Ward Hayes Wilson
Aug 22, 2024
"Hannah Arendt, the German philosopher who fled the Nazis in the 1930s and eventually found a home at the University of Chicago, said an interesting thing about authority. In her slim, powerfully argued volume, On Violence, in which she analyses the differences between power, violence, force, strength, and authority, she says that the best way to undermine authority is to mock it. And that is at the heart of what I want to say about nuclear weapons."
" thought I’d try to draw parallels between how Democrats have changed their approach to Donald Trump and how we should change our approach to nuclear weapons."
"We have been so focused on the horror and fear of nuclear weapons that we’ve overlooked the most important truth about them: they’re ludicrous weapons"
What we need to do with nuclear weapons is to exhale and then look calmly, clear-eyed, and objectively at their utility. Tools are kept or tossed based on one criteria: utility. If nuclear weapons are useful, then you have to keep them. If they’re not, then they have to go. Having studied the issue of their utility for forty years, I would welcome a debate that puts “are they useful?” at its center.
Because, believe me, nuclear weapons are virtually useless and very dangerous. And no one keeps technology that is virtually useless and very dangerous.