By CAIO HENRIQUE LOPES RAMIRO*
A time of the end that at any moment could become the end of time
On August 6th, 79 years ago, a new era for humanity began. These are the terms of Günther Anders' first thesis, when he states that this date should be remembered as “Hiroshima day”, that is, this day marks the era in which we become aware that we have the power to transform any place and even the entire planet in a Hiroshima. Therefore, in an apocalyptic sense, there is a revelation that we are living in the time of the end.
In this perspective, it seems interesting to return to this theme considering a text by George Orwell, pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair. The writer and literary critic – born in India subjugated by the colonial rule of the British crown – is well known for his dystopian book 1984 as well as his romance the animal revolution. However, we intend to draw some lines from another work by George Orwell, namely: “You and the atomic bomb”.[I]
George Orwell published this text in the newspaper Tribune, on October 19, 1945. Therefore, the writing was made public two months after the bomb explosion in Hiroshima and presents very interesting questions, even for today's time.
Firstly, George Orwell states that despite the threat of us all being decimated and torn to pieces, the atomic bomb is not the subject of discussion, at least not as much as one should expect. In Orwell's understanding, there are some publications, however, they are not that useful to ordinary citizens, especially with regard to forming an understanding about the difficulties of producing this weapon and the claim of monopoly regarding its use.
Nevertheless, the Orwellian statement that there is a common place regarding the parallel image of the history of civilization and the history of weapons is quite interesting. From this approach, George Orwell presents some lines of history in order to demonstrate that, with some obvious exceptions, we could think that there is a rule that says that in “times when the dominant weapon is exorbitantly expensive or difficult to build, they tend to to be times of despotism.”
Now, here George Orwell's reflection will be built on an examination of the ease or otherwise of access to weapons, with the aim of examining the dispute over the monopoly of the new technology of destruction, something that already placed the arms race on the horizon. that we witnessed in the cold war.
Thus, it seems that one of the central points of George Orwell's argument is to highlight that it is possible to think that the bomb production process, which requires a large industrial plant and investment in technology, is something costly and difficult, which requires countless efforts, which, however, for some may represent something like an image of technical progress and which could put an end to long-scale wars.
However, there would be an additional cost and this would be the indefinite extension of a “peace that is no peace at all”. Therefore, it is an “era of suspension”, that is, to use some terms from Günther Anders, a way of being in the world that presents itself as the life of those who are not yet non-existent, with the latter developing under the shadow of Hiroshima, a time of the end that at any moment could become the end of time.
Therefore, the basic moral question becomes: Will we survive? For George Orwell, “a complex weapon makes the strong stronger”, so we can see that the era of suspension is also a time of despotism.
*Caio Henrique Lopes Ramiro He holds a doctorate in law from the University of Brasília (UnB).
Note
[I] To read a good translation of the text, see: https://zeroaesquerda.com.br/index.php/2022/09/22/voce-e-a-bomba-atomica-george-orwell/.
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