Language games

 

    One of most often remarked incongruities about nuclear weapons is that, in contrast to the way we evidently feel about them, we tend to talk about them in unemotional, technocratic ways. The words of the people who think about and plan to use nuclear weapons are strangely lacking in emotional content.

    Here is Robert S. MacNamara, Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy:

        In our best judgement, destroying enemy forces while preserving our own societies is -- within the limits inherent in the great power of nuclear weapons -- a wholly unattainable military objective. Even if very substantial exchanges of nuclear weapons were to occur, the damage suffered by the belligerents would vary over wide ranges, depending upon the targets that are hit. If both sides were to confine their attacks to important military targets, damage, while high, would nevertheless be significantly lower than if urban-industrial areas were also attacked. ¹

    Or (somewhat at random) here is another example, this time from a strategy theorist, Glenn H. Snyder:

        If both sides were to rely entirely on fixed land-based missiles, reasonably well-hardened and dispersed, the attacker-to-target ratio would depend largely on the accuracy of the attacking missiles and their lethal radius, the latter defined as distance from the point of impact within which the target would be destroyed. For example, if accuracy were such that there was a .50 chance of a single missile landing within the lethal radius, four missiles would have to be fired to achieve upward of a .90 chance of killing the target and the situation would be, structurally, very stable.²

    The attempt to obscure the horror of nuclear war is common in nuclear discussions and has been widely remarked upon. ³ You don't "incinerate cities", you launch a "countervalue" attack. You don't "attack the enemy's forces" -- with all the attendant loss of life to people nearby and deaths from radiation, you launch a "surgical strike." The MX missile wasn't the "Terminator", it was the "Peacekeeper."

    The height of this sort of euphemism is the phrase "collateral damage." It sounds as if it might mean "damage that's off to one side." The phrase arose because it was discovered that because many military targets were near population centers in the Soviet Union, you wouldn't have to specifically target civilians in order to kill them. Those calculating the results of different nuclear attack scenarios began to refer to the civilians who would be killed as a result of attacking military targets as "collateral damage." Under certain circumstances the number of people who would meet gruesome ends as a result of "collateral damage" could reach the tens of millions.

    Compare the words we use when talking and thinking about nuclear war with this writing about war. This passage is rather long, but since our larger subject is war, forgive me for quoting it at length.

And next Achilles lunged

at Demoleon, son of Antenor, a tough defensive fighter--

he stabbed his temple and cleft his helmet's cheekpiece,

None of the bronze plate could hold it--boring through

the metal and skull the bronze spearpoint pounded,

Demoleon's brains splattered all inside his casque,

the Trojan beaten down in his fury. Hippodamas next,

he leapt from his chariot fleeing before Achilles--

Ahilles' spearshaft rammed him through the back

and he gasped his life away, bellowing like some bull

that chokes and grunts when the young boys drag him round

the lord of Helice's shrine and the earthquake god

delights to see them dragging--so he bellowed now

and the man's proud spirit left his bones behind.

Achilles rushed with his spear at noble Polydorus

son of Priam. His father would not let him fight,

ever, he was the youngest-born of all his sons--

Priam loved him most, the fastest runner of all

but now the young fool, mad to display his speed,

went dashing along the front to meet his death.

Just as he shot past the matchless runner Achilles

speared him square in the back where his war-belt clasped,

golden buckles clinching both halves of his breastplate--

straight on through went the point and out the navel,

down on his knees he dropped--

screaming shrill as the world went black before him--

clutched his bowels to his body, hunched and sank.

. . . Whirling

he stabbed Dryops, speared him right through the neck--

he dropped at his feet and Achilles left him dead

and smashed Demuchus' knee, Philetor's strapping son,

stopped him right in his tracks with a well-flung spear

then sprang with his great sword and ripped his life away.

Then on he rushed at the sons of Bias--Laogonus, Dardanus--

hurled them off their chariot, slammed them both to ground,

one with a spear-thrust, one chopped down with a blade.

Then Tros, Alastor's son, crawled to Achilles' knees

and clutched them, hoping he'd spare him,

let Tros off alive, no cutting him down in blood,

he'd pity Tros, a man of his own age--the young fool,

he'd no idea, thinking Achilles could be swayed!

Here was a man not sweet at heart, not kind, no,

he was raging, wild--as Tros grasped his knees,

desperate, begging, Achilles slit open his liver,

the liver spurted loose, gushing with dark blood,

drenched his lap and the night swirled down his eyes

as his life breath slipped away.

And Mulius next--

he reared and jammed his lance through the man's ear

so the lance came jutting out through the other ear,

bronze point glinting.

Echeclius son of Agenor next--

Achilles split his head at the brow with hilted sword

so the whole blade ran hot with blood, and red death

came plunging down his eyes, and the strong force of fate.

Deucalion next--he lanced his arm with a bronze-shod spear,

he spitted the Trojan through where the elbow-tendons grip

and there he stood, waiting Achilles, arm dangling heavy,

staring death in the face--and Achilles chopped his neck

and his sword sent head and helmet flying off together

and marrow bubbling up from the clean-cut neckbone.

    This is The Iliad, an epic the ancient Greeks listened to and loved.⁴ It is war seen without blinking: desperate, savage, sometimes heroic, and sad. It was composed for men who had seen a spear tear through the sinews of a man's body, who understood the rage and desperation of fighting for one's life. The man who composed it knew about war and knew that his listeners could face descriptions that were honest and unashamed.

    The contrast is striking. Our discussions of nuclear policy and strategy are euphemistic and abstract, they are full of long words and inside jargon. Homer's words are simple and his description is unsparing. It is not really fair to compare the output of nuclear thinkers with one of the greatest poems in Western literature. But it is instructive to see the distance between the two. Nuclear strategists are talking about a war that would be far more destructive than anything men armed with spears and swords ever created. But their descriptions are not half as open-eyed.

    We have a peculiar squeamishness about nuclear weapons. We can't seem to discuss them honestly and straightforwardly.

    It is hard to imagine a grizzled Greek warrior, a veteran -- someone comfortable with the physical contest of fighting and killing face to face, someone who had seen death over and over, who honored his enemies, who knew war intimately and knew its costs -- being able to understand our euphemistic way of talking about nuclear weapons.

    J. Robert Oppenheimer asked, "What are we to make of a civilization which has always regarded ethics as an important part of human life . . . [but] which has not been able to talk about the prospect of killing almost everybody except in prudential and game-theoretic terms?"⁵

 

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