Towards a new way of thinking

UNESCO Courier, August, 1986 by Gennadi Gerasimov

Towards a new way of thinking

OVER thirty years ago, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein invited us to "learn to think in a new way" and pointed out that "if the issues between East and West are to be decided ... then these issues must not be decided by war". In what became known as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto (see article page 13), the two philosophers suggested that people should regard themselves primarily as members of the human race, whether they be workers, shopkeepers, farmers, or property-owners on a large or small scale: "Consider yourselves only as members of a biological species."

Looking more deeply into the question, I discovered that Russell and Einstein were by no means the first to put forward such views, although they had extremely cogent reasons for doing so at that time. As long ago as 1928, the French novelist Romain Rolland called for the creation of a Peace International, which would discount all the "political, social, religious, philosophical and intellectual preoccupations" which divide mankind, and would be exclusively guided by a "clear and direct awareness of the community of all living beings."

Rolland was sickened by the lunacy of trench warfare, which had systematized butchery. Russell and Einstein were anxious about the new danger represented by the atomic bomb which indiscriminately massacred the population at large as well as the armed forces. Today, three decades later, the dangers far exceed those which they denounced, and their message has acquired a new dimension, especially with the establishment of the now well-documented hypothesis of "nuclear winter" as the inevitable outcome of a nuclear conflict.

Before the "nuclear winter" theory, armchair strategists speculated at great length about the stages of nuclear escalation, about second strike capabilities and the possibility, under certain conditions, of prevailing over the enemy in a nuclear exchange. To encourage plans for a "lightning" war to amputate the political and military leadership of an enemy power, a war unleashed from behind an antimissile shield capable of warding off a counter-attack from a weakened adversary, is to foster a dangerous illusion. It is now clear that the dust, soot and ash from many nuclear explosions will obliterate the "victor's" sun. Whoever lifts his sword will also die by it. Does this not encourage us to "think in a new way"?

The nuclear threat has taken on the dimension of "cliocide"--a word coined from Clio, the Greek Muse whose task was to watch over the course of human history. Today history faces the risk of sudden termination, as war, which formerly menaced only individuals, now threatens the whole human species.

Nuclear weapons sweep away the moral problem of ends and means, because any attempt to achieve a given end by using such weapons nullifies that end, by liquidating the two parties to the conflict. It would be like burning down a house while trying to carry out repairs on it, or killing a man in order to alter a mean streak in his character. Nor can nuclear war stand up to cost-benefit analysis.

The nuclear weapon, a creation of the human intellect, threatens to arrest the march of history through some act of political folly. Just as the great wars of the ancient world razed cities, sometimes wiped out entire peoples, after nuclear war the chronicle of human history would be ended. In any case, there would be nobody left to read it.

Just as we inherited this planet from our forebears, we have a responsibility towards future generations, each of which must hand on the heritage to their successors. In other words, we are all bound to Clio by a solemn oath which commands us to carry on the history of mankind.

If we want to preserve peace, it should be given absolute priority; the general interest must be seen to override the interests of specific groups or classes. According to Lenin, from the point of view of basic Marxist ideas, the interests of general development come before the interests of the proletariat, because when the workers gain power it is taken not for its own sake, but rather to deliver society from exploitation, establish social equality, and create the conditions necessary for balanced development of individual characteristics.

Karl Marx saw a major transformation in the relation between capital and labour as a necessary condition of world peace. In his inaugural address to the International Working Men's Association in 1864, he stressed the necessity of creating conditions in which the elementary laws of morality and justice which ought to govern individual relations should also be supreme in international relations.

Disarmament is the only possible route to the establishment of a new and just international order of world security. Only disarmament will allow us to use the vast material and intellectual resources thus freed to promote economic development and prosperity. Humanity has reached a crucial point and must choose which direction to take. It can overcome the inertia of the past and abandon the notion of security as based on the balance of power and on recourse to military or technological solutions; or it can continue to be hostage to the arms race--to nuclear and chemical weapons, and to others no less fearsome.