Infinite Joe

What if, during a time of war, you were enlisted as a secret agent for the side whose goal is to stop the slaughtering of millions of people, but in order to accomplish your secret mission, and to gain favor with the enemy, you had to publicly spew the most awful verbal hatred about the people you are trying to save, knowing that the words would be used by mindless drones to perpetuate even further evil? Would you be able to do it? Would you be guilty of crimes against these people, even though the end goal was their salvation? Do the ends justify the means? Would you be able to live with yourself?

This book explores the above moral dilemma, and explores it well, nesting it inside a good story. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

This is definitely one of my favorite Vonnegut books, up there with Cat's Cradle.