Citation

Jacobs RA. Peace Change 2010; 35(3): 434-463.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Peace History Society; Peace and Justice Studies Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1468-0130.2010.00642.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article looks at the initial response of the social science community to the advent of nuclear weapons and their use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The idea that human society as a whole was not sophisticated enough to responsibly steward nuclear weapons was widespread among American sociologists and psychologists: if society needed to change, many social scientists felt compelled to engineer that transformation. Fundamental to this effort was an analysis of the roots of human violence. I argue that this was a fundamental misdiagnosis that placed the blame in individuated human violence rather than in the organized social violence of militarism. The final section of the article explores the role of social scientists in planning for nuclear war and in creating and assessing the indoctrination of U.S. troops participating in nuclear weapons testing. This indoctrination would form the model for later indoctrinations aimed at easing general public distress over nuclear weapons testing.