Its The End Of The World...And I Feel Fine Essays - Nuclear Warfare

It's The End Of The World...And I Feel Fine Elspeth Wilson Politics & Film Final Paper December 15, 2000 Its the End of the Worldand I Feel Fine! (The role of intellectuals in the creation and justification of nuclear weapons.) In Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Sidney Lumet and Stanley Kubrick question the relationship between technology and humanity by emphasizing mankinds tendency to create machines that cannot be adequately controlled. By blatantly revealing the absurdity of game theory (Mutual Assured Destruction as a reasonable deterrence for nuclear war), both directors call into question the dominant pro-Cold War American ideology. One of the most quintessential aspects of this ideology includes the drive for constant technological advance and strategic superiority. Without the brainpower of the scientists and intellectuals who dedicated their lives to the extension of technological power and the study of international conflict, the Arms Race would certainly not have been possible. These academics not only became the architects of atomic weapons but they were also faced with justifying the use of these nuclear bombs, and creating a theoretical fra mework within which nuclear warfare might be appropriately (and rationally) conducted. Within this context, one noteworthy parallel between Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove is the existence (in both films) of a single intellectual genius that actively perpetuates the science of nuclear advancement and strategy. Indeed, through the characterizations of Professor Groeteschele and Dr. Strangelove, both Lumet and Kubrick examine the prominent role of intellectuals (both scientists and theorists) in the creation and justification of nuclear warfare. Ultimately, both Lumet and Kubrick reveal the problems with relying solely on science and mathematics to resolve international conflict, thus suggesting that modern warfare requires a more humanistic, ethical definition of right and wrong. Both Fail Safe and Dr Strangelove serve as moralizing responses to the dominant American Cold War culture, rhetoric, and political policy. In his article titled Dr. Strangelove (1964): Nightmare Comedy and the ideology of Liberal Consensus, Charles Maland identifies the dominant American cultural paradigm (during the Cold War) as the Ideology of the Liberal Consensus. Maland maintains that the Ideology of the Liberal Consensus first developed as the American people began to feel increasingly threatened by the rise and spread of Communism. After World War II, this cultural paradigm solidified, taking on an intellectual coherence of its own. Indeed, the logic behind this paradigm involved two widely accepted principles: (1) The structure of American society is basically sound. (2) Communism is a clear danger to the survival of the United States and its allies. From the combination of these assumptions, emerged a new definition of Americanism that was predicated upon the concepts of democracy, capitalism, and general material abundance. However, in order to satisfy the demands of this new Americanism, the United States needed to struggle against Communism and willingly support a strong defense systemfor power is the only language that the Communists can understand. Because the maintenance of a superior defense system required frequent technological advancement, physicists, chemists, and other scientists became necessary members of government/military research teams. In addition to the so-called hard scientists, theorists and strategic experts were needed in order to make informed and rational decisions about the circumstances under which the new technological devices (i.e. nuclear weapons) should be used. This emerging Cold War cultural paradigm was both created by and gave birth to a new breed of academicthe nuclear-intellectual. Because technology, nuclear science, and war strategy became such an integral part of the definition of American culture and security, the scientists and the theoreticians that participated in this nuclear culture achieved political prominence. These academics not designed advanced killing-machines, but they were also employed to create a new theoretical framework that rationally justified the use of nuclear weapons in specific confrontations. Thus, both the hard-scientists and the game-theorists became an integral part of the Cold War culture, supplying the country with two vital ingredients (both the machinery and the rhetoric) necessary for the creation of a new American ideology (based on democracy, capitalism, societal complacency, and soviet paranoia etc.). Because of the unique role of intellectuals in the initial formulation of the ideology, principles, and technology behind the liberal consensus, any work that