In Slaughterhouse
V, author Kurt Vonnegut raises the question of, “Should humanity look back
on the bad times like war or just forget that war ever happened?” Vonnegut
seems to think that humanity needs to remember what tragedy has happened in their
past, as he praises Lot’s wife for looking back in the Bible to see what bad
things have occurred behind her even though she knew she would be punished.
Vonnegut has been through war, and knows how scary and how harsh treatments not
only Americans received but also what other country’s soldiers and civilians
went through. Like Vonnegut, I too feel that humans need to pay more respect to
all of humanity’s tragedies to celebrate those who lived through them as well
as to celebrate the many lives lost fighting for our countries or who just happened
to be victims of a tragic situation. Humanity needs to stop running away from
our flaws in the past and need to realize that we can’t continue to make the
same mistakes. Modern society is moving more and more towards recognizing the
rough times of the past, specifically in the United States. New museums and
memorials are being opened and dedicated to the tragic events of the past so
the people of today can reflect on what the people of yesterday had to go through.
For instance, a new Holocaust museum opened in Washington D.C. as well as a new
9/11 museum and memorial opened in New York. Many people see museums like these
as being too graphic and representing the “evils” in the world. In reality,
these museums are representative of the fighters that protected our country
even if they didn’t realize what they were apart of. For me, museums like these
two provide an opportunity to learn about the past even if it’s something we
shouldn’t be proud of. Like Mary O’Hare pointed out in Slaughterhouse V, people need to see that eighteen year olds were
being shipped off to war and put in concentration camps. People need to see the
struggles of the past to prevent the same struggles from reoccurring in the
future.
