Vonnegut’s “Mother Night” Moral and Our Current Politics
Written in haste for a colleague whose students just finished the book for a class
I haven’t read Mother Night in a while, but there’s a line in the book that’s always stuck with me, the one Kurt Vonnegut says is the story’s moral: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Vonnegut is writing about Howard W. Campbell, Jr., an American on trial for his work as a Nazi propagandist during World War II. Campbell wasn’t a true believer in Nazism — he doesn’t much care for politics of any stripe — but he did a pretty good job of spreading its foul message.
Mother Night’s moral raises questions that are relevant today in terms of democracy and patriotism: What do we mean by these words, and just as importantly, what’s our purpose when we use them?
According to the way we’re taught in school, democracy relates to equal participation in public affairs. As Americans, we have the right, no matter our income or status, to voice our opinions in debates and elections about issues that matter to us. With this comes the responsibility to educate ourselves about the issues — and to talk about them with people whose views may or may not align with our own. This isn’t easy work. Much of the time, it’s either boring or infuriating, or somehow both simultaneously. But it’s the only way to make informed decisions on questions that impact our present and future.
What about patriotism? The shortest definition might be something like “love of one’s country.” There’s a lot to love about America. Not every country has Beyonce, Taylor Swift, the NFL, or WrestleMania. Nor does every country have a constitution that gives its people the right to speak their minds on just about everything. This includes the right to criticize ourselves and our history. If no single human being is perfect, we can’t expect a nation of hundreds of millions to be perfect, either. At its best, patriotism demands that we speak truthfully about our country in hopes of making it an even better place to live.
While there’s plenty of room for disagreement about the particulars of these admittedly inadequate definitions, I’d like to think there’s a general consensus about the fundamental ideas behind them. The problem, though — and this is where Mother Night’s moral comes in — is that there are times when people use these words when what they really mean are their exact opposites.
Take, for instance, when elections are held and attempts made to throw out certain ballots. Arguments in favor of this are often framed in terms of “election integrity” and “protecting democracy.” But if the right to vote isn’t given to all who deserve it, we’re only pretending to be democratic. In a democracy, the people acknowledge that there will be disagreement, some of it very strong, on the issues — but that this is healthy and natural. If we can’t recognize this, what makes our country any different from places like Hungary or Russia?
The same goes for patriotism. To love someone requires constant effort. My wife makes me upset sometimes, and I often get on her nerves, too. But this doesn’t mean we’ve stopped loving each other. It means we have to work through our differences through respectful dialogue with the goal of reaching consensus about how to best live together. If she expressed a view I disagreed with and I then told her to leave and never wished to see her again, all in the name of my “love” for her, she’d probably start to question not just me but also her major life choices. We don’t marry the rest of our fellow citizens, thank God, but we have obligations to each other if for no other reason than that we’re Americans. Vilifying those we disagree with, calling them names, labeling them “un-American,” revoking their rights, or even suggesting they be imprisoned or executed for nothing more than their opinions — doing any or all these things in the name of patriotism isn’t merely to misunderstand the word’s definition. It’s also to head down the dangerous road to dictatorship.
This holds true whether or not we believe what we’re saying. Our elected leaders and candidates for public office, regardless of party, are well aware of our views and motivations. They modify their rhetoric accordingly, and their words, too, whether they mean them or not, have real-world impacts, some of them helpful, others disturbing and violent. In other words, to pretend is to be, so we should be mindful of what we’re pretending to be.
At the end of Mother Night, Campbell gets word that he won’t be prosecuted after all. During the war, he was working both sides — American and German — as a double agent. His efforts on behalf of the Americans are enough to set him free. But by this time he’s developed a conscience: he can’t live with himself for his crimes and decides to impose his own justice in the form of suicide. For Campbell, self-reflection appears, though it’s too late to save him. My hope for us is that it comes in time.
