Review of Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

I really liked Cat's Cradle. The book works well on two levels: as a book and as a message. The plot and story are interesting in its own right. But there is also a deep message behind it all. Balancing the two is a difficult task 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘕𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. It's a satire, but I don't think it's a "haha" satire. It mostly uses irony to convey the message. To be honest, on my first read through it, I felt that there was a very deep message that I simply wasn't getting. I used Spark Notes to get the main idea. Spark notes takes the view that this book is mostly a satire of science. Personally, I think it is more a satire of human intention, i.e. of virtue ethics. The book follows John, a writer investigating the personal lives of important people on the day Hiroshima was bombed. In this investigation we see the callousness of people towards the bombing, despite innocence and even good intentions.

Spoiler Warning:

Science is satirized through the characters. Many of them are related to science in some way, and all of them are childish in their handling of such power. Asa (one of the creator of the bomb) refuses to even acknowledge the reality that science can be used for bad, even when her own son (who is a scientist) takes the drastic action of changing careers out of the fear of science being used for bad. She operates under the lofty ideal that pure science is isolated from its applications, making it good. Felix Hoenikker is the main creator of the nuke in this book, and his legacy is passed on through his kids. As he himself is dead, John mostly interviews his kids. Through his kids we see more irony: they are all childish and, in the pursuit of happiness, sacrifice the world. They all give up ice-nine (a substance that can turn all water on Earth to ice) in exchange for "love" and money. They all suffer from issues from the past generation, i.e. Felix. One of the kids sacrificed their future to care for Felix and developed a Stockholm-syndrome-esque relationship with her own father. One of his sons takes after his father in being uncaring for other people and devoted to a craft. It is ironic that there is a huge amount of scientific progress in this family yet little growth as people.

But I think that all of these can be seen as instances of the failure of virtue ethics: Asa believes science to be good, and in pursuit of this takes bad actions; Felix is innocent like a child yet creates a weapon of mass destruction; his kids seek basic human happiness yet lead to the end of the work. Further, there is a character, Claire Minton, who creates a shared identity. The creation of a shared sense of identity is something done with good intentions, to relate to someone. But Vonnegut subverts this by making the shared identity be over something stupid and calling it so. It also just is very artificial.