The lesser-known title of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five” is “The Children’s Crusade,” a particularly poignant homage to the horrors that persist and have always persisted in international conflict.
In the first chapter, the wife of Vonnegut’s close friend, Bill O’Hare, scolds Vonnegut for wanting to write a book on war and she reminds him that both Vonnegut and her husband were just babies during the second World War.
Once he writes a book, she believes, he will glorify war and thus, more wars will be fought and more babies will fight and die. To ensure that this wouldn’t occur, Vonnegut gave her his word that the title of his story would be The Children’s Crusade.
Proverbially, children will continue to die as men continue to fight.
Just a short week ago, an enraged American soldier, said to be frustrated with the American war effort in Afghanistan, is believed to have tragically murdered 16 Afghan civilians, nine of which were children. And this past Tuesday in Toulouse, France, a Muslim man of Algerian descent with ties to al-Qaeda murdered four Jewish children who were on their way to school.
He believed he was avenging the deaths of Palestinian Children.
It is revolting to even think, let alone imagine, what these victims experienced before their deaths, and Vonnegut would certainly agree. However, Vonnegut, with the help of his signature cool sarcastic wit, would almost certainly insist that the described tragic events are merely further testimony to the moral indifference of man and further proof of the absurdity of human existence.
I’m not so convinced.
I may concede that as Americans at home, we are largely sheltered and indifferent to the realities that these tragic events present and though we can read about them on a blog post or perhaps on a Twitter feed, they may be nothing more than conversational talking points. We might be too far removed.
But I do think that it would be a cowardly cop-out to insist that from such a claim, said tragic events are further indications of the absurd. We must refuse to make such a concession.
Moreover, we cannot perceive death as just another fact about the world. Existence is sacred.
In “The Children’s Crusade,” one may argue Vonnegut has such an outlook to death — he famously included “… so it goes” after each character dies. Such a dismal, fatalistic outlook, however, seems to deny our uniquely human capacities for growth, advancement and improvement.
Furthermore, our abilities to dissent, reason and to empathize and sympathize, must ensure that diabolic actions be appropriately prevented. We must condemn the unjust, in favor of tolerance and respect.
And yes, tragedies will almost certainly continue to occur, and wars will continue to be fought. But we must stand by our principles and seek an end to hatred, intolerance and the demonic tendencies that continue to pervade humankind.