Anti-Climacus

I'm not sure it would be of general interest--though given this blog's eclectic readership, who knows?--but on the plane ride back from my undisclosed tropical location, I happened to read a very interesting old New Yorker article about the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima. The article is, in fact, the entirety of the August 1, 1946 issue, so it may require a university subscription to access (I got my copy through Duke).

I was reading it out of the conviction that it might be interesting for the students in my freshmen seminar, though I am always and generally dubious about the value of straight-up reporting, especially of historical incidents where the journalist is unlikely to have all the facts at their disposal. In spite of these (somewhat justified, it turns out) concerns, I will definitely be having my students read it. The article as a whole is constantly (unintentionally) foregrounding the question of why it's is being written as it is, which is useful in thinking about the way disciplinary assumptions underlay the work everyone does (and the wide gap between common sense views, journalistic views, and academic views); the last couple pages, in which survivors of the Hiroshima blast address the ethical question of the bomb (mostly coming out indifferent or accepting of its use; no one strongly opposed) lay out the relevant considerations in a more useful way than, say, "Mr. Truman's Degree" or some of the Dwight MacDonald writings I've found on this question.