Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Political evaluation and sophistical judgement
Journal Title: Revista Romana de Studii Eurasiatice - Year 2006, Vol 2, Issue 1
Abstract
In the history of radioctivity, started in 1896, the disasters of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9, 1945), that have made hundreds of thousands of victims, represent an unfortunate climax: “All the city is drowned in darkness, / all the echoes are ashen...”, as the Romanian poet Eugen Jebeleanu suggestively wrote in his poem of 1958 Surâsul Hiroshimei / The Smile of Hiroshima. The fact that the Allies ignored the peace efforts made by the Japanese diplomacy and also the categorical terms of the Postdam Proclamation, that seemed to threaten the imperial institution, essential in the Japanese mentality, were factors aggravating the tensions that led to the dropping of the two atomic bombs, officially justified by the shortening of the war and the diminution of the number of victims, although in 1945 Japan’s military capacity had weaken. So, behind the lack of communication between two policies and cultures (for example, the samurai doctrine of “death before dishonour”) one can see the political use of sophism (false argument, especially one intended to deive) with its species such as argumentum ad populum (appeal to popularity), ignoratio elenchi (the fallacy involving an irrelevant conclusion), the false dilemma, the doubtful causality, the invocation of pride or hatred, the vague thesis. Killing a mass of civilian population (against ethical principles, as well as precepts derived from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, even from a part of ancient Greek philosophy), the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a lugubrious experiment, have constituted (at that moment, during the Cold War and till now) a symbol of power, the nuclear arming becoming a means of intimidation. But a warning for mankind’s survival comes not only from nuclear energy, but also from a political heritage rooted in the ancient Greek culture: sophism.
Authors and Affiliations
RALUCA GRIGORIU
Keywords
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