Paranoia

"You can't write novels without a touch of paranoia. I'm paranoid as an act of good citizenship, concerned about what the powerful people are up to. I suspect them of making money any way they can. It intrigues me that people want to be rich, and I try to imagine what they do when they are rich....People are very willing to kill, to make killing machinery, and let kids go over to Vietnam to run the killing machines. The suggestion of declaring a victory in Vietnam and withdrawing is charming. I'd simply get out. I've lost my honor enough to know that it doesn't come to much to lose one's honor. Unfortunately, military successes are seen as a proof of moral or racial superiority. The other people -- by virtue of not being bulletproof -- will not be permitted to reproduce.

When I lived in Schenectady, the old families were Dutch Reformed. The biggest and oldest church in town was Dutch Reformed -- very stern, the church of the Boers and apartheid. Neither there nor elsewhere do the sermons preach against something simple -- like greed or killing someone. I think people should be offended by so many things, beginning with the sight of a rabbit killed by a hunter. You can teach savagery to people, and I think a lot of people teach savagery to their children to survive. They may need the savagery, but it's bad for the neighbors, I prefer to teach gentleness.

I would alert teachers to the fact that paranoia is part of every personality. I would tell teachers to direct this paranoia in some way -- toward being suspicious of the military-industrial complex, for example, although I've always liked engineers."

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
New York Times
March 21, 1969