Player Piano: 71 Years of Dissent

Lying abed after the stout-hearted men's evening at the Kroner's, Doctor Paul Proteus, son of a successful man, himself rich with prospects of being richer, counted his material blessings...For once, his dissatisfaction with his life was specific. He was reacting to an outrage that would be regarded as such by almost any man in any period of history. -Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano, 1952

Paul's Relationships

For those who haven't read Player Piano, it's a story about a man approaching the pinnacle of society in some not-so-far-off future of the United States. He is the Manager of the Ilium Works, a plant in upstate New York that houses a large number of automated industrial processes, and he is on the cusp of being offered sole leadership of the Pittsburgh Works. It's a chance for him and his wife, Anita, to move even further up the social ladder; an opportunity that only comes once in a lifetime. However, for Doctor Proteus, this achievement was always meant to be, for his father was arguably the single-most important person in the dawn of the country's new age of automation.

Before his formal offer from Doctor Kroner, the head administrator of the Eastern Division, Paul is visited by his friend Ed Finnerty. After Finnerty's time in Ilium he had moved to a prestigious role in Washington D.C., but on this visit to Paul he breaks the news that he has since quit his job in Washington with no plan to re-enter the workforce.

Finnerty's role in the story is to direct Paul down a specific, necessary path. He appears at a time when Paul is finding dissatisfaction in the world around him. In addition to his timing and his beliefs, Finnerty is nearly a perfect foil to Paul's wife, Anita. The two of them clash on levels that neither can quite put into words, but that polarization creates a sort of black-and-white decision in Paul's mind. Does he continue on his path of success that Anita so desperately wishes for him? Or does he follow in the actions of one of his closest friends and deny the world he lives in for something he believes to be more virtuous?

Paul is not ready to make any major decision on that front, and it is then we meet a more neutral person in Paul's life. Dr. Kroner is, by Paul's description, a father figure. He's not doting; he supports Paul without pushing him one way or the other. Dr. Kroner allows Paul a certain independence when it comes to his career while being slightly biased toward Paul's upward movement within his line of work. Dr. Kroner wants to see Paul take over the Pittsburgh location, but the reader gets the idea that if Paul decided to stay in Ilium at his current post Dr. Kroner would understand and not put up a fight.

I'm hesitant to call Anita "manipulative," but in many ways she is just that. She goes so far as to create a list of notes and talking points for their dinner at the Kroner's to steer the conversation toward the Pittsburgh job and ultimately to show Dr. Kroner that Paul wants it. At this point Paul has nearly made up his mind to leave his post to live on the farm he's secretly purchased to lead a simpler life, but he's failed to do his part in making those intentions known to Anita. We as readers can disagree with his actions here, but we also understand why he hasn't divulged any of his deeper feelings to his wife. Paul believes that she won't understand unless he's taken the proper steps to preparing her for that move, steps that we see, during their drive to the other side of the river, are very misplaced and poorly executed.

Paul is an idealist, which for him is a very dangerous type of person to be in his world. He understands that human beings were not meant to be mere custodians of machines and he dreams of a world in which the roles are reversed. He yearns for man and woman to be equal everywhere; to live in leisure by utilizing the advancements of technology. Unfortunately, the people closest to him do not share this view. They believe that an elite class must exist to manage technology, which is the central player in the game of life in this era, and a more common class of person must exist to handle everything on the "ground floor." To them this dichotomy is what keeps the world from falling apart; to oppose it is to be a traitor of the world itself.

That is a similar sentiment held by the majority of people living in modern societies such as ours. The only difference is that today most everyone knows that something is wrong; we know that something in the way we live is flawed but we fail to do anything to fix it despite being in the perfect position to do so.

The Ghost Shirts

I didn't feel very strongly either way about the Ghost Shirt Society in this story. From a literary perspective the underground anti-establishment collective seemed more of an unwelcome appendage to the story of Dr. Paul Proteus instead of a critical narrative device. It's introduction was too abrupt, and at the end it's influence of the world around it was a bit excessive and surreal (not that one would expect cold-hard realities from a Vonnegut novel). This functional perspective aside, I believe the concept of the Ghost Shirt Society was one born of the rawest truths about dissidence; and more importantly, that we can reflect deeply and easily on how that concept applies to modern life.

The Ghost Shirt Society, like any good rebel organization, consisted of individuals from all corners of society. They met in secret, refrained from using real names, and concocted schemes to uproot the established system that were both brilliant and blunt. It's what we now fantasize as an ideal rebellion; one that many of us would likely consider joining in the context of the dystopian United States of America presented in Player Piano. However, I'd like to point out the major flaw ingrained into the Ghost Shirt's master plan.

They failed to consider their own humanity.

The Ghost Shirt Society had a plan and the means to carry out that plan, but that did not mean that things would change immediately upon the success of that plan. What they failed to realize was that it was the collective wish of humans to enslave themselves to machines that led humanity to this point, and so long as there was even a small percentage of the population that "didn't mind" this existence, regardless of if they were involved in the Ghost Shirt Society or not, then society would take the same initial steps to that same end immediately upon success of the rebellion.

The Ghost Shirts operated on an ethos that was determined to give the world back to the people, but those same people, including the proprietors of that new world order, are always the ones that will eventually throw it back into disarray.

And Now...

It's been 71 years since Player Piano was first published. Vonnegut was 30 years old and, having lived through the Great Depression and World War II, it seems that he had retained his sense of satire since his pacifistic article in The Cornell Daily Sun. The story in Player Piano was likely born from Vonnegut's observance of how the "technology runoff" from WWII affected the life of the average American. It was the dawn of a new era of technological advancement, and being at the forefront of something like that leaves room for some serious speculation. We're seeing a similar phenomenon today with the development of artificial intelligence in the consumer space. Our world is filled with new, neat tricks and complicated secrets leaving many of us to ask the question, "What if?" As a young man who'd seen everything from his prestigious family being ruined by Prohibition and the Great Depression, to the destruction of a city three stories above his head, Kurt Vonnegut had a lot of source material to speculate on what the next great tragedy might look like. If you ask me, his tale of Paul Proteus is more prophecy than mere creative storytelling.

As we live now technology has given us the opportunity to have the world operate without us, if that's what we desire. Every single day we move further toward making ourselves irrelevant and obsolete, just as was done in Player Piano, and although this would (hopefully) allow us to live more fulfilling lives I don't think it will ever turn out in our favor. Vonnegut saw that with greater automation came more prejudiced policies, less "grey" in the rule book, and created a collective melancholy toward the systems in place and the powers that be. Now, 71 years later, we're growing ever closer to that reality.

What can be done about that? It's not like we'll ever stop innovating; some of us will try to live against that constant progression and give ourselves more analog existences but that can only go so far. To live in this world is to be at the mercy of the conveniences created for us. You want to live without a cell phone? Good luck keeping friends or getting a job. You want to keep all your money in cash? You could, but your ability to buy a home will be greatly hindered. Society caters to those that fold; to those that comply with the rules set forth for them by those in positions of power. I suppose this is what Dr. Paul Proteus really despised: being forced to live a life he did not agree with just because it was the only "acceptable" life to live.

I fear that many of us feel this way. It seems to be an unending cycle, a trap to be born into and to die for; but I believe there is a way out of it. I believe there is a way to live a truer, more passionate existence. A way to give power back to the self, to govern ourselves solely upon a common consideration for the well-being of everyone in this world.