Monday, February 8, 1982
Page 4
Daily Ncbraskan
Editorial
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Nuclear survival:
'logic of madness'
In case of a nuclear warning, according to my handy
civil defense booklet, I am to calmly pack my car with a
set of essential items, including extra socks, a plastic drop
cloth, shaving articles, and my credit card.
Thus supplied against the worst, I am to drive in a
leisurely way to my designated "host community,"
Laconia, N.I I., where the people will be eagerly waiting
my arrival along with the rest of the fleeing urban hordes.
Together with the citizens of Laconia (presuming they
have not also chosen "The Relocation Option" and driven
leisurely with their credit cards to Canada), I shall build a
iew shelter or share the already well-stocked "pre-planned
snack-bar shelter" of my hosts.
If, despite all of this protection, some of us in the
snack-bar shelter suffer from radiation sickness, I need not
Nuke count: who do we believe?
Last week Leonid Brezhnev proposed that by 1990 the
United States and the Soviet Union each cut their arsenals
of medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe by two-thirds.
To no one's surprise, the United States rejected the plan
on grounds that it would preserve a Soviet advantage in
Europe.
This all happened just a few months after Reagan pro
posed the "zero option" plan, whereby we would not
put more nukes in Europe if the Russians would dismantle
all those they already have. The Russians, of course, don't
like this plan. They contend that medium-range nuclear
missiles in Europe are at rough pariety, and that Reagan's
plan would give the United States an advantage.
At the core of the problem is the disagreement as to
how many medium-range nuclear missiles each side
already has. The Russians claim that each side has about
1 ,000 such weapons while the Americans claim that the
Soviet Union has 3,825 and the United States a paltry
560.
One interesting facet of the whole estimation process
is that there doesn't seem to be any agreement as to which
weapons should be classified in the medium-range nuclear
category. We don't know what they are, but we do know
that whatever they are, they've got 3,825 of them and we
only have 560.
Such wildly differing totals are not easy to create. A
certain amount of practice and expertise must go into the
project from both sides to find measures so different that
they produce the figures each claims.
Who do we believe? The easy thing would be to just
believe the American reports; the Commies are out to get
us, after all. But to do so is to fly in the face of any
number of lies our government has told us in the past (see
Vietnam history for more on this topic.) But surely we
cannot trust the reports from the Russians either, as they
so consistently ensure that "truth" conforms to the party
line.
The result is that the process of nuclear disarmament
gets nowhere, and the actual number of weapons each side
has remains a mystery. One could as easily derive a
reliable estimate of nuclear weapons by throwing darts at
a numbered board as by reading government figures.
A larger problem here is that not only are governments
willing and able to generate lies, but they also must
believe the lies they generate and act in accordance with
them. Suppose we go to the bargaining table claiming the
Russians have a rough 7-1 advantage (3,500-500) in
medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe and then
negotiate a deal for bilateral reductions of those numbers.
Sure, it's a long shot. By our own version of the situation,
we will have lost, no matter what the outcome is in fact.
The only way the rest of the world can be sure that the
United States-Soviets negotiations are working for real is
actually to see both sides dismantling missiles. In the
meantime, stay tuned for the latest "facts."
Ellen
Goodman
worry. All I have to do is follow the first-aid hints: "If the
patient has headache or general discomfort, give him one
or two aspirins every 3 or 4 hours (half a tablet for a child
under 12)."
I share all of this information in a public-spirited way
in order that you, too, may feel comforted in the know
ledge that your government is worried about public safety
in this, the hazardous nuclear age.
As T.K. Jones, deputy undersecretary of Defense for
Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces, told Bob Schcerol
the Los Angeles Times, "Everybody's going to make it, if
there are enough shovels to go around ... Dig a hole,
cover it with a couple of doors and then throw three feet
of dirt on top. It's the dirt that does it."
When I first began leafing through my booklet from
the Federal Emergency Management Agency and "camera
ready newspaper columns," I couldn't decide whether to
giggle or shiver. The calm, chatty descriptions of how to
survive nuclear war with just a touch of inconvenience had
what Yale psychiatry professor Robert J. Lifton calls "the
logic of madness:" "Each step follows logically, but is all
wrong and utterly unrelated to what would actually
happen."
To evacuate urban populations, for example, as Tom
Halstead of Physicians for Social Responsibility puts it,
"You have to have: (1) days of warning time, (2) recept
ive host communities, (3) a docile and cooperative
evacuation population, (4) nice weather and (5) cooperat
ive enemies."
It's not surprising that the Reagan administration,
which talks increasingly of nuclear-war-fighting as another
option, is in favor of beefing up civil defense. Nor is it
surprising that opposition groups think civil defense
planning is worse than absurd, it's immoral.
One side believes that nuclear weapons are just another
big bomb; the other believes that they are the weapons of
annihilation.
Continued on Page 5
New Rightists lack diverse views
There is an ongoing debate as to what
effects the new "Religious Righteousness"
will have on education. These debates have
largely centered on issues such as the teach
ing of creationism and the moral Content
(or lack of it) in our school libraries.
But, as life-and-death as those things
may seem, there appears to be little argu-
S- Reid
Warren
ment, or indeed concern, on what effects
the New Righteousness will have on edu
cation in the long run, particularly at the
university level.
The specialty of the New Righteousness
is single-issue politicking. For them, focus
ing energy on a certain issue correlates to
increased visbility and added importance.
The New Righteousness is, in its truest
form, like a bastardized version of a
Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial. One
of my most horrifying dreams is of Jerry
Falwell place kicking a copy of "Brave
New World" through a goalpost while say
ing "You do one thing long enough, you
get to be good at it. I do one thing, and I
do it well."
And if that thing is relentless pursuit of
mediocrity, so be it. The New Rightists
have a right to follow their beliefs. But the
clear and present danger that the New
Rightists portend is the underlying, long
range effects that they may have on
society.
Translated to the arena of higher
education, this means an ignoring of the
very thing that a university functions for:
the pursuit of knowledge, specifically wide
ranging and aesthetically varying know
ledge. What the New Righteousness represents
is diametrically opposite from what a uni
versity ideally represents. Emphasizing
single issues is a tactic which goes against
the grain of sowing educational oats - the
very function of a university in its "purest"
sense.
Timothy S. Healy is both a religious
and education-oriented person. As presi
dent of Georgetown University, Healy, a
Jesuit, heads one of the nation's leading
Catholic universities.
In the recent issue of America magazine,
Healy penned an article entitled "The New
Righteousness and the University." In it,
he voiced his concern that the New
Rightists, through their emphasis on
narrowing issues, may lead to a "value
free" atmosphere at our nation's univer
sities. "When we let our politics grind down to
single issues, we argue not about truth and
falsehood but about right and wrong; we
declare that those who differ from us are
not in error but are evil," Healy wrote.
"The distrust of reason which gross
simplification involves . . . denies diversity,
overextends revelation . . ." he said. And,
Healy added, when issues are simplified
"the imaginative, the contemplative, the
symbolic, we comfortably ignore."
Such words cause me much worry about
the situation at our country's institutions
of higher learning. The imaginative, the
contemplative and the symbolic are what
students and faculty members are supposed
to comfortably explore, not ignore.
The situation hasn't been classified as
critical yet, but serious, yes. When an in
dividual such as Healy expresses his con
cern, then it's enough to concern me as
well.
Healy wrote that our nation's universit
ies have always been mirrors for our
nation's conscience. When our country
suffered through the agony of the Vietnam
War, our universities showed the anguish
more than anywhere else, Healy said.
And, if universities are indeed mirrors to
our nation's conscience, then heaven help
us if the New Righteousness takes hold on
even a small portion of our nation's
society.
For a university is a business as much as
your average gas station or grocery store.
The number of services they provide
depends directly on how much money they
have. What really scares me is not that the
New Righteousness may have a direct
effect on higher education I hope and
believe that we have the collective smarts
to deny such dingbat simplicity.
Continued on Page 5
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