[My father’s rather pessimistic worldview as well as his wit are in evidence in this journal entry about the atomic bomb. (His use of the first-person plural “we” to express his opinions is somewhat unusual for him, however.) Written about half-a-year after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this essay characterizes the development and use of atomic bombs as “simply the latest in a long series of inventions and situations which man has used to make himself seem a bit more important than he actually is.” Despite causing people to worry about humankind’s survival — and, perhaps driving them see a movie now rather than later given that “any day now an atomic bomb could conceivably close the show and your interest in it simultaneously” — my father has little doubt that the new weapons “should be an overwhelming success.”]
March 21, 1946 (location unknown)
This is the year when the world is absorbed with the power-play between the United States and Russia, and with the forthcoming atomic bomb test at Bikini lagoon. These events no doubt have an important bearing on the question of war and peace, and even of ultimate human survival on this planet. There used to be some conjecture, mainly in the Sunday supplements, about the remote possibility of our sun flaring up and baking us to a crisp, or of a collision between our little planet and some vast marauder from outer space. Another favorite theory had the sun cooling down after some millions of years until life should be extinguished on this planetary chunk of ice.
Since last summer these theories have been relegated to the category of harmless bagatelles, strictly for children. And even as we write it, we detect an odious patronizing note in our reference to the kids, not at all fair to them. For years they’ve been ardently supporting Buck Rogers, Superman, and company while we have smiled indulgently, or scoffed, perhaps. Now that our scientists have released atomic energy, we find that our kids have intuitively been forging down the right track, and left us behind in our ivory towers. But now that the explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have shattered our complacency, we’re still a little confused. It may indeed be true, as we have been warned by various authorities, that we are threatened with mass extinction unless we do something about it very soon. Fine, – we’re agreeable, but what are we supposed to do? After all, we have only the haziest conception of how the contraption works. We don’t even know what it looks like, and have to trust our newspapers and magazines for an account of what it does. We can offer one suggestion strictly from the layman’s point of view. If these A-bombs are the dangerous toys that our scientists claim, why don’t we just dispose of our present stocks in some out-of-the-way place, and then discontinue production from this time forward? To please those who are patriotically-minded, the disposal could take place on this coming Fourth of July.
But we are being facetious, and we admit it. In our exceedingly complex civilization, so simple a solution is utterly impracticable. Imagine every nation in the world promising never to fool around with atomic explosives, not even out of curiosity, and then keeping its promise. The results in technological unemployment alone are frightening to estimate. Thousands of scientists and technicians the world over would be thrown out of work. Of course, men of their ability and training might be enlisted in the struggle to produce the food, clothing, and shelter which alone can save a reported quarter of the population of the globe from untimely and uncomfortable death, but the difficulties of adjustment between two such divergent types of work are probably too great even to be considered. It must be somewhat discouraging to these men, however, to see how far the old natural scourges of famine, disease, and exposure are still outstripping the destructive power of their newest explosive.
We suspect that this atomic bomb is simply the latest in a long series of inventions and situations which man has used to make himself seem a bit more important than he actually is. Being too intelligent to enjoy life entirely on the low level of appreciation of the beasts and birds, he needs to dramatize his life by devising real or imaginary threats to his already troubled existence, – everything from an inscrutable and vengeful God to an excess-profits tax. He feels most alive when he is in danger; his senses are keyed up to an unusual awareness of this life which becomes suddenly so valuable when it appears that it may have to be cashed in tomorrow or the next day. You’ll think twice about putting off seeing “Life With Father” until nineteen forty-eight or nine when you realize that any day now an atomic bomb could conceivably close the show and your interest in it simultaneously.
Of course this is rather a risky game which man has been playing with himself. It has to be. If no one got hurt or killed in these various experiments with predestination and mechanics, the farce would become too apparent, and people would lose interest. I imagine that this point might be demonstrated by the slackening of popular interest in religion since the terrors of hell fire and the imminence of divine intervention have been generally discounted. Throughout history those enterprises have enjoyed the greatest interest and support in which the members have most recklessly invoked their own death and destruction. By this criterion, the atomic bomb should be an overwhelming success.
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