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A Fading Old Left Vision: Gospel-Inspired Socialism in Vonneguf S Rosewater

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A Fading Old Left Vision: Gospel-Inspired Socialism in Vonneguf S Rosewater A Fading Old Left Vision: Gospel-Inspired Socialism in Vonneguf s Rosewater BRIAN McCAMMACK URT VONNEGUT was relegated to the fringes of the K literary establishment during his last decade, having lived to see himself marginalized by the culture that popu- larized him. But why? Vonnegut's contemporary voice, most notably in his 2005 collection A Man Without a Country, was not radically different from many Liberals who denounce the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. Yet one glaring dif- ference, I would argue, set Vonnegut apart from the mass of these dissenters. Vonnegut's politics continued to carry a dis- tinctly Old Left sociahst flavor in an era when even the 1960s New Left appears an idealistic novelty, making Vonnegut a true cultural relic—an endangered species of sorts—in a so- ciety that has all but forgotten about the ideals he champi- oned. With his true Old Left colors showing, Vonnegut pro- claims in A Man Without a Country that " 'Socialism' is no more an evil word than 'Christianity'" (11), an assertion from which present-day liberals would probably shy away. With this in mind, it is informative to glance back at Von- negut's 1965 novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, largely ignored by critics, as an Old Left novel which explores the possibilities of private-sphere socialism in depth, written in the midst of the New Left emergence, and now rendered nearly irrelevant (though unjustly so) by twenty-first century politics. Rosewater represents Vonnegut's most direct en- gagement with the class-conscious politics of the Old Left, in which he experiments with "what happens when you give poor people money" (Clancy, 55), and decides that it is not money the poor need, but love. Vonnegut concludes in (161) 162 THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY Rosewater—and continued to maintain until his death in April of 2007—that by observing socialist principles and, more specifically, acting upon the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and of socialist reformers like Eugene Debs and Powers Hapgood, American society has its best chance at what one could term a secular salvation. The key to this salvation is an emphasis on the individual, private sphere as- pects of social humanitarianism rather than mass, public sphere manifestations. In order to prove that Vonnegut uses God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater as a vehicle for voicing his belief in the feasibility of solving America's social inequalities, at least in part, through socialist practices. The basis of Vonnegut's socialism is a concern for the poor and criticism of those who participate in the system of their exploitation. This type of socialism focuses on the humanity and basic equality of each and every person, and therefore is more closely related to Marxist Humanism (a school of thought that emphasizes human agency) than any strictly tra- ditional or institutional interpretation of Marxist or socialist doctrine. Although the unequal distribution of wealth is prominent in Vonnegut's conception of socialism, the main concern is that every human being is viewed as being equal. Although important and obviously present, the Old Left po- litical aspects of this socialism take a backseat to a more per- sonal philosophy rooted in New Testament teachings. The net effect here is that this brand of socialism places the ut- most emphasis on the private sphere and individual human equality and kindness rather than on the public sphere's po- litical and institutional iterations of socialism. Vonnegut's conception of this type of socialism derives largely from early Christian teachings of loving one's fellow man found in the New Testament (especially from the Sermon on the Mount, which is the generally accepted phrase to identify Matthew 5:3-7:27 in the Bible; it is widely taken to be "the quintes- sence of the teaching of Jesus" [Betz, 3]) and from the aware- ness of Indiana socialists Powers Hapgood and Eugene V. Debs he had from an early age. Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) GOSPEL SOCIALISM 163 was a Terre Haute, Indiana, native and "was the most well known and highly regarded leader of the American Socialist party" (Radosh, 1) and Powers Hapgood (1900-1949) was an Indianapolis, Indiana, native who was involved in American labor strikes and "protests about the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti" {Jailbird, x)—both obviously prominent political figures. Vonnegut himself was an IndianapoUs, Indiana, na- tive, and often wrote (albeit often with disdain) about his youth in the Midwest. The evidence for Vonnegut's interest in two of his home state's most prominent progressives (he in fact met Powers Hapgood in person) comes mainly from interviews spanning more than thirty years. In an interview with Nuvo in January 2003, Vonnegut cites Debs's famous quotation, "As long as there's a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Vonnegut goes on to recognize Debs's words "as a paraphrase of the Sermon on the Mount" and to make it clear that he sympa- thizes with Debs and another Indiana socialist radical. Powers Hapgood, who "wanted a better country, that's all" (Hoppe). It becomes apparent from this interview that Vonnegut viewed the teachings of Eugene Debs and Powers Hapgood as following from principles set forth in the Sermon on the Mount, and not only are such socialist ideas present in Von- negut's consciousness, but he also holds such ideas in high esteem. Although Vonnegut's brand of socialism doesn't seem inherently political, it certainly seems as though it's often in- stigated by political actions (and would carry political reper- cussions if carried out). Again, although Debs and Hapgood are inherently public, political figures, Vonnegut always seems to take a private, personal message away from their words and actions. In the process, Vonnegut demonstrates the always tenuous distinction between the public and private spheres. Vonnegut's comments in 2003, in fact, came in ref- erence to a decidedly public and political event—the war in Iraq coming closer and closer to fruition. Yet his response approaches the public and political from a private and per- 164 THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY sonal perspective. Repeatedly, Vonnegut's concerns seem to focus primarily on the people that political policies affect rather than on the policies themselves. In short, his sympathy for private and personal effects lead to criticism of public and political causes of inequality and injustice. For Vonnegut, public political ideology and private religious teaching effec- tively coalesce into one social philosophy, thereby combining and indirectly challenging the division between the public and private spheres. Since Vonnegut interprets the socialist messages of Debs and Hapgood as synonymous with the mes- sage of the Sermon on the Mount, so too will this essay. More than thirty years before the Nuvo interview, Von- negut told Laurie Clancy that among the writers that influ- enced him was George Orwell, who "interests [him] more than anybody else." Vonnegut goes on to say that he tries to "write a great deal" like Orwell, and that he admires Orwell's "concern for the poor . his socialism [and] his simplicity" (52-3). In a 1973 interview with David Standish oi Playboy, Vonnegut says that he worries about "stupid people, dumb people" and says that "somebody has to take care of them, because they can't hack it" (89). Similar to the recent Nuvo interview, these interviews with Vonnegut from the 1970s demonstrate a genuine concern for socialist issues, yet always in a private, personal way. Not unlike Vonnegut's more recent opinion pieces, his comments in these interviews came in the midst of another controversial public and political American military engagement, Vietnam. In the Clancy interview, Von- negut even acknowledges the influence of socialist ideas on his writing, not just his consciousness. By consciously trying to emulate an author that was concerned with socialism and the poor, Vonnegut asserts his own interest in those very same issues. A problem that immediately arises in trying to establish Vonnegut's interest in socialism—and consequently its pres- ence in Rosewater—with the interviews cited above, how- ever, is that each one takes place well after God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater was written. Rosewater was published in 1965, GOSPEL SOCIALISM 165 and the earliest interview that is cited is the 1971 Clancy interview. The connection between what Vonnegut was con- cerned with at the time of Rosewater's publication and what he was concerned with six years later is somewhat dubious. This problem can be resolved in part by what Vonnegut him- self has written about his exposure at an early age to socialist ideas. In his autobiographical collage Palm Sunday, Vonnegut writes that when he was a high school sophomore, his socialist uncle gave him a copy of Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. Vonnegut loved it because, as he describes it, Veblen's analysis "made low comedy of the empty graces and aggressively useless possessions which [his] parents . meant to regain someday" (59). Such a satire of the con- sumption and distribution of wealth, probably instilled basi- cally socialist ideas in Vonnegut at a formative age (well be- fore the publication of Rosewater). Those socialist ideas probably hit even closer to home since they directly applied to Vonnegut's personal life. Vonnegut seems to be particu- larly fond of his Uncle Alex (the uncle that gave him a copy of Veblen's work), and it seems likely that some of his socialist ideas rubbed off. Perhaps even more indicative of Vonnegut's interest in so- cialism is the mention in the preface to his novel Jailbird of a meeting between himself, his father, his Uncle Alex, and Indiana socialist Powers Hapgood that took place in July 1945.
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