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"Man's technological omnipotence also became our disempowerment"

Endless end times – about Günther Anders and the atomic bomb
Forfatter: Hannah Winther
Forlag: H//O//F, (Norge)
NUCLEAR BOMBS / Günther Anders was concerned that man's highest science had constructed an instrument for its own destruction. In this book, Hannah Winther actualizes him by drawing in Christopher Nolan's Oscar-winning Oppenheimer film that just plays on the old Prometheus myth.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

It dumped most inconveniently into my mailbox, Hannah Winthers Endless end times – about Günther Anders and the atomic bomb. In the middle of my reading of the newly printed book The torture tourist from Bergen by Kristin Aalen. I had just worked with Daniel Ellsbergs The Doomsday Machine, wine industry expert Andrew Feinstein The Shadow World and Hannah Arendts Zionism Reconsidered. Did I need more dystopia now?

But Winther's essay was an upturn. Her 40 small pages were not only easy to read because they were well written. They gave me a timely background to gain a better understanding of the existential questions that I had encountered with Feinstein, Aalen, Ellsberg and Arendt. As a reader, I wanted to read more Anders, read him NOW. What more could essayist Winther want?

In an effortless and unpretentious way, Winther draws the lines from Anders to his contemporary German philosophers and intellectuals, who Arendt (spouse), Benjamin (cousin), Heidegger (teacher), Jaspers (colleague), Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, Brecht and several contemporaries who in various ways relate to Anders.

Prometheus, holocaust and Hiroshima

Anders (1902-1992) wrote right up until the 1990s about the seriousness of atomic bombns invention. It was about man's supreme science which had constructed an instrument for its own destruction, "the self-inflicted apocalypse and the relationship between man and technology". The gap between being able to construct but not being able to realize the consequences. Anders launches the term "Prometheus gap" after Prometeus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.

While the holocaust was horrific purely morally, the Hiroshima bomb was worse in its consequence since it threatened all existence.

Winther updates by pulling in Christopher Nolan's Oscar-winning Oppenheimer-film, which just plays on the Prometheus myth. Prometheus was punished with eternal torment – in the same way that the atomic bomb cannot be reinvented and thus will always hang menacingly over us. "Man's technological omnipotence also became our impotence", says Anders, "technology [has] gone from being a means to becoming an existential condition". He compares the nuclear threat to the holocaust and concludes that while the holocaust was morally horrific, the Hiroshima bomb was worse in its consequence since it threatened all existence.

Anders took an interest, not surprisingly, in the American military officer Claude Etherly, who gave the thumbs up for the bomb to be dropped Hiroshima. In the end, he perished in remorse and shame over his role, his choices, as a link in the chain to the death of many.

Anders himself expresses that his task was primarily educational, to use the magnifying glass on the challenges, and highlight, often exaggerate, for educational purposes to get others to understand – and act.

The annihilation of humanity

And Winther copies Anders. She draws Prometheus parallels from our time, with billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who want to save humanity from destruction and find new planets to escape to – while contributing to the decay of the wonderful earth we already have. She quotes beautifully Harry Martinson#s Aniara-text:

«We come from Earth, the land of Doris
A gem in our solar system,
The only place where Life has been given
a land of milk and honey
Describe the landscapes found there,
and the days that dawned,
Describe that man as gallant
His originator's shroud sewed,
To God and Satan hand in hand
In a poisoned wasteland
Run away from something worse
From man: lord of the ashes.»

Martinson gives us the strongest images in Anders' spirit: "His father's shroud sewn" and "mankind: lord of the ashes". No image can exaggerate this which is worse than the holocaust: the annihilation of humanity.

The mindless officials

Anders is admittedly a pessimist, but not a defeatist. We have an ethical mission: "[A]pocalypse is written into our collective destiny irrevocably, and our task is to postpone it for as long as possible."

The politicians and soldiers who today are only "doing their duty", seek to win wars, conquer countries and deploy missiles and troops. In a servile and prosaic way, they follow established paths and orders. They go home and show care for their children and spouse. But they are the technocrats who do not equate the Prometheus gap with today's nuclear reality. Equally, they have had the freedom to choose.

Here Anders agrees with Arendt. And Ellsberg and Aalen agree: The cruel deeds are decided by ordinary people and done automatically. As civil servants who "do their duty" without responsibility. The distance between the monster and the human is short. But these are, after all, choices that are made.

As Anders says Daniel Ellsberg i The Doomsday Maschine that even if we want to be able to say "it's too late", we cannot sit passively. We can choose to work to delay annihilationn. Ellsberg points to disarmament, removing the intercontinental missiles, stopping talk of armor industryns blessings for research and jobs. In Norway, we can stop boasting that young women and men are once again willing to die for the fatherland (Støre) – or how much we learned from bombing Libya (Stoltenberg).

"Man: Lord of the Ashes"

For me, the ring was closed with this Anders essay – better able to understand the responsibility behind Oppenheimer's Hiroshima, Eichmann's death transports and the victims of the Bergen torturers. These are the mindless officials in the current of technology and systems, who could have chosen differently, but who "just followed orders". There the fig leaf withers – in the face of the consequences.



(You can also read and follow Cinepolitical, our editor Truls Lie's comments on X.)


John Y. Jones
John Y. Jones
Cand. Philol, freelance journalist affiliated with MODERN TIMES

See the editor's blog on twitter/X

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