Oppenheimer Is Not the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived
In the eponymous movie Oppenheimer, the great physicist is
called “the most important man [sic] who ever lived,” because he spearheaded
the Manhattan Project, the successful effort to create the first nuclear
bomb. A few hundred such weapons could
destroy an entire large country, like the United States. Several thousand could wipe out human
civilization. The appearance of such
weapons is undoubtedly momentous. It is
terrifying that tens of thousands of them are poised and ready to launch across
the globe.
Even so, it seems weird to single out Oppenheimer for credit, or to saddle him with the curse, depending on how you look at it. Another related issue is whether the
invention of nuclear weapons is the ‘most important’ in human history. If not, then Oppenheimer’s purported status is
untenable.
Most Important
Oppenheimer’s primary role was as a manager of a team of
scientists at Los Alamos and Oakridge. He
didn’t invent the atomic bomb. The team did, with many individuals providing
original and critical insights. In
accord, the claim of Oppenheimer as “most important” seems suspect. A coach is important for a successful team
but so are the players.
Let’s take a step back.
What about Einstein? Why isn’t
the person who theorized e =mc2, and who first conceived the genesis of the hellish weapon, the central figure?
Taking yet another step back, maybe we should emphasize the evolution
of technology across millennia. Way
back somewhere, perhaps wary of a mammoth, someone invented the atlatl. Someone invented steel. Someone came up with a periodic chart that
included uranium. Why spotlight a sole individual
as “most important” while divorcing the chosen figurehead from the buildup they
needed and received, both contemporaneous and historical?
Here’s yet another lens.
Oppenheimer made an (un)ethical decision to lead the Project. But perhaps the most important decision was
made by Harry Truman. The President
himself ordered the deployment of Little
Boy and Fat Man, the euphemistic names given to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
(A special shout out of disgust to the US Army for its teddy-bear-like
rebranding. Not only is truth stranger
than fiction, it is more evil, and certainly more gaslit)
In the movie, Truman makes the case for his own singular
importance. It is the precedent he set,
one could argue, that makes it far more likely nuclear weapons will be used
in our future:
Truman [character]: “You
think anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki gives a shit who built the bomb? They
care who dropped it. I did.”
Why Are Weapons The Biggest Deal?
Are nuclear weapons actually
the most important invention--ever? And,
if not, why then would Oppenheimer be the most important person in history?
Somewhere I read that the only great event of our time that
will be remembered, down the trail, is that humanity first entered outer space in
1961. I get the obvious response: “The invention of atom bombs means there
might not be any down the trail.”
And yet maybe power of death isn’t as important as quality of life (see below).
My person choice for the greatest invention is human
rights. Or the ancient bedrock on which such
rights rest, namely, the Golden Rule: do
to others, as you would them to you.
Someday, if reason progresses over ignorance, rights will extend to animals,
as well as ecosystems and certain of their elements.
This is a good moment to underscore that ideas, or systems
of ideas, can be inventions. It’s a
mistake to think that a tool or technology must be physical: “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Nuclear weapons are considered the most important invention
because of their unparalleled ability to kill, even to end us. But there’s a dangerous assumption here: that the ability to inflict massive cruelty
and death is more important than the ability to bring about healing and
health. This is the kind of thinking
that appeals to tyrants and which passes for culture under their oppressive
rule.
We should not tag ultimate importance with the infliction of
mass death. More generally, historians
like to focus on guns being a game-changer or steel swords or bows and arrows. From this predilection, embedded in our violent
culture, we get to a biased conclusion:
the most effective weapon must be the greatest invention and, correspondingly, the inventor must be the most
important person.
Let me make a brief case for an entirely different sort of
invention. One that would be far greater
than any weapon.
On November 11, 1948, soon after WWII and the devastation of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Omar Bradley gave an Armistice Day speech. He said:
We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the
Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours
is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than
we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we
continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may
prove to be our executioner.
I am not pushing Christian values, which have many
flaws. The Good, ultimately, transcends
any one religion (all religions draw on the Good, yet in distorted ways). Bradley, however, is right to say that we, as
a civilization, are “ethical infants.”
We have a long way to go in respect to the development of ethics
technology.
There is much more to know about peace. How to nurture it, maintain it, and foster its
advance. We can develop better systems
of governance, healthy norms of acculturation.
The invention of human rights and democracy was essential, but only a starting
point.
The most profound invention of all time would be a practical system, a multidimensional loom of ethical ideas, that allows us to step beyond the rubicon of war. Not only is this plausible, it is a matter of
imperative necessity. If we don’t end
war, war will end us. Soon.
Imagine a new kind of freedom: freedom from war in a context of advancing the
quality of our lives as measured by the Good.
Instead of an explosion of bombs which ends us, we could foster an
explosion of human and environmental flourishing.
There are a lot of cynics and skeptics out there. I’ve dealt with them in other essays on this
blog, and I’ll sure that I’ll do so again. Cynics and skeptics are as fixated today on the inevitability of war as
they were on ‘a woman’s place’ a hundred years ago. If ‘common wisdom’ of the 19th century
had never been challenged, women would still be unable to vote; still exist as
legal property of their husband or closest male relative.
Try to imagine a Project that reaches toward the Light, a
Light beyond any one religious or superstitious belief system. A Light based in rights, dignity, honor and
flourishing, both human and environmental.
It is the Light, the Good, that is approachable through scientific and
philosophical scholarship, married in an ongoing, adaptive task. How, for instance, do we civil-engineer a beautiful,
hale city that integrates with a healthy ecosystem?
A synergy of many scholarly hats would be required to advance a Project of Light. Psychologists, sociologists, environmental
scientists, ethicists, zoologists, to name a few. The standards of truth would be: science (verifiable
experimentation) and critical thinking (as per the field of philosophy).
Surely the invention of a means to approach the Light, and
escape war, is infinitely better than an invention that leads us into the Dark.
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