It is no secret that the novel Slaughterhouse Five has anti-war rhetoric. Much of the novel is filled with imagery of machine like armies occupying the landscape. This imagery is meant to show the absence of humanity in a congregation of a humans assembled to do battle. From these descriptions we can gather that the author, Kurt Vonnegut, is conceiving the idea that war drains the humanity from people and thus the machine like existence of the army is explained.
The first question that comes to mind from such a conclusion is: what is its implication on a peaceful society? Since, in many ways, war presents itself as an opportunity for governments to control the masses when conflicts arise, that then begs the question what is done in a peaceful society to control the masses. There has to be some way that governments try to produce machine like societies without war.
I came to the conclusion that fear is what is used in today's society to produce the machine like control that governments once had over their people by mode of war. If one looks around us the large majority of the United States is mobilized against the "threat" of terror. I am not implying that the dangers of terrorism do not exist, but terrorism has come to control many aspects f our society. As the grip of fear increases on our society people are more willing to sacrifice their privacy, which leads to a loss of individuality, and ultimately some aspects of our humanity.
Most countries do not produce hostile situations so that their populations can be controlled. but many leaders have taken advantage of fear in the public. For example, Bush passed the Patriot Act, Obama expanded the NSA and more recently the ascension of Donald Trump into our political system as he feeds off of the fear of the nation.
Fear does manifest itself in war. I think that this is the main reason why our nation is having a machine like response to the threats posed by another "quasi" nation. Since the enemy is so elusive war is almost impossible so the machinery of war shows up in other aspects.
In conclusion what i am trying to describe is the Locust effect. Humans without fear are happy grasshoppers that chirp all night, but with enough toxic ingredients such as fear grasshoppers become cannibalistic and ravines.
