Frank Wimberly wrote:
And more to the point, I think, it was Military and Political *Will* that lead to the development of nuclear weapons. And today, Military, Political, and Economic *will* that continues it. While the Scientists and Engineers on the Manhattan project might have been practicing their Science and Engineering for it's own sake also, they were doing so in pursuit of a specific Political and Military goal: The development of an unthinkably devastating weapon which they believed that both Hitler and Stalin were near to having themselves. Many of these Scientists had fled the political control of these two megalomaniacs and understood too well what it could mean for them to be the first (or only) to have the biggest stick. Many of the Scientists (and I suspect the Engineers as well) on the Manhattan Project had a lot of concerns about the implications of what they were developing. The contemporary judgment of Scientists as being warmongers is highly misplaced (understanding that this judgement is not universally held). Most of those selected to work on the Manhattan project were chosen *for* their likely sympathy with the cause. It did no-one any good to try to induct someone into the fold who was patently against the notion, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that there were plenty who might have contributed but were not asked because they were not sure to be willing. I am not a Nuclear Apologist. I came to LANL in 1981 as somewhat of a Pacifist (for example, I was a vegetarian of principle, unwilling to kill animals to round out my omnivorous diet) but nevertheless believing in the principle of "Mutual Assured Destruction". Believing that once Pandora's Box was open, the most we could hope for was enough "parity" between 3 superpowers (as China was fading from that status at the time) to maintain an uneasy truce. I was (naively?) happy that "the good guys" had the bigger stick and I applauded keeping it that way. Once the Wall fell and the death knells of the cold war were heard, I was less sure of MAD as ever having made sense. Soon after that, the Dalai Lama came to Santa Fe and spoke to thousands. He was attended by no more "security" than a couple of other monks walking humbly and smiling grandly. Within months previous, Prez Clinton had visited LANL with his usual entourage of hundreds of Secret Service, Police Escorts, etc. similarly, the Pope was in Denver riding around in his bullet-proof case on the top of the Pope-Mobile. The Dalai Lama has a similar number of followers as either of these other two figures and some very specific enemies, yet he was in no apparent way feeling (or being) threatened. You could imagine that neither Bill nor John Paul would last an hour w/o all their security, yet the Dalai Lama is virtually available to anyone who might want to cause him harm. Back to the point. One of the audience at the public speaking asked the question about Los Alamos. (a nuclear weapons opponent) This simple exchange helped me to resolve the confusion I had about what was going on in our MAD foreign policy. It did not make me feel any better or any worse about the nature of much of the work at LANL, it just helped me to understand that the problem is not the science or even the technology. On the other hand, many LANL employees of all stripes are Hawks. They are either that way because it is superficially consistent with the work they do, or it is economic, ensuring future employment, or it is a self-selecting process. Many people dedicated to peace would be unwilling to work that closely to the belly of the beast. In my greatest fantasies I wish that no-one had ever invented Nuclear Weapons. Or learned to weaponize hoof-and-mouth disease or smallpox or ... . Or developed nerve gas, or mustard gas, or napalm, or greek fire. Or developed rockets, or guns, or gunpowder. Or learned to make ballistic weapons such as spears or atlatls or bows or catapults or trebuchets. Or learned to flake stone into having sharp edges. Or learned to create and control fire. But homo sapiens (at least the males of the species) seem to be very territorial and violent by nature and through the application of an upright stance, a gripping hand with opposable thumb, the skill and will to shape tools and weapons, and the capacity of language to develop and spread knowledge and ideology, have been hell bent on dominating eachother, every other species and the physical world they inhabit at every opportunity. To the extent that Science (and Engineering) support these endeavors, we can say it is bad. Art, on the other hand, is not so much about the physical world, but more about the world of ideas and thoughts and feelings and experiences. To agree vehemently with Ann, I would say that it is upon "the Arts" to find solutions to the problems of how to transcend our (apparent) nature as deadly exploiters of everything we encounter. The practice of Science and Engineering can play some small tactical roles in this transformation perhaps. We have shown that even the development of intrinsically *defensive* weapons unbalances power, fueling arms races. To the extent that the Social and Political Sciences are truly grounded in the Scientific Method and sound Mathematics, Science might be able to help a little with recognizing likely or unlikely tactics. |
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