm, where you see everything at the same time. This way, you get to choose what part of life to see and what moment to "live."
The way in which you live your life must be a very important topic to Vonnegut. Taking into consideration that he was one of the few that survived Dresden, he must have been left with a huge sociological disorder. Understanding this fourth dimension must have kept him a bit calmer because he can, at the same time, acknowledge any moment in any persons life. Therefore, he just chooses to see a certain situation and goes from one to the other, he is unstuck in time. This way of seeing life must be comforting to Billy and therefore to Vonnegut, (I believe Billy is an indirect representation of Vonnegut and what he felt and lived and experienced) because it permits him to see the great moments of all of his friends´ lives. That way when he says "so it goes" it might refer to the end of a persons life line but it doesn't really matter because he can choose to see any point on that line and remember all the loved ones he lost. This way he doesn't have to suffer his past or anything like that, he just time travels in a way that he just looks at life in a way that lets him fight all the pain he´s got inside. So its not that he doesn't care about somebodies death, its just that its really not such a big deal because the death is just one of the many points that make a line and he can travel to any of the other points and choose to enjoy it instead of torturing himself with the loss of his friends.