ARTICLE ABSTRACTS
NUCLEAR WAR AND SCIENCE FICTION
Merritt Abrash
Through Logic to Apocalypse: Science-Fiction
Scenarios of Nuclear Deterrence Breakdown
Abstract.--Since the US and USSR have not gone to war with each other during
the 40 years of the Atomic Era, the logic of nuclear deterrence seems triumphant. However,
a few SF novels in which deterrence fails--The Pallid Giant (1927), Red Alert
(1958), and Level 7 (1959) - give indications of a hidden logic which promises
eventual breakdown of any deterrent system no matter how well it seems to be working. The
primary commitment of each possessor of super-weapons is not to the maintenance of
deterrence, but to the discovery of a way to undertake a first strike without suffering
unacceptable retaliation--a logical policy, given the lack of trust among sovereign
entities and the fact that survival itself is at stake. The logical progression from
super-weapons to deterrence to eventual apocalypse can be headed off, as in Heinlein's
"Solution Unsatisfactory, " but only through abandonment of fundamental political
values of Western civilization. The maintenance of nuclear peace by the conventional logic
of deterrence is always at the mercy of a broader, subtle logic inseparable from
deterrence and tending to undermine it.
Martha A. Bartter
Nuclear Holocaust as Urban Renewal
Abstract.--We hold an ambivalent attitude towards our cities: they
represent the epitome of our modern technological culture; they also represent decadence,
sin, and decay. We pay lip service to "urban renewal," but in practice we seem
to prefer starting anew. Nuclear "war" would strike first at cities. The
resulting "return to the wilderness, " despite its horrifying cause, shows up in
our fiction as secretly desirable.
Fiction embodies our cultural assumptions in recoverable form. Since we act on our
assumptions, they are worth paying attention to. Examining our fiction, we find that our
concept of nuclear "war" has barely changed since the 1930s; that we anticipate
a continuing rise and fall of the nation-state as symbolized by the city; that we expect
to survive this destruction, and even benefit from it despite all evidence to the
contrary. We need to develop a new and vital vision of peace.
D.H. Dowling
The Atomic Scientist: Machine or Moralist?
Abstract.--The moral and social obligations of the atomic scientists
have been a matter of intense debate since the time of Rutherford, and were particularly
debated before and after Hiroshima, 1945. After looking at the attempts of scientists like
Einstein and Oppenheimer to reconcile pure research with social application, the essay
shows how several SF stories and novels of the period (many before 1945) predicted this
debate and offered their own solutions. The essay suggests a movement in these stories
from the Superman-scientist through the scientist as victim or madman to the scientist as
one part of a complex political and military hierarchy. While exonerating the atomic
scientist from unique blame, the last stories I consider implicate the scientist and
society at large in responsibility for creating and now living with the bomb.
H. Bruce Franklin
Strange Scenarios: Science Fiction, the Theory of
Alienation, and the Nuclear Gods
Abstract.--Having attained access to the forces that shape matter, we
now have powers that could either grant us conscious control over our destiny or
extinguish all human life. SF has been projecting scenarios of this ultimate contradiction
between freedom and alienation ever since the emergence of industrial capitalism. The
Marxist theory of alienation, appearing shortly after Mary Shelley's archetypal visions in
Frankenstein and The Last Man, assumes a profoundly new significance
when applied to modern technological warfare, which took shape in the US Civil War and the
Franco-Prussian War. When the new popular literary genre of fiction imagining future wars,
itself part of the dialectic of modern war, was appropriated by American authors between
1880 and 1917, they became missionaries of the myth and cult of the super-weapon, thus
helping to create the cultural matrix of America's actual wars and our current potentially
apocalyptic predicament. Meanwhile, two priests of that cult--Edison and Tesla--were
projecting different forms of salvation through weaponry. Both the ideology and the
hardware of nuclear weapons were first projected in pre-World-War-One SF, which can be
understood most relevantly by a suggested new extension of the Marxist theory of
alienation. Some modern SF has penetrated to the essential meaning of the alien forces we
have created and of our own identity as creators of the only known monsters capable of
annihilating us as a species.
Dominic Manganiello
History as Judgment and Promise in A Canticle for
Leibowitz
Abstract.--In A Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller explores various ideas
of history. Thon Taddeo, because of his skepticism towards biblical myth and the history
of the post-atomic age known as "The Flame Deluge, " represents the viewpoint of
scientific rationalism. The desire to blot out the history of "The Flame Deluge"
recalls certain aspects of Orwell's 1984. Miller's historian recounts how God commanded
the making of engines of war in order to test the human race in the 21st century, just as
he had done in the beginning. But by a fitting ironic twist, the atomic bomb is nicknamed
"Lucifer." Nuclear history is cyclical, as the pattern of destruction
continually repeats itself. Human nature, as well as history, repeats itself in Miller's
view. As a result, Miller's vision of the demise of the planet has led some readers to
conclude that his book is a pessimistic one. Miller's disillusionment counterpoints the
"historic optimism" which flourished from the late 18th to the early 20th
century; but it also mirrors the "psychosis" of our time--which could be
diagnosed as a "nuclear complex." The historical explanations for this
"complex" also have a moral dimension: personal evil. Miller conceives of his
fiction as having the purpose of a warning. His historical vision at once embraces nuclear
catastrophe and transcends the immediate spectacle of tragedy. Like the Hebrew prophets,
Miller superimposes the idea of history as promise on the idea of history as judgment. The
space exodus, headed by Brother Joshua, acts as a providential sign that the human race,
if not the planet, will go on. Miller's eschatological optimism allows for the linear,
providential pattern of salvation history to offset the cyclical, destructive pattern of
nuclear history. (Leibowitz's life of repentance forms part of this providential pattern.)
For Miller, then, repetition is foremost a "recollection forward" to the final
coming of the "Integrator, " or Lord of history, who will fit things together
again.
Thomas J. Morrissey
Zelazny: Mythmaker of Nuclear War
Abstract.--Roger Zelazny often writes SF in which he merges the myths
of many cultures with myths of his own creation. In four major works--This Immortal,
"For a Breath I Tarry, " "Damnation Alley, " and Deus Irae--Zelazny
applies his flair for myth-making and myth-merging to the subject of nuclear war. He
assumes that his audience already knows that nuclear war is unacceptable; hence, he has no
need to write sensational shockers. Although his works display the mandatory devastated
landscapes and mutated life forms, they also feature vital characters who triumph in the
post-war world. Often these characters assume heroic stature because the author wraps them
in the mantle of myth. Thus Conrad in This Immortal is a composite of Apollo and
Dionysus; he is chosen to rule the post-war Earth because of his perfect psychological
balance. When Frost, an intelligent machine of "For a Breath I Tarry, " becomes
a human long after humankind has committed atomic suicide, he is, metaphorically, a risen
god, a new Adam, and the mythic founder of the Incas rolled into one. Hell Tanner of
"Damnation Alley" is an American super-hero who embodies the best and worst
traits of an Old West sheriff and a Hell's Angel. His brand of heroism is about the best
that could be hoped for in the devastated world in which the tale is set. Deus Irae pictures
a world in which nuclear war survivors create a new myth and a new religion to explain the
folly that ruined the planet. In all of these works, Zelazny uses myth to explore and
express the glorious but perilous blend of Apollonian and Dionysian psychic elements that
yields in humans both creativity and irrational self-destruction. His heroes must find
positive ways to live with the misery caused by the creative perversity of their
forebears. In This Immortal and "For a Breath I Tarry," the balanced
genius of Conrad and Frost may lead to a new Golden Age, while in "Damnation
Alley" and Deus Irae, the best efforts of the most creative minds might not
be enough to insure the survival of the race. Implicit in Zelazny's mythic explorations of
the nuclear menace is a warning that there may be no mythic or folk hero big enough to
save us if we succumb to our baser instincts and blow up the world.
Daniel L. Zins
Rescuing Science from Technocracy: Cat's Cradle and
the Play of Apocalypse
Abstract.--Kurt Vonnegut employs SF to help his readers face problems
that they might not otherwise be able to face directly. In Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut
turns to SF to help us to stop and think about our most important problem, and the one we
seem to have the most difficulty confronting: the increasing possibility of nuclear war.
Vonnegut examines the life of Felix Hoenikker, one of the "fathers" of the
atomic bomb. A solipsistic and profoundly "innocent" man, Hoenikker, because of
his perverted sense of play, remains utterly oblivious to the moral implications of his
discoveries and the purposes for which they are used. Rather than a neo-luddite indictment
of science itself, Cat's Cradle is a warning of the apocalyptic consequences of
failing to rescue science from technocracy. This can only happen if the individual
scientist refuses to be an accomplice in the preparation for Armageddon. The novel also
asks us to consider the possibility of our own complicity.
In Cat's Cradle, the purpose of the Bokonist religion is to provide the
miserable inhabitants of San Lorenzo with better and better lies. Conscious of his
responsibilities as a writer in a nuclear age, Vonnegut also provides his readers with
better and better lies, or fictions. If we act as if we can prevent nuclear war, we
increase our chances for survival. Although one finds little optimism in Vonnegut that we
can avoid destroying ourselves by our own stupidity and our deification of science and
technology, his writing continues to exhort us to resist becoming passive, willing victims
like Billy Pilgrim, the pitiful protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five. The Billy
Pilgrims of the world, no less than the Felix Hoenikkers, imperil our planet.
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