How much would you be willing to sacrifice for the greater good? Your hope? Your sanity? Your own life?

According to the utilitarianism principle, you should be willing to sacrifice just less than what is gained; this concept can span from giving up an extra jacket to a homeless person who needs it more to confessing to a crime you didn’t commit and risk life in prison to save a culprit who is the sole supporter of a family. Utilitarianism is the mindset of maximizing pleasure, so as long as an action would create more joy than despair, then you should do it.

The apparent simplicity and merit of such a philosophy begin to fall apart when you consider extreme but no less real dilemmas in life. Over 100,000 people in the United States alone are on the organ transplant list with a new name being added every ten minutes. If you are healthy, by this model, shouldn’t you be willing to give your life to help save some of theirs? By donating all five of your vital organs you would save five lives at the cost of only one–your own. Though we all have altruistic cores, unnecessarily giving your life for strangers’ seems absurd straight from the get-go and doesn’t require much thought. Most of us wouldn’t even have the non-fatal surgery of giving up a kidney to an outsider, for goodness’ sake!

But how would the situation change if those five people were your friends–your family? This is the principal concern in Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “All The King’s Horses.” The title is derived from the commonly known children’s rhyme, Humpty Dumpty, but the rest of the story does not follow such a light, juvenile tone. The piece chronicles American Colonel Bryan Kelly, his wife, two young sons, and his platoon’s time as Russian Pi Ying’s prisoners of war. In a sadistic bout of boredom seeking entertainment, Ying challenges Kelly to a game of chess–a game wherein the sixteen Americans are the chess pieces (versus the Russian’s wooden ones) in a fight for their lives because capture means execution. 

The absurdity of the situation is reflected in Kelly’s inability to properly strategize and grasp the weight of the situation. Simply put, the stakes are the same as in war, but Kelly is being forced to acknowledge the unreliability of his actions and face the loss of humanity he caused in a way he never had before. He cannot shirk responsibility for his actions onto the enemy or hide under the name of duty as the dehumanization he usually requires to continue fades away. Even I, despite being exposed to this unfamiliar atrocity in such a condensed period, became somewhat desensitized to the violence of the situation and repeated executions over time.

Pi Ying, despite his megalomaniacal lunacy, does raise a somewhat valid point (he’s definitely proving it in the wrong way, but a valid point nonetheless): what is the difference between the game of strategy being played here and the one of senseless killings on the battleground?  As Colonel, with every decision he makes in the field, he is gambling the lives of his soldiers in a fight to survive/win. As the Chessmaster, isn’t he doing the same? Yes, the circumstance of “normalcy,” advantage, and consent differ, but not much else strays from expectation.

Written during the midst of the Cold War, Vonnegut is making a point about the vicious, almost dystopian rhetoric (read: propaganda) America consistently uses to tear down our enemies in tandem with our inability to see the cruelty of our actions until they are reflected back upon us. According to researcher Stanley Milgram, “Systematic devaluation of the victim provides a measure of psychological justification for brutal treatment of the victim and has been the constant accompaniment of massacres, pogroms, and wars.” The desensitization we require of our soldiers and the social disenfranchisement we consistently employ upon those we perceive to be related to our enemies (McCarthyism, Japanese internment camps, the war on terror) allows us not only to win the war but to destroy everything outsiders once held dear.

I find this idea particularly striking (and horrifying) as we can still see similar tactics going on today. It’s easy to think of historical events such as the Cold War or World War II as so far removed that they could never happen today, yet you could argue similar things are happening in Syria and North Korea. History is not behind, rather happening all around us and it’s important that we have our eyes open wide enough to leave a legacy we can be proud of. 

Simply put, America is an absolute powerhouse, both economically and defensively, which has been able to proceed virtually unchecked since its birth; barring the Vietnam War, we have never lost any major battle due to our willingness to use brute force and place victory above any morals. Pi Ying, through all his insanity, is the perfect symbol and general foil to the trademark sadism we take on during a war. The thousands of nuclear warheads the United States has amassed, and even more tragically the ones that have been used, as Ying agrees, simply show our hubris and disregard for external human life, killing more innocent civilians than soldiers. By initiating such a game of chess, Ying is trying to emphasize a greater point that people, no matter their backgrounds, are not just pawns to be thrown away; in the end, we’re more than just physical bodies we can utilitarian-ly throw away for others’ worth, but human beings with so much inherent work that cannot be replaced. The price of war and hating each other is never worth the price.

Though I’m still very unsure of whether I liked the ending or not, for the majority of the story, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting anxiously in fascination for the next move. Ying’s craze yet safeness contrasted with Kelly’s stoicism and vulnerability provide an amazing stage for spiraling the reader into deep thought along with a side of existential crisis. I believe Vonnegut’s personal experience in war allowed him to question the validity of having helpless pawns fight someone removed’s war and how everything can change when we just talk to each other. Though it’s a cheesy conclusion to draw, on a scale of the global superpowers, it’s a necessary one. I’d really recommend this story to lovers of history and anyone willing to relook their perspective on reality (and especially urge it for those who aren’t).

So, the next time you find yourself so adamantly hating something, try to talk to your opponents and reconsider what is really the greater good instead of demonizing them on the word of others. Don’t tear them down or initiate a game of death chess, simply communicate. You may be surprised by what you find.