Galapagos the Dangers of a Self-Aware, Big,

¶ … Galapagos

The Dangers of a Self-Aware, Big, Human Brains in Galapagos

Kurt Vonnegut is always concerned with humanity's satisfaction with itself. Many of Vonnegut's books center around how humans believe they are the most divine creations in the universe and act from that presumption as well. The arrogance is crippling. This is a main theme in his novel, Galapagos. Yes, the end of the world may be an event that is out of humanity's control, but more than likely, humans are going to contribute to their own destruction and have no one to blame but themselves. He values humility, compassion, and what it is to be humane, to have humane thoughts, and perform humane actions. Kurt Vonnegut writes to tell us that if humans do not become less selfish and more selfless as a species, it will be their doom. This is true for the novel Galapagos. People who lack self-awareness have big egos and no humility. Self-awareness makes one aware of oneself, of course, but also it makes one aware that others are self-aware. This is the beginning of empathy. Empathy leads to selflessness. Selflessness breeds humility and extinguishes excess pride. Lack of pride and abundance of humility do not exist without self-awareness. This is what the narrative demonstrates through various characters and the plot. The paper will reference Galapagos with Vonnegut's repetition, trademark tone and technique to communicate to readers to be self-aware and to let that self-awareness lead humanity away from pride.

Kurt Vonnegut repeats the phrase "big brain" when referring to the human brain in a sarcastic manner. Science tells the world that the human brain has thus grown in size and weight over time. In Vonnegut's novel, over time the size of the human brain has diminished. He attributes having a big brain to inviting trouble. Vonnegut states that

"Like so many other pathological personalities in positions of power a million years ago, he might do almost anything on impulse, feeling nothing much. The logical explanations for his actions, invented at leisure, always came afterwards. And let that sort of behavior back in the era of the big brains be taken as a capsule history of the war I had the honor to fight in, which was the Vietnam War." (Vonnegut, Galapagos, Page 103)

He uses this turn of phrase on the first page of the novel: "Human beings had much bigger brains back then than they do today, and so they could be beguiled by mysteries." (Vonnegut, Page 3) Brains size is relative to evolutionary development for Vonnegut, not only on a physical level, but also on a spiritual level. The self-awareness of the humans in the novel is limited. They are aware of the size and weight of their brains, but they are using their brains for ill-will:

"It is hard to believe nowadays that people could ever have been as brilliantly duplicitous as James Wait -- until I remind myself that just about every adult human being back then had a brain weighing about three kilograms! There was no end to the evil schemes that a thought machine that oversized couldn't imagine and execute." (Vonnegut, Page 8)

The brains of the characters in the book are to blame for their wretched thoughts, horrid actions, and ugly emotions. For Vonnegut there is a separation between a person's brain and the person. When the person does wrong, it is the brain's fault and not the person's.

Kurt Vonnegut repeats the phrase "big brain" in Galapagos to generate self-awareness in the reader. He wants the reader to be almost over-aware of the physical dimensions of his/her brain and how brain size is directly related to the amount of damage human beings can potentially create. He writes: "About that mystifying enthusiasm a million years ago for turning over as many human activities as possible to machinery: What could that haven but yet another acknowledgement by people that their brains were no damn good?" (Vonnegut, Page 38) Big brains cannot be trusted, are unreliable, and make poor decisions. Vonnegut's use of the phrase "big brain" generates self-awareness in the reader about his/her own brain, but also generates self-awareness in the reader that Vonnegut knows the reader is reading the book and acknowledges this:

"So have to say that human brains back then (which is now as the narrator is telling this story from the future) had become such copious and irresponsible generators of suggestions as to what might be done with life, that they made acting for the benefit of future generations seem one of many arbitrary games which might be played by narrow enthusiasts -- like poker or polo or the bond market, or the writing of science-fiction novels." (Vonnegut, Page 78)

A lack of self-awareness and an excess of concern for self, leads to no provisions for future generations of humans. The humans of the novel are not completely without self-awareness, though: "To the credit of humanity as it used to be: More and more people were saying that their brains were irresponsible, unreliable, hideously dangerous, wholly unrealistic -- were simply no damn good." (Vonnegut, Page 25) While Vonnegut is a career author, he does, with subtlety say in the above quotation that even writing books and reading books is not the best use of time when there are so many big brains committing so many atrocities.

The disregard for the future demonstrated by the humans of the novel, whom are truly representations of real, actual humans right now, is a result of having a big brain and misdirected self-awareness. He describes the destructive power of big brains: "In a matter of seconds, a typical brain of a million years ago had turned the best citizen in Guayaquil into a ravening terrorist." (Vonnegut, Page 89) Properly channeled self-awareness can foster empathy, compassion, and humility. Misdirected self-awareness is excess attention spent on oneself and leads to selfishness in additional excesses of ego and pride. Vonnegut asks the reader:

"Can it be doubted that three-kilogram brains were one nearly fatal defects in the evolution of the human race? A second query: What source was there back then, save for our overelaborate nervous circuitry, for the evils we were seeing or hearing about simply everywhere. My answer: There was no other source. This was a very innocent planet, except for those great big brains." (Vonnegut, Pages 8 -- 9)

The humans of the novel do not respect the planet, destroy it and each other with in a casual manner, and give little consideration for future generations outside of the next immediate one:

"Human beings were so prolific back then that conventional explosions like that had few if any long-term biological consequences. Even at the end of protracted wars, there still seemed to be plenty of people around. Babies were always so plentiful that serious efforts to reduce the population by means of violence were doomed to failure. There no more left permanent injuries, except for nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, than did the Bahia de Darwin as it slit and roiled the trackless sea." (Vonnegut, Page 233)