Does Generation Matter?

Abstract

Deep within the Cold War, when concrete silos were being poured in the grasslands of the Dakotas, plans were being carried out for the end of humankind. These plans were not concocted by secretive, demonic madmen but MADmen of an entirely different sort, duly elected, proudly patriotic members of Congress and the Executive Office for whom MAD was a distorted sanity. Very openly, these officials cast votes or pushed programs that were an investment in the end of time. Their MAD was the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), an idea that if the United States and the Soviet Union held a gun at each other’s head, peace would prevail. As long as neither side had a consequential nuclear advantage over the other, or a mistake was not made, or a true madman was not in charge, or there was a coup, or nuclear weapons were not disseminated to third party nations turning the duel into a three or more sided musket line or many other “ors.” In a perverse logic of its own, MAD was an acronym of an antonym of sane.