Odelay
11-24-2014, 05:06 AM
This linked piece from the I09 site (http://io9.com/have-we-stopped-fearing-nuclear-war-1661283699/+tcraggs22) is interesting as it sets up an interesting cultural question, but obviously no piece can truly answer such a question because the fear of nuclear war is ultimately a personal one that the individual must sort out for himself/herself. However, as a young lad of the 70's I find it a fascinating one and as I look back on my life I find that this specific fear had a huge effect on me.
For one, nuclear war was one of several issues of the day that raged through the 70's, 80's and 90's that made me quite cynical about doing the family thing. It also moved me to the left politically, away from my parents' Republican views, as I bought into the "itchy trigger finger" argument against Reagan in my first presidential election vote. Turns out lots of people actually favored having a fake cowboy with alleged itchy trigger finger in the White House.
Fast forward to today, and it seems like most people have enough to deal with than to spend time worrying about nuclear war. And I guess I pretty much fit that same mold. Over in the movie thread we're spending time discussing Dr Strangelove and other nihilistic Kubrick movies. It's amazing to me how many movies told a story of basic human error responsible for nuclear explosions or full on war. Such a narrative was used in serious movies like Fail Safe, satire like Strangelove, escapist fare like War Games, and many in between. And yet despite all the dire warnings, we've had no accidents. And when I say "we", I mean the entire world, from the US and USSR with their huge arsenals to smaller players like Pakistan and Israel.
We're going on nearly 70 years since a nuclear explosion took human life, at least directly. The after effects on humans living near test zones is another matter. And still, no cock ups. No nefarious blue turban wearing, nostradamus-predicted villains setting off a chain reaction of nukes across the planet. One of my favorite books of all time was Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle with one of the main characters carrying around a chip of Ice-9 in a thermos that if released would freeze the oceans solid, forever. It was obviously allegory for the stalemate that the US v USSR held the world in, each having their own doomsday arsenal of weapons that would destroy the planet, manyfold over. And yet, I'm guessing that even Vonnegut on his deathbed had to wonder how mankind hadn't destroyed the place, yet. The Ice-9 chip was, of course, deployed in his story.
I guess it's not too late to have a major fuck up that screws things up pretty bad. But after 70 years, it feels like we're playing with house money at this point. I'm pretty sanguine with the idea that I had a pretty good run and that if it all blows up tomorrow, I didn't do half bad in this life of mine. A far cry from the 17 yr old high school student who wrote multiple term papers on the topic of the horror of nuclear war. And even a long way from the 26 yr old pseudo-intellectual who watched Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice and nodded along muttering... "uh huh, uh huh, uh huh."
For one, nuclear war was one of several issues of the day that raged through the 70's, 80's and 90's that made me quite cynical about doing the family thing. It also moved me to the left politically, away from my parents' Republican views, as I bought into the "itchy trigger finger" argument against Reagan in my first presidential election vote. Turns out lots of people actually favored having a fake cowboy with alleged itchy trigger finger in the White House.
Fast forward to today, and it seems like most people have enough to deal with than to spend time worrying about nuclear war. And I guess I pretty much fit that same mold. Over in the movie thread we're spending time discussing Dr Strangelove and other nihilistic Kubrick movies. It's amazing to me how many movies told a story of basic human error responsible for nuclear explosions or full on war. Such a narrative was used in serious movies like Fail Safe, satire like Strangelove, escapist fare like War Games, and many in between. And yet despite all the dire warnings, we've had no accidents. And when I say "we", I mean the entire world, from the US and USSR with their huge arsenals to smaller players like Pakistan and Israel.
We're going on nearly 70 years since a nuclear explosion took human life, at least directly. The after effects on humans living near test zones is another matter. And still, no cock ups. No nefarious blue turban wearing, nostradamus-predicted villains setting off a chain reaction of nukes across the planet. One of my favorite books of all time was Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle with one of the main characters carrying around a chip of Ice-9 in a thermos that if released would freeze the oceans solid, forever. It was obviously allegory for the stalemate that the US v USSR held the world in, each having their own doomsday arsenal of weapons that would destroy the planet, manyfold over. And yet, I'm guessing that even Vonnegut on his deathbed had to wonder how mankind hadn't destroyed the place, yet. The Ice-9 chip was, of course, deployed in his story.
I guess it's not too late to have a major fuck up that screws things up pretty bad. But after 70 years, it feels like we're playing with house money at this point. I'm pretty sanguine with the idea that I had a pretty good run and that if it all blows up tomorrow, I didn't do half bad in this life of mine. A far cry from the 17 yr old high school student who wrote multiple term papers on the topic of the horror of nuclear war. And even a long way from the 26 yr old pseudo-intellectual who watched Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice and nodded along muttering... "uh huh, uh huh, uh huh."