The Atomic Apocalypse

...The atomic bomb merely made it finally urgent...

...One of the oddest figures in Washington recently, reported the editor of Human Events, was the distinguished scientist who arrived at the White House with two plans in his pocket...

...Either we mount forthrightly and quickly to the new, heroic level of plenty and freedom which science has made possible and to the new dimen-smus of global government which the atomic bomb, among other inventions, has made necessary—either that or we choose the stone age caves and the pastoral simplicities into which human life will be forced to retreat by the self-destruction of science and science'* w or Id...

...attenuated and distorted by the personal italic of a hrndred commentators, has proclaimed that we must end war or face the prospect o. international suicide within a matter of a comparatively few years...

...As for the second, there may be something is It, since the scientist in question is genuinely gifted and resourceful—w"hin hlr special field of competence...

...For we cannot have it both ways...

...Now, having "won" the war, we are in a position to Balkanize and medievalize Europe according to the unblushing Morgenthau-Baruch formula...

...Outlaw the atomic weapon...

...This is an attempt at definition which, however marred it may be by the personal static of the writer, may serve to stimulate other and better attempts...

...At first he has diffcutty in breathing ihr sunny air of his estate...

...The other wsa a method of defense against atomic bombs by the establishment of electrical fields above our great cities...

...It is merely another symptom—a very acute and alarming symptom—of an old disorder with which »11 contemporary aocial scientists are familiar, namely the destructive contradiction between our lagging sociology and our rapidly advancing physical science and technology...

...In short, I hsve discovered what 1 should have known from the beginning: that scientists, despite the god-like powers with which they deal, are neither better nor wiser than other men...

...not as individuals, and especially not as they are repi.aented collectively by the policies and actions of their professional organizations...

...If we make the positive, heroic choice — and indeed there is no other real choice —then negative control of the new weapons will not be enough...

...I have known courageous snd self-sustaining personalities, but also too many pliant Milquetoasts and morally vulgar corporation enuggi -pups...

...The danger will be there so long as we attempt to conduct the life of nations in an artificial environment of scarcity which can be maintained only by larger and larger applications of diplomatic idiocy, political chicanery, terrorism, and military force...

...Only the hysteria of despair would prompt such nonsense...

...he will drown if he goet back...

...This translation of the voice, in which generals and civilians of all politics...

...A WORLD that started with the small beer of gunpowder has at last acquired the absinthe of the atomic bomb, and even the absinthe-makers nre icared...

...Unhappily, ss with most scientists, thst field is not broad enough to embrace tho necessary dimensions of mi' problem...

...faiths agree, seems to the writer to be at once true and yet somehow to mUs the point...

...We are not much helped or enlightened by frantic warnings of ? "push-button" war, with instant atomization of the major urban centers of civilization...

...This merely describes the "ceremonial technique of our prospective global hara-kiri without explaining how to avoid this fate...

...Pile the atomic bombs in windows behind the guarded fences of secret arsenals, as tbe poison gas tanks are piled all over ?? gland...

...I have been tremendously impressed by the true priests of science but I have also been obliged to recognize the existence of a horde of brushed and vapid altar boys...

...But not from the clerks, the altar-boys, and the snuggle-pups...

...Considered socially and politically the atomic bomb is nothing new...

...This formula, by destroying Germany as a competitor in the international market, is expected to provide us with a new dfal of scarcity, with which to quench the technologically exacerbated thirst of British and American imperialism...

...Indeed, not even the great men of science and technology—and there 'are not a few genuinely great personalities among them—can be depended upon to confront and engage the problem unaided and un-guided...

...It is thus we mutt breathe and use the new climate of the technological age...

...We must use them systematically, universally, and without thought of price for the benefit of nations and persons all over the world...

...Infest the world with scientific spies, ordered to ferret out the techhological preparations of the world's next Cain...

...All that the atomic bomb means is that with respect to the treatment of this disorder, our time is running out...

...In addition, we have now kicked the Japs out of the international bar at Shanghai...

...Scarcity, controlled and manipulated at the international level by cartels, is necessary to the world that the atomic bomb made obsolete...

...LaONG before that forty-mile tower of dust rose over Hiroshima the obviously necessary scale of government in the modern world was thejrloba' scale...

...Man it like a eta animal who a-fter «in.»« of living in the »alt, asti ingent octan of scarcity, hat climbril out upon nlii tidal shore...

...Will our world repeat this banal tragedy ? Yes, probably, unless we succeed first in defining our problem, second in composing a solution, third in implementing the successive steps of the solution...

...To buttress national sovereignty and scarcity, the world went to war...

...That will give white imperialism one more round—the whole trade of the Pacific to drink at a gulp— before we stagger drunkenly into the gutter of the next war and there die in the rain of atomic destruction that will drench the world...

...As Human Event» pointed out, the first proposal is obviously futile so long as we hsve totalitarian governments anywhere in the world...

...but I have also, it seems to me, met too msny smug and ignorant clerks and routineers...

...I have encountered first-rate, wide-ranging intelligences...

...With humility, with prayer, but also with robust self-respect and realism, we must all of us do our part to build a collective will to peace and plenty...

...We spent two billion dollars on atomic research and development alone...

...If the choice were mine I should rather entrust my future and that of my child to almost any reasonably honest Congressman than to the collective sophistication, intelligence and morality of the scientific fraternity as thus far manifesteti...

...So be has his laat and biggest spree and kirks out...

...Starting with my share of the layman's usual exaggerated reverence for the scientist as the Promethean savior of the modern world, I have experienced a considerable disillusionment...

...It must become our business to use, positively and construe-teively, for the liberation of man's life throughout the world, all the new powers, including the liberated power of the atom, that science has placed in our hands...

...Hut the slcoholic's physical metabolism ia hopelessly perverted, and his psychology has sickened into an *lm»»t continuous death-wish...

...One more spree, warns the doctor, snd you kirk out...

...One was a proposal for suppressing the use of the atomic weapon by a system of International inspection...

...The world is like an alcoholic with a bad heart who has been going on bigger and bigger sprees...

...Hut he must breathe and use it—else he dies...

...Granted, the Congressman needs scientific advice...

...Very well, then...

...To that end...

...He it not amphibtous...

...For some years this writer has occupied himself with reporting and interpreting the social applications of science in medicine and other related fields...

...a Jieeting of the United...

...The problem is to adjust man's lite to the realities of the technological age...

...There is no scientific George whom we cen afford to let do it...

...Fasten chastity belts arourd the brows of the world's scientists and technicians and then throw the keys into the ocean...