Endgame: The risks and consequences of nuclear war

Abstract

This is a promising time in our national political life. Although we already stand very close to the edge of an apocalyptic abyss, there now exists widespread understanding of our predicament. Avoiding nuclear war, until recently only a marginal tic of consciousness, is now a gigantic, irreversible gesture. Today, as growing legions of Americans reject the gibberish of a self-defeating nuclear strategy, there is hope that we might yet survive as a species. But such survival is by no means automatic. Before we can take it for granted, we need to cultivate a particular understanding of the dangers that still lie ahead. And this must be accomplished without allowing the Apocalypse to become just another occasion for self-congratulation. Living at a moment when almost anyone can offer a Spenglerian theory of decline and disintegration, we must not become too proud of our pessimism. Rather than elevate our melancholy to the status of a metaphysic, we must convert the Angst of our time into a relentless search for life.