Mass Society and the Bomb

The accepted division of the pacifist‐dominated antinuclear movement in the late 1950s into radical pacifism, nuclear pacifism, and traditional pacifism rests primarily on an analysis of the different tactics that each group employed against the bomb. Yet pacifists never confined themselves to foreign and nuclear policy. Only by examining a broader intellectual context can certain pacifist ideas, as well as intrapacifist political disputes, be fully understood. In fact, different views of mass societyndashone of the most debated concepts in postwar intellectual circlesndashunderlay the different tactical choices. Pacifists concerned themselves with the bomb not only because of possible nuclear devastation but also because the weapon symbolized the power of mass society to annihilate an individual's destiny. They thus both responded to a threat to peace and fostered a broader discourse concerning the nature of American society

Context (archaeology · Destiny (ISS module · Environmental ethics · Nuclear weapon · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · American Political and Social Dynamics · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · History · Law · Philosophy · Twentieth Century Scientific Developments

• The Carter Administration and the Evolution of American Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy, 1977–1981

  Open Access•J Michael Martinez•Journal of Policy History•2002

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