Not That You Asked (9780307822215)

A writer doesn't often tell a reader anything the reader doesn't already know or suspect. The best the writer can do is put the idea in words and by doing that make the reader aware that he or she isn't the only one who knows it. This produces the warm bond between reader and writer that they're both after because it feels so good.

The fact is, there really isn't anything new in the world and what I've always hoped to do with my writing is to say, in so many words, some of the ideas that lurk, wordlessly, in the minds of a great many people.

There's no way of knowing how we get to believe what we believe. We're all trapped within ourselves. We have this much and no more. We have our genes and our youth, during which our opinions are formed.

Most of us don't change those opinions once we get them. Instead, we spend a lot of time looking for further proof that we're right.

If we formed our opinions the way we should, we'd get all the facts together and then compare them, using logic and good sense to arrive at the right places. We don't do it that way very often, though, and as a result we acquire a lot of wrong answers that we're stuck with for life. I haven't changed my mind about anything since I was twenty-three. In my head I know I must be wrong about some things but in my heart I don't think so.

As an indication of what you'll find in the body of this book, what follows is a hundred opinions I'm stuck with. There ought to be something here to anger almost everyone:

1. I do not accept the inevitability of my own death. I secretly think there may be some other way out.

2. It's good to be loyal even when what you're loyal to doesn't deserve it.

3. We are selling things better than we're making them in the United States.

4. Capitalism and the free-enterprise system are not working very well. There are too many very rich and too many very poor in the United States. Fortunately, the economic system that doesn't work as well as capitalism is communism. Communists are almost all poor.

5. When I was young I always assumed I'd get to like carrots when I got older but I never did.

6. In spite of all the kind things people are always saying about the poor and homeless, people with jobs and houses are usually more interesting and capable and I prefer to be with them.

7. I am often embarrassed by the people I find agreeing with me.

8. Big Business talks as if it doesn't like Big Government but the fact of the matter is, Big Business is in business with Big Government. Big Business is closer to Big Government than Big Government is to the people, but neither wants anyone to know it.

9. Most poetry is pretentious nonsense.

10. The people of the United States never worked so well or so hard or accomplished so much as they did during the four years of World War II. We need to find some substitute for war as a means of motivating ourselves to do our best. Money isn't the answer, either.

11. I don't favor abortion although I like the people who are for it better than the people who are against it.

12. Good old friends are worth keeping whether you like them or not.

13. Although I went to Sunday school for several years at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, I was not persuaded that Mary never slept with anyone before Jesus was born.

14. I'm suspicious of the academic standards of a college that always has a good basketball team. When a college loses a lot of games, I figure they're letting the students play.

15. A person is more apt to get to be the boss by making decisions quickly than by making them correctly.

16. Until we can all have the medical attention a President gets, there will not be too many doctors.

17. A great many people do not have a right to their own opinion because they don't know what they're talking about.

18. The least able among us are having the most children. Among women, college graduates are having the fewest babies; high school
graduates are having the next fewest and the people who don't get to high school or drop out once they do are having the most babies.

The most capable women are getting the best jobs and are least apt to have big families … or sometimes, any family at all.

19. If I were black, I would be a militant, angry black man, railing against the injustices that have been done me. Being white, I think blacks should forget it and go to work.

20. If I were a woman, I would be an angry woman. Men are satisfied having women be something women are not satisfied being. We have a problem here.

21. There are facts too painful to face. I cannot watch a documentary about the slow death facing all elephants and whales.

22. The people who speak up in public for or against something almost always lose my support by being too loud about it.

23. It doesn't interest me to watch a movie or read a novel in which the characters are put in difficult situations by a writer. I'm not interested in being reminded of difficulties. It's already on my mind.

24. It's hard for me to believe that, in the next 150 years, we'll have as many important inventions and discoveries as we've had in the last 150. What is there left comparable in importance to the electric light, the telephone, the gas engine, radio, flight, television, nuclear energy, space exploration, computers and Coca-Cola?

(If anyone were to read that paragraph 150 years from now, I'm sure they'd laugh at my ignorance.)

25. People like to say, “You're only as old as you feel,” but it isn't true. It's just something old people say to make themselves feel good about their age. You're as old as you are.

26. I spent fifty years of my life working to become well known as a writer and I've spent the last ten hiding from strangers who recognize me.

27. I dislike loud-mouthed patriots who suggest they like our country more than I do. Some people's idea of patriotism is hating other countries.

28. Politicians deserve better treatment than they've been getting and we should stop using the word “politician” as an epithet. Most of them are honestly trying to accomplish something good for all of us.

29. I spent four years in the army but do not belong to any veterans' organization. As a way of getting together socially with people your own age and background, veterans' groups are fine but I disapprove of them as a pressure group. I'm suspicious of professional veterans who wear overseas caps at conventions. Except for the men who were disabled,
to whom it owes everything it can give, our country owes veterans nothing. We got what was coming to us, a free country.

30. I wish people spent less time praying and more time trying to solve the problems religion was created to help us endure.

31. It seems wrong for the United States to try to protect democracy by undemocratic means like overthrowing the government of a foreign country by undercover action.

32. A lot of people assume that we live in an orderly world where every event has a meaning and every problem has a solution. I suspect, however, that some events are meaningless and some problems insoluble.

33. I believe a lot of things I can't prove. I think homosexuality is wrong but I wouldn't want to have to explain why. I'm more sympathetic to homosexuals who can't help it than I am to those who made the choice.

34. Women have better natural instincts than men and are more apt to do the right thing.

35. I'd make a bad nun. Material possessions give me great pleasure even though all the best advice we're given for happiness advises us to ignore them.

36. When someone says, “You know what I mean?” I don't usually know what they mean and I know they don't know. If someone knows what they mean, they ought to be able to tell you. I mean, you know what I mean?

37. My only war wound is an aversion to German accents.

38. We need chefs more than headwaiters and mechanics more than car salesmen. We need good doctors more than health plans.

39. The evolution of every business enterprise is away from quality. Products always get smaller, worse and more expensive.

40. If someone chooses to live in the United States, they should learn to speak English. I recognize that this is a small, meanspirited, right-wing opinion but I hold it.

41. People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.

42. The accuracy of political polls is sad evidence of our predictability.

43. Most religions are designed to trick us into doing the things we'd do anyway if we used our heads.

44. It's a lot easier to object to the way things are being done than it is to do them better yourself. Being a revolutionary, even in a modest way, is a lot more fun than having to take over and do it. Castro was
a great revolutionary. It wasn't until he won and started running things himself that he went wrong.

45. A lot of companies spend more to package, advertise and sell their product than they spend on making it. The toothpaste in a tube that costs $1.79 probably doesn't cost 10 cents to manufacture. Something's wrong here.

46. I think women should be paid as much for doing the same job as men … although I don't think they can lift as much.

47. I don't believe in flying saucers or the Loch Ness monster and I'm not on drugs or religion. I don't know my astrological sign.

48. If all the truth were known by everyone about everything, it would be a better world.

49. If all the truth were known by everyone about everything, most people wouldn't like it, though. If their future depends on logical decisions based on all the evidence, they're nervous. They don't think they're smart enough to make the right decision. If, on the other hand, success and happiness depends on their astrological sign or on hoping and praying or on winning the lottery, then they feel better. They think their destiny is in better hands than their own.

50. In view of how many of them are regularly found out to be scoundrels, I have an unreasonable faith in and affection for doctors. In this regard, I am very suspicious of anyone who uses the title “doctor” who is not an M.D. There are some very good optometrists but I do not call them “doctors.”

51. People are too careful with books. If you like a book, you ought to mark it up with a pencil. Publishers put too much money in the flimsy paper dust jacket on books. The first thing I do with any book that doesn't have my picture on the jacket is throw the jacket away.

52. I don't like to lock anything or take precautions against having it stolen because every time I do, I get the feeling the bastards have beat me a little by making me do it.

53. It doesn't make sense to be against abortion and for the death penalty.

54. I am racist to the extent that I think there's a difference between ethnic groups now after centuries of evolution. I'm otherwise at a loss to know how to explain the consistent behavior of one group and its predictable variation from the behavior of another.

55. It's too bad we seem to need six or seven hours' sleep. Someone's going to invent a way for us to sleep faster.