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We loved our bomb. We had such affection for the tidy, miraculous work of our hands. We wanted to give him a nickname, an enduring testament to our cleverness. We called him Fat Man.
On the ground, 73,844 Japanese people called him sudden death. 74,909 more called him a lifetime of physical suffering.
Today, 62 years later, we might call him a reminder to pray for a world in which the destruction of innocent human lives on a catastrophic scale is still considered an effective means of conflict resolution. (Only if diplomatic measures fail, mind you).
The desire to pick up weapons that we're not really prepared to handle is only one manifestation of our giddy faith in technological control as the solution to all problems. Let's get off the frenzied, promise-laden bandwagon of the Next Big Thing and learn to use, with love and patience, the means we already have in front of us.
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1 comments:
It is especially curious to recall the "giddy" (as you say) development of the hydrogen bomb, and all the political rhetoric used to justify it, in the context of our current paranoia about smaller "oppositional" nations developing nuclear arms. We can't realistically expect other nations not to pursue nuclear weapons technology if we are unwilling to disarm. We've already forgotten the very recent memory of schoolchildren being taught to hide under their desks with books over their heads in case of a nuclear attack.
BTW I really think you should read DeLillo's Underworld... I think it's the best book I've ever read, and I think it would resonate with a lot of your thoughts.
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