And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity. The ideas Earthlings held didn't matter for hundreds of thousands of years, since they couldn't do much about them anyway. Ideas might as well be badges as anything.
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
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I was always more of a Slapstick man myself but in any case Vonnegut was the last great American author, truly a modern Samuel Clemens, and I miss him greatly.