Asking 'Has Man A Future?'

(This post was inspired by the book 'Has man a future?' written by Bertrand Russell. This post will be the first of two or three parts, of which this first one will be an introduction to the contents of the book and the questions it made me rise. In the second part, in a later post, I will attempt to answer the questions put the best I can by reasoning and presenting more of those little nasty things called 'facts'.)

I remember my physics teacher once saying "the atomic bomb is one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind. It put an end to war". What I had completely missed, was that a weapon 2500 times as powerful as the A-bomb was developed and manufactured soon after the invention of the mentioned bomb of mass-destruction: the H-bomb. The cold war, was a scientific war, and a war of nerves. The fear of the weapon that could obliterate whole nations in a few blows, tempted governments that owned them in their war mongering, but frightened them as well, knowing that their enemies would have them too. Extreme luck, was what saved the world from disaster then. For more than once, satellites, and once even the moon, were mistaken for foreign missiles and the preparation of firing nuclear weapons begun but was miraculously stopped just in time.
       But have nuclear weapons really put an end to war?

It is hard to know where to begin. The little black book, on merely 130 pages, was an incredible page turner for me. To dig right into the mind and mentality of someone who lived during the cold war was not at all how I had expected it to be. Russell writes with the same kind of darkness and pessimism as George Orwell and Aldous Huxley which is typical for the time. He mentions 'universal death' and once even expresses a doubt that what he had written would ever have time to be published before mankind had destroyed itself in the rain of nuclear bombs. The despair and hopelessness one feels as he explains how the scientific war triggered a mad production of weapons and the hunt for the most powerful weapon there would ever be-- the doomsday machine-- is overwhelming. How it must have felt like mankind had always only been a creature of evil, a lost case from the beginning, driven by the madness of greed and fear, longing for death, running hastily towards the very fire that would destroy her.

As Russell's book that I have just read, wasn't published later than 1961, the book says nothing about the cuban missile crisis. When reading about all the horrors of the first, second and cold war and the unbelievable actions of man, I got shocked the first time I read about the agreement between Kennedy and Khrushchev that stopped a nuclear war an inch from its outbreak. To think that two super powers such as the US and what was then the USSR would actually keep their heads cool in such a tense moment is, I think, one of the most admirable fantastic happenings in history.  So it wasn't just desperation and naivité that made Russell dare to express hope in the darkest of hours. He wrote:

"... as yet hope is possible, and while hope is still possible, despair is a coward's part."

In a brilliant statement published in 1955 he says:

"Here then, is the problem which  we present to you, stark dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall we renounce war?"

How simple does not the choice seem when the alternatives are put in this way? But however simple he makes it sound, it is not simple to abolish war and that is what he meant must be done. There were severals steps that had to be taken, according to Russell, and none of them were easy or risk-free. He speaks for a world-government, a government that would concentrate all military power to one nation--the world. A military power that would scare war mongering minorities of mobilizing or easily strike them down- should they ever dare to raise an uproar. Each unit would consist of mixed nationalities, colors and languages, so that the instinctive social cohesion would not be turned against nations, races or cultures. 

       Further on, the money spent on and earned by the means of warfare would have to be replaced by exportation and importation of energy: oil and uranium. 

       Children would in school have to be taught to be more open to opposition, despise war and grow a loyalty and trust towards their government that would not easily be questioned. And for those who'd feel that a world without war, would be a dull world, they would have to get their desire for adventure satisfied. For:

"it must be admitted that, in the world as it is now, many people lead very uninteresting and circumscribed lives, and some among them feel that at last they are able to do something of importance and find relief from boredom and monotony when, in the course of war, they are transported to distant countries and have a chance to see ways of life other than that to which they are accustomed at home. I think that provision should be made for adventure, and even dangerous adventure, in the lives of such of the young as desire it."

These young men (and women, I guess), should, according to Russell, have the opportunity of joining scientific expeditions which would include the disciplines desired in the military; co-operation,  obedience and responsibility. 

Before I start evaluating the outcome of these ideas, I find it important to mention what Russell himself says: 

"In a stable world such as we are envisaging, there could be in many ways a great deal more freedom than there is at present. There would, however, be some new limitations on freedom, since it would be necessary to inculcate loyalty to the international government and to curb incitements to war by single nations or groups of nations. Subject to this limitation, there should be freedom of the Press, freedom of speech and freedom of travel."

Now that I have provided you with some facts and ideas on the matter, it is time to formulate the questions I will answer in a later post.

- What is war to man?
- Have nuclear weapons put an end to war?
- Were nuclear weapons what stopped the cold war from turning into the third world war?
- Do nuclear weapons have the potential of putting an end to war in the future?
- How far have we gotten in Russells plan of abolishing war, and will his scheme work at all?
- Russell also argues that science is what makes the threat of universal death reality and almost divides mankind into two species; a scientific and a non-scientific. Considering this, what role does science play?
- And finally of course: 'Has man a future?'