Another Thought On The Bomb

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

 On Mon, 7 Aug 1995 WKLJAZZ at aol.com wrote:

>   Spinning these thoughts out a bit more, I would suggest that the singular
> horror of the atomic bombs (as opposed old-fashioned acts of war terror)
> derives from the way in which they represent humanity's use of its most
> brilliant minds and, therefore, most HUMAN elements (reason, consciousness,
> intuition) for an act singularly inhumane.
> 
>   A dog can figure out that, to kill a squirrel, you just bite the thing more
> and harder, making it bleed (or whatever) more or faster.  And the old
> technology of war and terror was like that:  drop more exploding gunpowder,
> make a hotter fire, carpet a greater portion of a city.  With the German V
> rockets (and death camps) and the American A-bomb, however, nations turned
> entire systems of established intelligence and scientific advance to a dark
> purpose and were successful in generating death in ways that were not only
> more efficient but also seductive.  (I know I'm into GR territory here, and I
> don't mean to pass off these analyses as original, by the way.)  The ICBM,
> embodied for the first time by the V rockets, is a thing of beauty, in a sick
> sort of way.  It's arc, it's flight is poetry.  It's the Wright Brothers and
> Dorothy & Toto and The Odyssey and a million other perfect myths perverted
 > and blackened and rotted from the inside out.  The Bomb is the same --
> irresistable (to us, even now as we discuss it) and picturesque and
> attractive, curvy or cock-like, take your pick.
> 
>    Though they may have killed "only" as many or fewer people than older
> methods, and though the deaths themselves may have been no less horrible, the
> Bomb and the Rocket are unique and -- Cold War or no Cold War -- marked an
> irreversible turning point for us because they made systematic death so,
> well, sexy.  They generated the weapons of that death from the very
> intelligence and aesthetic that we like to believe makes us uniquely human
> and elevates us above the rest of our, now, delicate world.
> 
> -- Will L.
> 
Somebody pointed out somebody's suggestion that either a "he" or a "she" 
(he/she) dropped the bomb.  There was laughter, as it's known that no 
woman flew a bomber in WWII, certainly not THAT one, with THAT purpose.
As one of the few women here, I ave, in a funny parallel (I've noticed) 
not been eager to jump in on this discussion.  The thing is, it's not a 
dialogue;  hasn't been for some time.  This is a petty way.  Many of the 
posts here have taken on either offensive or defensive strategies.  And 
don't think the war metaphors escape the reader--they're frequently used 
here.  This horrid one-upmanship--for what?  I know more about this bomb 
than you do. . . this war was THE MOST horrific. . . this bomb was THE 
MOST meaningful.  It's gotten ridiculous.  

The sad thing is that I've learned, I say, alluding to the freakish 
parallel to Will L's post, the one that forces me to speak (not to "fire 
up," not to "retaliate," or to "combat the implications" of anything he's 
said.)  

The point is that there is nothing seductive about an ICBM, nothing sexy 
about thermonuclear weapons--however phallic (is that the appeal for you?)
"Systematic death," is made "sexy" for Will L.  How can that be?  I won't 
go into the horror of describing the skin, the eyes, etc., as has been 
the inclination (everyone's a novelist); it's unecessary; we already 
know; we've already seen.  

If nothing else, if everyone is still up for thrashing it out over who 
knows the most, whose ideological situation encourages the "right" 
opinion, could you avoid turning this conversation into pulp fiction?  It 
is supremely disrespectful, for the memory of the victims but also for 
our own intelligence and, at least, MY disinclination to find anything 
sexy in 
the "picturesque and attractive, curvy or cock-like" vision of the bomb 
and its effects.  So simple, this view; so insulting and naive.

Will L. ends his post by speaking more conceptually about the orientation 
of the mind that drives us to know.  This seems a much more likely place 
to build a critique.  Please don't remind me of how I, Pavlovian 
response, drool at the thought, site, or mention of a phallic image.  It 
simply isn't so.  

Bonnie Lenore Surfus
USF