The Paradox of Power: a Malice that Thinks Itself Beneficent

             Oppenheimer's belief in the benefits of nuclear power, and his identification with this power, given to him by both science and government, blinded him to its destructive potential, to its potential victims. The view of the Japanese and the Germans as inhuman beasts no doubt exaggerated the 'Them versus Us' mentality that helped Oppenheimer insulate himself from the consequences of his drive for righteous power. But the racism that inspired Oppenheimer was shared by Himmler, as well as by the Japanese. The destructive power of the Bomb was an image of Oppenhiemer's own will to power through knowledge, and indeed, is an image of the destructive power of the Conquest and the World invasion in general.

             He suffered its destructive power revealed after Hiroshima almost as a personal betrayal, as if he could not have conceived before hand that his personal experience of transcendence through the creation of a total weapon would stain his own hands with the blood of 2-300.000 people. His inability to understand the seeming paradox of the power that he sought gave him the attitude of a martyr.

             There were other factors in his assuming the martyr's role later in life, such as his persecution by the political hysteria of the McCarthy era, as well as his ambiguity towards the Hydrogen Bomb. But it is significant that in his trial half the accusations against him were about his alleged involvement with Communism and half were about his ambiguous support of the H bomb.[1] In the circles that Oppenheimer traveled in after World War II, loyalty to the National Security State and to the Defense establishment became a test of Loyalty to the Manifest Destiny of the United States. To question the morality of Hiroshima or of the H bomb amounted to treason or heresy against the growing quasi-religion of imperial American supremacy. Oppenheimer wanted to be a public figure and ride on his fame and influence, but at the same time, he dragged his feet about the H Bomb, because of what happened in Hiroshima, and he questioned American supremacy with his desire to see an international agency control atomic weaponry. Oppenheimer had to be gotten rid of because of his bad conscience about the bomb. He made the unpardonable mistake of casting doubt on the morality of power. He was caught in the breach of the paradox of the power that benefits and the power that punishes and destroys.

             But his assumption of the martyr's role has another and perhaps deeper aspect. He doubted the idealistic dream of a total science because he was deeply scared by the violence of his own pursuit of power. His dream of transcendence through knowledge was destroyed by the horror of what he had made. But he could never quite give up the beautiful illusion that the taste of power had given him. He never quite understood that the knowledge/power relationship must generate atrocities out of its very nature. "Progress" requires atrocity, deprivation or destruction. He seems to have sensed this but was unable to draw the conclusion that the only answer to atrocity is to question the system of knowledge that generates atrocity and seek to reduce the benefits that accrue to those who profit from a given system of knowledge, and thereby lessen the burden of power that falls on those who are punished by the system. Oppenheimer's ambiguity is revealed in the following: 

We have made an evil thing. And by so doing... we have raised again the question of whether science is good for man, or whether it is good to learn about the world, to try to understand it, to try to control it. to help give to men of the world increased insight, increased power...Because we are scientists we must say an unalterable yes to these questions... knowledge is good in itself, knowledge and such power as must come with it.[2]

            This passage reveals a Nietzschean and Machiavellian aspect of Oppenheimer's character. He notices he has made something 'evil' or destructive, but he instantly denies this, and returns to the beautiful illusion of knowledge/power that killed 2-300,000 lives. He confuses learning and understanding with control and insight with power and evil. He says "yes" to this confusion without understanding in any depth what he is saying. Yet he recognizes that science or knowledge may not be intrinsically good, but at the same time cannot follow out the consequences of this insight, that an unqualified yes cannot be said of science. It must be regulated in accord with ethical, human rights and democratic concerns. This is the message of all the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which Oppenheimer may have dimly heard. But his need of fame and power covered his ears, and he ceased hearing; or at least waffled and equivocated, denying to himself, what, if he were more sensitive, might have led him to renounce the Bomb and his involvement with it.

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