FREE ESSAY ON IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD...AND I FEEL FINE

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD...AND I FEEL FINE

Elspeth Wilson
Politics & Film
Final Paper
December 15, 2000
It's the End of the World…and I Feel Fine!
(The role of intellectuals in the creation and justification of nuclear weapons.)
In Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,
Sidney Lumet and Stanley Kubrick question the relationship between technology and
humanity by emphasizing mankind's tendency to create machines that cannot be adequately
controlled. By blatantly revealing the absurdity of game theory (Mutual Assured
Destruction as a reasonable deterrence for nuclear war), both directors call into
question the dominant pro-Cold War American ideology. One of the most quintessential
aspects of this ideology includes the drive for constant technological advance and
strategic superiority. Without the brainpower of the scientists and intellectuals who
dedicated their lives to the extension of technological power and the study of
international conflict, the Arms Race would certainly not have been possible. These
academics not only became the architects of atomic weapons but they were also faced with
justifying the use of these nuclear bombs, and creating a theoretical framework within
which nuclear warfare might be appropriately (and rationally) conducted. Within this
context, one noteworthy parallel between Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove is the existence
(in both films) of a single intellectual genius that actively perpetuates the "science"
of nuclear advancement and strategy. Indeed, through the characterizations of Professor
Groeteschele and Dr. Strangelove, both Lumet and Kubrick examine the prominent role of
intellectuals (both scientists and theorists) in the creation and justification of
nuclear warfare. Ultimately, both Lumet and Kubrick reveal the problems with relying
solely on science and mathematics to resolve international conflict, thus suggesting that
modern warfare requires a more humanistic, ethical definition of right and wrong. 
Both Fail Safe and Dr Strangelove serve as moralizing responses to the dominant American
Cold War culture, rhetoric, and political policy. In his article titled "Dr. Strangelove
(1964): Nightmare Comedy and the ideology of Liberal Consensus," Charles Maland
identifies the dominant American cultural paradigm (during the Cold War) as "the Ideology
of the Liberal Consensus." Maland maintains that the Ideology of the Liberal Consensus
first developed as the American people began to feel increasingly threatened by the rise
and spread of Communism. After World War II, this cultural paradigm solidified, taking
"on an intellectual coherence of its own." Indeed, the logic behind this paradigm
involved two widely accepted principles: 
(1) "The structure of American society is basically sound." 
(2) "Communism is a clear danger to the survival of the United States and its allies." 
From the combination of these assumptions, emerged a new definition of Americanism that
was predicated upon the concepts of democracy, capitalism, and general material
abundance. However, in order to satisfy the demands of this new Americanism, the United
States needed to "struggle against Communism and willingly support a strong defense
system…for power is the only language that the Communists can understand." Because
the maintenance of a superior defense system required frequent technological advancement,
physicists, chemists, and other scientists became necessary members of
government/military research teams. In addition to the so-called hard scientists,
theorists and strategic experts were needed in order to make informed and rational
decisions about the circumstances under which the new technological devices (i.e. nuclear
weapons) should be used. 
This emerging Cold War cultural paradigm was both created by and gave birth to a new
breed of academic—the 'nuclear-intellectual.' Because technology, nuclear science,
and war strategy became such an integral part of the definition of American culture and
security, the scientists and the theoreticians that participated in this 'nuclear
culture' achieved political prominence. These academics not designed advanced
killing-machines, but they were also employed to create a new theoretical framework that
rationally justified the use of nuclear weapons in specific confrontations. Thus, both
the hard-scientists and the game-theorists became an integral part of the Cold War
culture, supplying the country with two vital ingredients (both the machinery and the
rhetoric) necessary for the creation of a new American ideology (based on democracy,
capitalism, societal complacency, and soviet paranoia etc.). 
Because of the unique role of intellectuals in the initial formulation of the ideology,
principles, and technology behind the "liberal consensus," any work that seeks to
criticize the Cold War system (the arms race and the subsequent cultural acceptance of
it), ought to include academics and scientists in its representation of the problems of
the ideological status quo. Therefore, it is no surprise that both Fail Safe and Dr.
Strangelove each include an intellectual government advisor—a representative of the
new 'nuclear intellectual' group. Each movie shows how intellectuals are both the
architects of killing devices and also help to foster a general climate of destruction
through game theory ideology. Thus, a prominent (albeit subtle) theme of each film is the
criticism of the involvement of intellectuals in the "art of war." The rather negative
portrayal of both Professor Groeteschele and Dr. Strangelove reveals the skepticism that
Lumet and Kubrick share about the new group of "nuclear intellectuals." 
There were two specific types of intellectuals involved in nuclear strategy and national
defense: (1) the scientists who strove to create new, better, and more lethal war
machines and (2) the theoreticians whose job it was to use game theory to create
theoretical frameworks that both justified and shed light upon the use of advanced
killing machines (like nuclear weapons). While both types of intellectuals had
fundamentally different fields of expertise, in both cases, the intellectuals strove to
find ways to win wars—to satisfy the goal of game theory (i.e. maximize wins and
minimize losses). This description applies to both Professor Groeteschele and Dr.
Strangelove—In Fail Safe, Professor Groeteschele uses game theory to weigh the
likely wins and losses in possible nuclear confrontations, continuously striving to
uncover the most advantageous outcome for the United States; In Dr. Strangelove,
Strangelove fanatically strives to create more efficient and lethal technology, basing
the projects he chooses to pursue on rational outcome and game theory. Individually, the
characters reveal a great deal about the specific film in which they appear. Indeed, in
both films, the accident that occurs happens outside the expertise or jurisdiction of the
intellectual. Rather than something going wrong with one of Dr. Strangelove's nuclear
devices, a human-based error occurs, which triggers the secret Soviet Doomsday
device—a tactical error on the part of the Russians. Likewise, in Fail Safe,
Professor Groeteschele is never truly proven wrong. Instead of making a terrible tactical
or theoretical miscalculation, the rules of the game are completely changed for the
Professor after a glitch in the new supercomputer. By focusing on accidents outside the
expertise of the intellectual, each film reveals that no matter how accurate scientific
theory is, it cannot necessarily encompass all that it must when the stakes of "the game"
have become so great (i.e. the loss of New York City, Moscow, and perhaps the entire
world).
Through the character of Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick introduces the concept of the modern
'mad scientist' (the crazed nuclear architect). By naming the film after a character with
so little airtime, Kubrick suggests that Strangelove occupies an essential, but also less
prominent, background role in the planning and execution of nuclear warfare. Indeed,
Strangelove designs and constructs the weapons of war. While there is little public glory
to this job, clearly it is absolutely essential to nuclear confrontation. Scientists like
Dr. Strangelove make nuclear catastrophe possible. While Kubrick has gone to great
lengths to make his film a comedy, he specifically exaggerates recognizable
political/military personalities and possibilities—thus enabling him to explore and
criticize the "new, Cold War Americanism." Dr. Strangelove plays a prominent role in this
parody of reality. Indeed, despite his minimal airtime, Strangelove is designed to embody
the quintessential nuclear scientist of the Cold War. Maland notes that "the creators
seem to have taken a great deal of care in creating Strangelove as a composite of a
number of pundits in the new 'science' of nuclear strategy." 
Strangelove represents a bizarre juxtaposition of four of the most infamous nuclear
scientists and strategists that dominated the profession during the height of the Cold
War—Edward Teller, Henry Kissinger, Herman Kahn, and Werner Von Braun. Of all these
scientists, the comparison between Strangelove and Edward Teller is probably the most
provocative: "Not only was Teller involved in the creation of the atomic bomb, but he was
also a strong anti-Communist who pushed hard for the development of the much more
powerful hydrogen bomb in 1949 and 1950." Teller, who was notoriously passionate about
the explosive properties of physical matter, would have likely shared Strangelove's
twisted excitement about the awesome power required for the destruction of the world.
Another interesting comparison is that between Strangelove and Henry Kissenger:
Strangelove's own "definition of deterrence—the art of producing in the mind of the
enemy the fear to attack you—sounds remarkably like the definition Kissinger
offered in his Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957)." Strangelove's nuclear rhetoric
is also very similar to that of Herman Kahn, who discusses the very topic of a Doomsday
device in his book, On Thermonuclear War—like Strangelove, Kahn concludes that a
Doomsday device would not be a rational deterrent because it could not be controllable.
Finally, like the infamous Werner Von Braun, Strangelove seems to have significant, high
level connections with Nazi Germany (i.e. "mein Fuhrer"), and similarly care little about
what side of the battle he is on. 
Dr. Strangelove represents scientific obsession; Strangelove is brilliant and thrives of
the application and success of his own genius. However, his role as the Director of
Weapons Research is done not out of a feeling of duty to America or even out of a dislike
of the USSR, rather he applies his brilliance out of narcissism, an erotic passion for
nuclear power, and a love of the "game" of war. Dr. Strangelove's indifference to the
country and president he serves is revealed at the very end of the film when he becomes
so carried away in his excitement about the destruction of the world that he confuses the
President with "mein Fuhrer." While clearly implying that Strangelove was once a
prominent Nazi who had personal contact with Hitler, I do not believe that this
ejaculation means that he is still deep down a Nazi or even harbors a particular alliance
to Hitler. Instead, Strangelove's accidental digression into the past, suggests his
excitement for war and destructive power. Not since World War II, when he served Hitler,
has Strangelove experienced so much destructive power concentrated all at once. As a man
that is part machine, Strangelove is essentially 'turned-on' by the electric charge
released from so many atomic bombs—thus, at the very end of the film; he is able to
walk again. 
As a critique on the scientists involved in the creation and improvement of nuclear
technology, the Strangelove character is a damning statement. Indeed, while Strangelove
himself is not identified as "the enemy" in the film, he is clearly the creator of the
true "enemy"—the nuclear bomb. Furthermore, Strangelove is an amoral character that
seems to lack any remote semblance of an ethical code of conduct. As a scientist and a
strategist, Strangelove is a calculating machine whose job is only to maximize wins and
minimize losses during war. Thus, the fact that Strangelove creates machines, reasons
like a machine (solely through rational numerical formulism), and has literally become a
physical manifestation of a machine, implies that the scientists involved in nuclear
armerment must give up much of their humanity during their quest to create perfect war
machines. 
There are two different types of academics that played essential roles in the Cold
War—the hard-scientists (like Strangelove) and the theoreticians (like
Groeteschele). While Dr. Strangelove creates the weapons of destruction, Professor
Groeteschele strives to provide a theoretical framework that justifies the use of such
"killing devices." Indeed, Groeteschele is obsessed with game theory and nuclear
strategy. By definition, the purpose of game theory is to maximize one's wins and
minimize one's losses through abstract mathematical formulism. Such formulism must
involve numerical calculations made by mutually informed players competing against each
other (each with imperfect information about the capabilities or intent of the other).
This method of strategy was extremely popular during the Cold War and remains a
significant method of strategic theory. Through this form of theorizing and calculation,
Groeteschele strives both to deter the Russians from attacking (and, in the case of
attack, to maximize the American wins). 
The relationship between the game theory of Groeteschele and the machines of Strangelove
is particularly provocative. Indeed, both methods of strategy involve abstract
formulism—measuring human life on purely numeric terms. Both nuclear warheads and
game theory are void of morality or value, reducing both human life and weapons of mass
destruction to the level of artificial tokens that are consistently applied and measured
against theoretical outcomes. Thus, the role of Professor Groeteschele is that of a
calculating machine, and as such a 'machine,' Groeteschele, like Strangelove, lacks
humanity. While this lack of humanity manifests itself physically in Strangelove, it
dominates the psychology of Groeteschele, who generally abandons emotion for cold
rationality. Groeteschele's abandonment of his own humanity for the maintenance of his
rational fa?ade reveals his obsession with being the perfect game-player. 
Interestingly, Groeteschele, unlike Strangelove, does not care about the beauty of
nuclear warfare or the energy it releases, to him, bombs merely represent the tools a
nation must employ in order to win "the game" against the enemy. As a man whose job is to
advise politicians when they should commit "mass-murder" and how many people they should
try to kill, Groeteschele must mutate his impression of his enemy into something less
than human. Indeed, in order to justify the destruction of the Soviet peoples, the
Professor has to develop his own myth that the Russians are actually truly rational,
calculating Game players (i.e. the perfect opponent). By convincing himself of this,
Groeteschele is able to view the Soviets as merely being instruments of calculation and
abstract formalism, rather than human beings. Indeed, in defense of his argument that the
Americans should strike first so that the Russians will concede, Groetechele states that
the Russians are "Marxist-fanatics, not normal people…they don't reason the way you
reason, they're not motivated by human emotions such as rage and pity…they are
calculating machines, they will look at the balance sheet, and they will see that they
cannot win. [and] the Russians will surrender." In the previous statement, Groetechele
reveals much more about himself than about the Russians: his own religious-like adherence
to rational game theory has allowed him to nurture a dangerously naive view of the
contemporary world. Clearly, the Russians are human beings, and as human beings, they are
sometimes motivated by human emotions. 
Fail Safe is essentially a film against the art of deterrence and game theory. Lumet's
first criticism of game theory occurs when the machine malfunctions (due to new Russian
interference technology). In a "game" in which both players are wielding weapons of mass
destruction, Lumet suggests that rational prediction cannot always prevent confrontation
through deterrence theory. Indeed, the fact that the machine's error escaped
Groeteschele's original calculations weakens the validity of game theory. Furthermore, in
game theory, the informed players rarely have a complete picture of the capabilities or
intent of their enemies. Because of this, tragic and irrational mistakes can be made.
Lumet's most damning critique of Groeteschele and his rhetoric of rational destruction
comes from the voice of General Black. Indeed, Blackie realizes that both Americans and
Russians are human beings, and that rather than trying to destroy Russia for the sake of
preserving American culture, we should seek to preserve humanity in general:
"You know what your saying—Justifying murder, in the name of what…to preserve
what? Even if we do survive, what gives us the right? Are we better than what we say they
are…what gives us the right to live then? What makes us worth surviving, when we
are ruthless enough to strike first—fighting for your life isn't the same as
murder!"
While there is no such thing as morality when it comes to rational choice, general Black
suggests that deeply held morality and a respect for life should transcend rationality
and the quest for economic and political supremacy. While Groeteschele makes decisions
through maximizing the ratio of gain to loss, Blackie relies on his personal ethical
code. Emerging as both a martyr and a hero, Blackie is willing to take responsibility and
sacrifice his life for a mistake that he adamantly tried to prevent. The dichotomy
between General Black's sincere morality and Groeteschele's rational indifference to
moral principles reveals Lumet's intolerance of amorality. Ultimately, Lumet suggests
that large-scale warfare (with such high stakes) cannot be reduced to any type of
abstract formalism—machine or human. Instead, contemporary warfare must operate
under a code of ethics that respects human life and international differences. Mr.
Lumet's pacifistic comment in the beginning of the film seems to most accurately
represent the underlying message of fail Safe: "In a nuclear war, everyone losses, war
isn't what it used to be."
Both Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove explore the new (Cold War) American ideology from the
standpoint of an accidental nuclear disaster. By blatantly revealing the absurdity of
game theory (particularly Mutual Assured Destruction as an adequate deterrence for war),
Kubrick and Lumet call into question the dominant pro-armerment American ideology. In
order to examine the entire macrocosm of possible nuclear disasters, both directors
choose to include a character that embodies the contemporary 'nuclear intellectual.'
Indeed, scientists and theoreticians (like Groeteschele and Strangelove) played a
prominent role in defining and perpetuating the new Cold War culture. These academics not
only became the architects of nuclear bombs but they were also faced with creating a
viable theoretical framework within which the use of these weapons would be both
recommended and justified. However, both Kubrick and Lumet suggest that in order to apply
their brilliance towards mass destruction and death, intellectuals must give up a portion
of their humanity, becoming increasingly more like the devices they create and defend.
The mutual catastrophes that occur in Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove show the
inevitability of human weakness and scientific fallibility. Through the development of
Professor Groeteschele and Dr. Strangelove, both Lumet and Kubrick illustrate the
catastrophic possibilities of relying solely on science and mathematics to resolve
international conflicts. Ultimately, modern, high stake warfare requires a more
humanistic, ethical code of right and wrong.