Talisman People
KING:
Where is the Number of our English Dead?
The Herald hands him another document.
Edward, the Duke of York; the Earl of Suffolk;
Sir Richard Ketly; Davy Gam, Esquire;
None else of Name; and of all other Men,
But five and twenty. -O God, Thy Arm was here:
And not to us, but to Thy Arm alone,
Ascribe we all. When, without Strategem
But in plain shock and even Play of Battle,
Was ever known so great and little Loss
On one part and on th' other? Take it, God,
For it is none but Thine.
Henry V, William Shakespeare
It may seem odd, but it is true, that sometimes people are unwilling to take full credit for their successes. Often, like Henry, people ascribe their success to the will of God. Sometimes they ascribe their success not to a god but to an object. In sports, for instance, players sometimes refer to a "lucky" shirt or "lucky" shoes. Sometimes the source of success is an object like a large wooden totem at the entrance to the village. Ascribing events to some other power or charm outside oneself is not uncommon.
By far the majority of people who believe in some power outside themselves believe in God or gods. But in some people belief in God is replaced by or coexists with a tendency to project their belief onto something physical: a talisman, totem or idol. It is this second tendency that concerns us here. Let us call it the Talisman tendency.
A talisman is a physical embodiment of the magic/power-in-the-world around us. We are all familiar with the idea behind a talisman. Many fables and myths revolve around a talisman. Perseus had winged sandals and a cap that made him invisible to fight the Gorgon; Bellerophon had a magic bridle that made the winged Pegasus docile; Alladin had the lamp in which lived the magic genie; Arthur had the sword Excaliber; and even Mickey Mouse (as the Sorcerer's Apprentice) when he put on the sorcerer's magic hat was able to - sort of - wield the powers the Sorcerer wielded. All these stories grow out of the idea that success can come not from superior skill or moral worthiness but from the possession of a magic object.
This sort of belief in magic objects is often condescended toward or dismissed as superstition. But, in fairness, those who believe in a talisman may be right. The ultimate wellspring for the events of the universe - God, Fate, science, magic - has not been proven. None of us is in a position to definitively dismiss the talisman tendency. Perhaps it is the shirt that is winning the games, the statue makes the crops grow, power flows from the sword and makes the army win.
But it may also be the other way around. It may be that the lucky charm exists because the people need (for some reason) to have some external, magic reason to explain their successes (or failures). They say to themselves, "There is a power greater than our own that protects us. Events of such magnitude cannot be the work of our puny hands, they must be set in motion by some deeper magic."
And it is this possibility that applies to nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons could serve very well to fulfill this kind of need. If there were a group of people with a need for a lucky talisman in the late 40s and 50s, is it plausible that they might have turned to "the Bomb" as their Excaliber? If the United States, for example, had experienced some extraordinary good luck or some rapid rise in its fortunes, we could expect that one group of people would see that rise as the just reward of hard work, another would ascribe that good fortune to the favor of God, and some would see it as just lucky. But we could also expect that another group would see it as the result of the possession of some magic talisman. And if no obvious talisman presented itself, they might select one from among the objects that seemed proximate and portentous.
In fact the United States did experience just such a heart-pounding ascent in the 40s and 50s. Before the Second World War the United States possessed the 14th largest army in the world - ranked just behind Portuagal's. It had no empire like England, France, Germany or even the Netherlands. It had no tradition of great power status. As recently as the turn of the century it was not even considered one of the great nations of the world. But World War II catapulted the US into world leadership, a rise to international prominence that was unbelievably rapid by any historical standard. Rome, after all, required almost four hundred years to reach the full extent of its power. Perhaps only Alexander the Great's rise was as rapid.
The US stood suddenly at the pinnacle of power, alone astride the world. All the pre-war powers - Great Britain, Germany, the USSR, China, Japan, France - were in shambles. The US went from minor power to lonely world leader. Economically, US dominance was, if anything, even greater than its military power. Just after the war, the US economy accounted for almost half the world's economic production.
This sudden and startling rise to preeminence must have taken the breath away. The US had not sought dominance. It is not a conquering nation by predisposition (or at least traditionally has not been). It would be natural to look for some other explanation for the US's good fortune. The bomb made the perfect talisman.
People who believe in the bomb as a lucky charm or talisman would be fervant opponents of giving it up or reducing our dependence on it. Nuclear weapons, after all, are, in their minds, the magic that created our power and our victories. They are responsible for our greatness. And if we give them up - like Samson's hair - we lose our power and surrender our greatness. We want to keep the magic that gives us power. No one listens to the story of Samson and says, "Well, he did the right thing to let Delilah cut off his hair, because it's unfair to posses magic when others do not." Samson is universially considered foolish for allowing the secret of his strength to be found out.
This would in part explain the savage, fear-inspiring fervor of the spy hunts in the early 50s. If the bomb's magic was in a formula and that formula could be stolen, the search for spies is the equivalent of looking for those who would steal Arthur's victory-bringing sword and sneak off with it to Mordred's lines.
Now it may be that someone who is impressed with the Bomb defends it not because she is superstitious but because she has made a hard-headed judgment about the bomb's influence and usefulness in the world. There is no quick way to separate those who respect the bomb as a result of reasoned judgment and those who are drawn to it because of their own emotional needs. But given that we know that there is a type of person that needs a talisman, and that there are people who are deeply emotional defenders of the Bomb (unwilling to consider giving it up), it seems prudent to keep in mind that some of those who defend nuclear weapons may be feeling the talisman effect.