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MARCH 9, 1983

PAGE 11

Read This Book Before It’s Too Late !

REPRINTED ing THE
ARTHUR BY C

Schell’s The Fate ‘of the Earth
is an impassioned plea for a
renewal of humanism pro-
found enough to stave off a
nuclear holocaust. Only by
making the ‘unthinkable’
thinkable, or in Schell’s
macabre phrase, by exploring
the meaning of extinction, can
we hope to throw off the. in-
ertia and despair that are born
out of the nuclear peril, and
thereby reclaim the value of
the human species.

In the firse“of-three essays,
Schell begins by describing
the effects of a nuclear attack
on the city of New York. Ex-
trapolating from the personal
testimonies and from the
scientific documents regard-
ing the bombing of Hiroshima.
Schell imagines what a sur-
vivor would experience follow-
ing an airburst or a ground-
burst of a one megaton bomb.
Since, as Schell convincingly
argues, any use of nuclear
arms is likely to precipitate a
full-scale nuclear holocaust, it
is our shared responsibility to
chronicle and commit to"
memory an event that we have
never experienced and must
never experience.”

Whereas the fitst essay in-
vestigates with gruesome re-
dundancy the physical
destruction ot a nuclear attack
on human life and the environ-
ment, the second essay ex-
plores the metaphysical im-
plications of the nuclear pred-
icament. The ‘birth’ of the
atomic bomb and with it the
human species’ ability to ex-
terminate itself has created a
disjunction in history such that
art, the psychology of the in-
dividual, and reality itself
have been irevocably altered.
As a consequence of our help-
lessness in the face of this
terror, we have engaged in a
pernicious double-think, on
the one hand acknowledging
the possibility of imminent
global destruction, and on the
‘other hand, going about our
mundane affairs as if our fu-
ture was guaranteed. Schell
compares our response - the
flagrant denial of the danger
of the nuclear world - to the
calm of a group of tourists,
leisurely sipping cocktails and
sunning on board a sinking
ship. Above all, Schell’s book
is a rallying cry, calling for the
“full, emotional, intellectual,
spiritual, and visceral under-
standing of the meaning of
extinction.’

However, Schell’s explanation

weak philosophical reflection.
Schell writes:‘‘The fund-
amental origin of the peril of
human extinction by nuclear
arms lies not in any particular
social or political circum-
stances of our time, but in the
attainment by making as a
whole atter a millenia ot
scientific progress of a certain.
level of knowledge of the
physical universe.’’ In other

of the meaning of extinction is

not matched by his explana-
tion of the origin of the nuclear
predicament. Although we
might expect political and his-
torical analysis, instead we get

words, our probing of the
mysteries of nature inevitably
led to the splitting of the atom,
and from there, to the creation
of the nuclear bomb. This is
the fact of human reason, says
Schell, that it contains the
seeds of its own destruction.
But this is quite obviously
false. The knowledge of the
split atom is one thing, the
knowledge attained by the

scientists involved with the
Manhattan Project is some-
thing else. The origin of the
problem is not scientific know-
ledge per se, but the collusion
of science and politics that led
to the development of the first
atomic bomb, and then to the
arms race. Contrary to
Schell’s assertion, the nuclear
peril has everything to do with
particular social and political

circumstances. Schell’s re-
luctance to engage in social
ce litical analysis seriously

icaps his discussion of
= nuclear predicament, and
thus provides no basis for the
necessary political solutions.
[t is as though he calls atten-
tion to the sinking ship, but
tells us to bail out water in-
stead of repairing its struc-
tural flaws.

Wathine: Health and Welfare Canada advises that danger to health increases with amount smoked — avoid inhaling.

ee Z ae 9 g “tar”, 08 i nicotine.