A nuclear education campaign

Abstract

The threat of a nuclear war creates a chronic erosion of moral and intellectual integrity and places the future of humanity in the hands of a few hundred people. The nuclear elite probably requires a degree of psychological numbing and desensitization in order to separate themselves emotionally from decisions that might require exercise of their power. They may also lose the ability to question basic assumptions and may identify themselves with the rightness of their policies and the need to use nuclear technology to preserve those policies. To reform the nuclear-industrial complex, the American public must become educated to give the prevention of nuclear war a higher priority than the economy. Fears and anxieties may underlie apparent apathy, taking the form of denial and a focus on immediate problems. A campaign by knowledgeable people to educate the public should stress the empirical data necessary for objectivity and should use a multidisciplinary approach in the same way that recent death education programs have broken the taboos about discussing the Nazi holocaust. An outline of a nuclear-education program suggests a number of social and economic benefits. 13 references. (DCK)