Myth

Because all I'm doing these days is writing, I haven't really done anything else. Including writing here. So I thought I'd paste in a little taste of what I'm working on. Here's the conclusion to Chapter Five: Psychological characteristics - Hiroshima, part II.

No prudent statesman would base policies that affected the fundamental safety of his country on ambiguous and questionable evidence. Yet that is what we have imprudently done. The evidence that the Emperor was deeply affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is so gossamer thin that the merest breath of skepticism sweeps it aside. Because it was expedient to believe that the Bomb won the war, Americans have built an entire mythology around the power of the Bomb to create a special psychological shock that can be used to coerce and deter. When you look closely at the evidence in the case of Japan’s surrender, however, there is hardly any reason to put our faith in the notion that these bombs have a unique ability to coerce. Belief in the power of nuclear weapons to create special psychological effects is based, in the first instance, on a myth.

Comments

[Ralph Hitchens]

Ward, perhaps the Americans did indeed build a mythology around the atomic bomb, but is there any doubt that the rest of the world embraced it? Is MAD any less real and compelling if we prove, absolutely and positively, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki made little impact on the Japanese decision-makers in 1945? Some myths can be useful.

[Russ Wellen]

Ward, you're at your most eloquent here -- and that's saying a lot since most of what you write is eloquent.