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The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/Identity Crisis: A State of the Union Address: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/Identity Crisis: A State of the Union Address (view source)
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{{Byline|last=Broer|first=Lawrence R.|abstract=No two contemporary writers have looked harder or with greater analytical intelligence at the forces undermining the American Dream than Norman {{NM}} and Kurt Vonnegut. Whatever individual differences of vision or temperament may separate these brooding seers, Mailer, the mystic Existentialist, and Kurt Vonnegut, the comic Absurdist, serve as shamans, spiritual medicine men whose function is to expose various forms of societal madness—dispelling the evil spirits of greed, irresponsible mechanization, and aggression while encouraging reflection and the will to positive change.|url=https://prmlr.us/ | {{Byline|last=Broer|first=Lawrence R.|abstract=No two contemporary writers have looked harder or with greater analytical intelligence at the forces undermining the American Dream than Norman {{NM}} and Kurt Vonnegut. Whatever individual differences of vision or temperament may separate these brooding seers, Mailer, the mystic Existentialist, and Kurt Vonnegut, the comic Absurdist, serve as shamans, spiritual medicine men whose function is to expose various forms of societal madness—dispelling the evil spirits of greed, irresponsible mechanization, and aggression while encouraging reflection and the will to positive change.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr02bro}} | ||
{{dc|dc=N|o two contemporary writers have looked harder}} or with greater analytical intelligence at the forces undermining the American Dream than [[Norman Mailer]] and [[w:Kurt Vonnegut|Kurt Vonnegut]]. Whatever individual differences of vision or temperament may separate these brooding seers, Mailer, the mystic Existentialist, and Kurt Vonnegut, the comic Absurdist, serve as shamans, spiritual medicine men whose function is to expose various forms of societal madness—dispelling the evil spirits of greed, irresponsible mechanization, and aggression while encouraging reflection and the will to positive change. It is this almost mystical vision of the writer as spiritual medium and healer that Vonnegut intends by calling himself a “canary bird in the coal mine”—one who provides spiritual illumination, offering us warnings about the dehumanized future not as it must necessarily be, but as it surely would become if based on the materialism, government corruption, and promiscuous technology of the present.{{sfn|Vonnegut|1965|p=238}} In books Mailer might call existential errands, like ''[[Why Are We in Vietnam?]]'', ''[[The Armies of the Night]]'', ''[[Of a Fire on the Moon]]'', and ''[[Miami and the Siege of Chicago]]'', Mailer’s particular genius has been to penetrate the facade of contemporary events to show us who we are, where we are, and where we are likely to go, pointing up the significant in the most trivial of events, and conversely placing in perspective the truly momentous acts of our time. | {{dc|dc=N|o two contemporary writers have looked harder}} or with greater analytical intelligence at the forces undermining the American Dream than [[Norman Mailer]] and [[w:Kurt Vonnegut|Kurt Vonnegut]]. Whatever individual differences of vision or temperament may separate these brooding seers, Mailer, the mystic Existentialist, and Kurt Vonnegut, the comic Absurdist, serve as shamans, spiritual medicine men whose function is to expose various forms of societal madness—dispelling the evil spirits of greed, irresponsible mechanization, and aggression while encouraging reflection and the will to positive change. It is this almost mystical vision of the writer as spiritual medium and healer that Vonnegut intends by calling himself a “canary bird in the coal mine”—one who provides spiritual illumination, offering us warnings about the dehumanized future not as it must necessarily be, but as it surely would become if based on the materialism, government corruption, and promiscuous technology of the present.{{sfn|Vonnegut|1965|p=238}} In books Mailer might call existential errands, like ''[[Why Are We in Vietnam?]]'', ''[[The Armies of the Night]]'', ''[[Of a Fire on the Moon]]'', and ''[[Miami and the Siege of Chicago]]'', Mailer’s particular genius has been to penetrate the facade of contemporary events to show us who we are, where we are, and where we are likely to go, pointing up the significant in the most trivial of events, and conversely placing in perspective the truly momentous acts of our time. | ||