Kurt Vonnegut on hate

Today I was reading the latest newsletter from Nikita Gill on shaking loose from personal cell phones. One of her (very good) points was that click bait is designed to generate anger, which in turn will keep us online to read more. That made me think of a post from the inimitable Maria Popova about Kurt Vonnegut. She reminded me what a remarkable thinker he was and how much I wish far more of our online content was filled with his words. Speaking of anger, here’s a portion of what he said to a graduate class in 1978.

“ As a member of a zippier generation, with sparkle in its eyes and a snap in its stride, let me tell you what kept us as high as kites a lot of the time: hatred. All my life I’ve had people to hate — from Hitler to Nixon, not that those two are at all comparable in their villainy. It is a tragedy, perhaps, that human beings can get so much energy and enthusiasm from hate. If you want to feel ten feet tall and as though you could run a hundred miles without stopping, hate beats pure cocaine any day. Hitler resurrected a beaten, bankrupt, half-starved nation with hatred and nothing more. Imagine that.”

I highly recommend Popova’s newsletter, The Marginalian, at http://www.themarginalian.org. And here is a link to just one of her posts about Vonnegut, which is worthy to be read in its entirety: Kurt Vonnegut on Reading, Boredom, Belonging, and Our Human Responsibility – The Marginalian.

Oh, and another thing Gill said, crediting her grandmother: put down your phones, go outside for a long walk and “find peace in a less noisy life and ‘taking breaks from the opinions of others.’” Breathe in the day, breathe out the anxiety.