3 ms·

I first heard Turtles all the way down in spoken story by Kurt Vonnegut. Does anyone else have a source of the story or is that the source?

pavlov 3y ago
“The world is on a turtle’s back” is Iroquois cosmology, at least.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  Wow, thank you. I’d always thought this a Pratchett things. I see it has a history in India and China too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Turtle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Turtle
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    How could at least two cultures without a communication line between them both come up with such a quirky idea? There must be some underlying truth to it.. I'm sold. World turtle is the answer.
    - the_af 3y ago
      "The Turtle Moves"!
      - detourdog 3y ago
        I'm sure they stepped on turtles to go back and forth across the bering strait.
    - kridsdale3 3y ago
      Chinese writing began with turtle shells as well, that's why the mostly conform to a sort of grid system, with curves.
DonHopkins 3y ago
Dr Seuss's Yertle the Turtle is a metaphor for Hitler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yertle_the_Turtle_and_Other_Stories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yertle_the_Turtle_and_Other_St... >Seuss has stated that the titular character Yertle represented Adolf Hitler, with Yertle's despotic rule of the pond and takeover of the surrounding area parallel to Hitler's regime in Germany and invasion of various parts of Europe.[3][4] Though Seuss made a point of not beginning the writing of his stories with a moral in mind, stating that "kids can see a moral coming a mile off", he was not against writing about issues; he said "there's an inherent moral in any story" and remarked that he was "subversive as hell".[5][6] "Yertle the Turtle" has variously been described as "autocratic rule overturned",[7] "a reaction against the fascism of World War II",[8] and "subversive of authoritarian rule".[9]
dredmorbius 3y ago
Quote Investigator traces variants back as far as 1626, though it evolves over time. A "rocks all the way down" variant dates to 1838, "tortoises all the way down" to 1854: <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/08/22/turtles-down/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/08/22/turtles-down/> The version I'd first heard attributed the story to a lecture by Bertrand Russell and an audience Q&A, though it seems clear that that couldn't have been the first instance.
- detourdog 3y ago
  Your source story sounds like the story I heard/read Kurt Vonnegut tell,
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Agreed, though I don't believe that's the context I first heard it. I've run across the Vonnegut variant more recently. I don't recall where or when I heard the earlier version for the first time, though I suspect it came up in conversation without attribution. Likely sometime ~1980 -- 1999. That variant may well trace to Vonnegut, though I suspect it had been passed through numerous mouths and ears by the time I heard it.

pavlov 3y ago

“The world is on a turtle’s back” is Iroquois cosmology, at least.

lostlogin 3y ago
Wow, thank you. I’d always thought this a Pratchett things. I see it has a history in India and China too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Turtle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Turtle
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  How could at least two cultures without a communication line between them both come up with such a quirky idea? There must be some underlying truth to it.. I'm sold. World turtle is the answer.
  - the_af 3y ago
    "The Turtle Moves"!
    - detourdog 3y ago
      I'm sure they stepped on turtles to go back and forth across the bering strait.
  - kridsdale3 3y ago
    Chinese writing began with turtle shells as well, that's why the mostly conform to a sort of grid system, with curves.

DonHopkins 3y ago

Dr Seuss's Yertle the Turtle is a metaphor for Hitler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yertle_the_Turtle_and_Other_Stories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yertle_the_Turtle_and_Other_St... >Seuss has stated that the titular character Yertle represented Adolf Hitler, with Yertle's despotic rule of the pond and takeover of the surrounding area parallel to Hitler's regime in Germany and invasion of various parts of Europe.[3][4] Though Seuss made a point of not beginning the writing of his stories with a moral in mind, stating that "kids can see a moral coming a mile off", he was not against writing about issues; he said "there's an inherent moral in any story" and remarked that he was "subversive as hell".[5][6] "Yertle the Turtle" has variously been described as "autocratic rule overturned",[7] "a reaction against the fascism of World War II",[8] and "subversive of authoritarian rule".[9]

dredmorbius 3y ago

Quote Investigator traces variants back as far as 1626, though it evolves over time. A "rocks all the way down" variant dates to 1838, "tortoises all the way down" to 1854: <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/08/22/turtles-down/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/08/22/turtles-down/> The version I'd first heard attributed the story to a lecture by Bertrand Russell and an audience Q&A, though it seems clear that that couldn't have been the first instance.

detourdog 3y ago
Your source story sounds like the story I heard/read Kurt Vonnegut tell,
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Agreed, though I don't believe that's the context I first heard it. I've run across the Vonnegut variant more recently. I don't recall where or when I heard the earlier version for the first time, though I suspect it came up in conversation without attribution. Likely sometime ~1980 -- 1999. That variant may well trace to Vonnegut, though I suspect it had been passed through numerous mouths and ears by the time I heard it.