back to index Recent Design - Impressions and influence         I listened to Kurt Vonnegut share his feelings on the radio a few days ago. He brought back the haunting memories of Slaughterhouse-Five, and related that to our own current spiral into the hell. At the end of a fascinating account of February 13, 1945, he made a very profound statement: "The two most important concepts to enlighten humanity for the last 2000 years are, (1) from the Sermon on the Mount, forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and, (2) E=MC2, the concept that energy and matter are the same thing". Vonnegut explained that forgiveness is key to our survival as a species, with out it we spiral into never ending war that deprives us all of our humanity. The concept is simple but has been seduced by the elusion that violence can solves the differences between people. We can not let ourselves be corrupted into thinking that more death will give us, grant us freedom. We have become the destroyer of worlds...     Slaughterhouse-Five; or The Children's Crusade, A Duty Dance With Death is surely the best achievement of Kurt Vonnegut and even one of the most acclaimed works in modern American literature. It is a very personal novel which draws upon Vonnegut's own experience in World War Two. He was an advance scout with the 106th Infantry Division, a prisoner of war and a witness to the fire-bombing of Dresden on 13th February 1945. 135,000 people died in the ruins of Dresden, which means that it was the greatest man-caused massacre of all times (71,379 people were killed by the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.) Vonnegut manages to tell the reader many things and it is hard to decide, what exactly is the main theme. It is a novel about war, about the cruelty and violence done in war, about people and their nature, their selfishness, about love, humanity, regeneration, motion, and death. I think that Vonnegut wanted to tell us, the readers, that no matter what happens, we should retain our humanity. We should not let anybody or anything reign upon our personalities, be it a god, be it a politician or anybody else. We should be ourselves - human and humane beings.