Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara has pointed out, in reference to
facing up to the possibility of nuclear war, "Some people are afraid even to look
over the edge. But in a thermonuclear war we cannot afford any political
acrophobia." Surely it would be self-evident that this applies equally to the
opposite prospect, but so far no one has taken more than a timid glance over the
brink of peace.
An intention to avoid preconceived value judgments is if anything even more
productive of self-delusion. We claim no immunity, as individuals, from this
type of bias, but we have made a continuously self-conscious effort to deal with
the problems of peace without, for example, considering that a condition of
peace is per se "good" or "bad." This has not been easy, but it has been
obligatory; to our knowledge, it has not been done before. Previous studies have
taken the desirability of peace, the importance of human life, the superiority of
democratic institutions, the greatest "good" for the greatest number, the
"dignity" of the individual, the desirability of maximum health and longevity,
and other such wishful premises as axiomatic values necessary for the
justification of a study of peace issues. We have not found them so. We have
attempted to apply the standards of physical science to our thinking, the
principal characteristic of which is not quantification, as is popularly believed,
but that, in Whitehead's words, "...it ignores all judgments of value; for instance,
all aesthetic and moral judgments." Yet it is obvious that any serious
investigation of a problem, however "pure," must be informed by some
normative standard. In this case it has been simply the survival of human
society in general, of American society in particular, and, as a corollary to
survival, the stability of this society.
It is interesting, we believe, to note that the most dispassionate planners of
nuclear strategy also recognize that the stability of society is the one bedrock
value that cannot be avoided. Secretary McNamara has defended the need for
American nuclear superiority on the grounds that it "makes possible a strategy
designed to preserve the fabric of our societies if war should occur." A former
member of the Department of State policy planning staff goes further. "A more
precise word for peace, in terms of the practical world, is stability. ... Today the
great nuclear panoplies are essential elements in such stability as exists. Our
present purpose must be to continue the process of learning how to live with
them." We, of course, do not equate stability with peace, but we accept it as the
one common assumed objective of both peace and war.
The third criterion-breadth-has taken us still farther afield from peace studies
made to date. It is obvious to any layman that the economic patterns of a
warless world will be drastically different from those we live with today, and it
facing up to the possibility of nuclear war, "Some people are afraid even to look
over the edge. But in a thermonuclear war we cannot afford any political
acrophobia." Surely it would be self-evident that this applies equally to the
opposite prospect, but so far no one has taken more than a timid glance over the
brink of peace.
An intention to avoid preconceived value judgments is if anything even more
productive of self-delusion. We claim no immunity, as individuals, from this
type of bias, but we have made a continuously self-conscious effort to deal with
the problems of peace without, for example, considering that a condition of
peace is per se "good" or "bad." This has not been easy, but it has been
obligatory; to our knowledge, it has not been done before. Previous studies have
taken the desirability of peace, the importance of human life, the superiority of
democratic institutions, the greatest "good" for the greatest number, the
"dignity" of the individual, the desirability of maximum health and longevity,
and other such wishful premises as axiomatic values necessary for the
justification of a study of peace issues. We have not found them so. We have
attempted to apply the standards of physical science to our thinking, the
principal characteristic of which is not quantification, as is popularly believed,
but that, in Whitehead's words, "...it ignores all judgments of value; for instance,
all aesthetic and moral judgments." Yet it is obvious that any serious
investigation of a problem, however "pure," must be informed by some
normative standard. In this case it has been simply the survival of human
society in general, of American society in particular, and, as a corollary to
survival, the stability of this society.
It is interesting, we believe, to note that the most dispassionate planners of
nuclear strategy also recognize that the stability of society is the one bedrock
value that cannot be avoided. Secretary McNamara has defended the need for
American nuclear superiority on the grounds that it "makes possible a strategy
designed to preserve the fabric of our societies if war should occur." A former
member of the Department of State policy planning staff goes further. "A more
precise word for peace, in terms of the practical world, is stability. ... Today the
great nuclear panoplies are essential elements in such stability as exists. Our
present purpose must be to continue the process of learning how to live with
them." We, of course, do not equate stability with peace, but we accept it as the
one common assumed objective of both peace and war.
The third criterion-breadth-has taken us still farther afield from peace studies
made to date. It is obvious to any layman that the economic patterns of a
warless world will be drastically different from those we live with today, and it
