yes, finally... player piano. quote.

The one quote that stuck out in my mind from Player Piano was on page 68. As Paul sits in the bar with Finnerty and Lasher, Lasher says,

"Things, gentlemen, are ripe for a phony Messiah, and when he comes, it's sure to be a bloody business... Sooner or later someone is going to catch the imagination of these people with some new magic. At the bottom of it will be a promise of regaining the feeling of participation, the feeling of being needed on earth - hell, dignity."

I like this quote because the moment I read it I thought Paul was going to be the Messiah and I truly wanted him to be. Paul seemed skeptical enough of his own thoughts on the machines that he could fill the shoes quite nicely. What I also found interesting was that Lasher thought that when the next "phony Messiah" comes it would be "sure to be a bloody business." However, the rebellion in the end was hardly the violence I believe Lasher to have imagined. Agreeing with my other blog this quote does not predict the ignorance of the human in that society. Instead of continuing to find the rebels choose to rebuild all that they've just destroyed.

However, Lasher is right that the "Reeks and Wrecks" have basically lost all motivation to exist. They are permitted to do very little because they are not "doctors" and not "smart" enough to become them. Therefore the promise of a changed world sounded good so that they would regain their feeling of worth. However, once the town and Illium was destroyed they were no longer useless; now instead of carrying on the destruction so that machines could no longer take their jobs, they began to put back together the things they hated the most. This could have been why Lasher mentioned a phony Messiah. Perhaps he was aware of the ignorance of the masses and therefore knew that no man could succeed in leading these people.