You are dodging the problem. If you don't drop the bomb, huge numbers of Americans die. You are President so EITHER WAY the consequences are on you. Don't drop the bomb, you've condemned American boys (and others) to death. Is that the choice you would make?
No, I'm not dodging. We just fundamentally disagree about the nature of guilt and moral responsibility. As I said, I believe the active/passive distinction matters, and the consequences are not in fact "on you" in equivalent senses. But we can agree to disagree!
Don't know why am pursuing this, and I like to think if I were in Truman's situation I might have finessed it in some other way. Nobody would enjoy being in his position.
But my point is if you choose not to drop the bomb(s), you are in fact choosing many American servicemen will die. It seems like read 1 million casualties were expected if we invaded Japan, but I am on my phone and don't want to research that at the moment.
I am fine if that's your choice, not arguing you should choose otherwise, but do you accept that is the outcome of your choice?
Yes. A terrible outcome, to be sure. I've actually spent a lot of time reading about the Pacific theater and am very sensitive to the costs of war. But I don't think it could have justly been said Truman "killed" the additional dead.
Fair enough. In years past I spent a lot of time reading about WWII. Very gripping topic. A horrible war (as are all of them) and one wonders how or if somehow God's purposes are carried out in the midst of it.
I should probably be clearer that I myself emphatically think it was wrong for Truman to drop the bomb, and I think given that he himself wrote his own worst-sounding lines in the movie, it was fine to build this performance with them. He wanted to be remembered as the bastard who made those bastards pay.
I can't address his motivation because I don't know much about him. Though you or I might have that same sentiment after years of horrible war and death, dead American boys coming home to devastated kin.
Suppose the choice was given you this very day. The Japanese refuse to surrender. Invading the home islands is predicted to result in staggering casualties. Soldiers who would not have to die if the Japanese surrendered. And remember vast numbers of Japanese are going to die too.
I believe it's always and everywhere wrong to intentionally take innocent life, so I would choose not to do that. The active/passive distinction really matters. But my focus in this review was actually somewhat independent of this, because I would disagree with Oppenheimer for the same reason, yet I respect the fact that he suffered with a tortured conscience for it.
So surprised to read your words. You always seem steady and nonjudgmental. All my uncles fought in the second world war. All returned traumatized at Japanese torture and methods of slaughter. They knew what Japanese soldiers did to the Chinese and Koreans as wars continued. Perhaps the military culture has died in Japan by now. Perhaps there is regret and sorrow. But many of the men who saw WWII up close were never able to forget what they saw.
Yes, I've read a lot of that history. It's truly awful. I don't judge servicemen who would disagree with me. I simply maintain it was wrong to retaliate by killing noncombatants.
Paul Fussell’s essay, “Thank God for the Atom Bomb “ is well worth reading. It’s the view of a man who survived the Western front and anticipated being in the first wave invasion of the home islands.
That scene, where he leaves the baby with Chevalier, struck me at the time, but I've not had cause to revisit it since. I was hit by Chevalier's line when Oppenheimer is apologising - I can't remember the exact phrasing, but he says something like "this is the price brilliany people pay for seeing further", or something. Which, as a dad, I just thought sucked, and so the scene landed for me as one of Oppeneheimer's subjective moments of self-jusfitication. Did Chevalier even say that, or did Oppenheimer just remember him doing or, or wish that he had?
Yes, right. I have the same reaction, it feels sanctimonious in the moment. If there is an argument for relieving the Oppenheimers, it's for the more basic reason that his wife is literally going insane from postpartum.
It's a great question to what extent his memories are functioning as an unreliable narrator. All lines like that are, of course, in subjective color. This could be like The Prestige: "Are you watching closely?" I'm not sure though. I do think we're also glimpsing Nolan's vision there.
Yeah, dude, you don't need to be a Father of the Atomic Bomb to ask your friends for help.
And yes, despite Nolan revealing the whole "subjective colour scenes" thing, I don't know if he gives us enough to question the concrete facts of each scene. And yet it clearly gets more bizarre and subjective as things move on, principally in the scene with the Los Alamos employees in the theatre. So that then makes you wonder how much you can project the unreality of those scenes back into the earlier ones.
I maintain it was a 3 star movie, but my main change of heart is that I thought I wouldn't want to watch it again any time soon, but am now very keen to rewatch.
I can understand your take on this, but I don't agree.
I don't think Truman had the intention of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan with the intention of making those "bastards pay". I think Truman was a man who was faced with one of either two decisions: 1. conduct a conventional invasion of Japan where we were expecting a million casualties and God only knows how many Japanese dead, or 2. use a horrific new weapon to end the war.
I don't think he made the right decision. I think he made the best decision he could have.
As far as Oppenheimer goes, I think Truman was right. In real life (I just finished "American Prometheus" the other day), Oppenheimer said "Mr. President, I have blood on my hands", to which Truman replied, "Not half as much as I do." If Truman embellished the story later on and called Oppenheimer a "crybaby scientist", then it would appear that Donald Trump was anything but unprecedented...
The unfortunate, sad truth about humanity is that we're a violent, cruel, vicious species, and we're very good at killing each other (war as the "father of us all" and all that).
What I think isn't mentioned is that in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the United States had the capacity to conquer the world. We could have developed an arsenal of atomic weapons, dropped a few on strategic sites (Moscow, Paris, London) and been the world's unquestioned overlords. But we didn't. What other major world power in history would ever have done that?
Ultimately, we're still hunter-gatherers living in a modern age. Instead of sticks and stones, we have nukes and AI. I think that we have to understand that fact and be sure that our tribe has the biggest sticks and stones.
If you haven't seen it already, "Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie" is an excellent documentary. I think Edward Teller's remarks from 38:09 - 39:09 are accurate:
I do think there was a strong animus against Japan as a nation, built up over all the various brutalities they had perpetrated. Psychologically understandable, of course. But it's not the basis for an argument, which I've actually seen people try to make it in debates around this. I saw someone say in so many words that Japan forfeited the right to be treated justly themselves when their soldiers perpetrated war crimes. Of course that's a very obfuscating take.
I take a very hard ethical line on the intentional killing of innocents. Weighing the numbers of people who might die in different outcomes never sways me in these scenarios, because the fundamental moral axiom remains untouched, that it's always intrinsically wrong to take innocent life.
However, I don't think this means we are obliged to engage in one-sided disarmament, as some might. I suppose that could seem contradictory, but I think you can hold the two positions in balance--that there isn't a good reason to leave yourself completely exposed and vulnerable to a hostile power, even though it would be wrong to deploy a WMD yourself.
I agree completely with your last point. I also agree with "it's always intrinsically wrong to take innocent life."
The problem is that sometimes you got to be the bad guy, whether you like it or not. Using the atomic bomb on Japan prevented hundreds of thousands if not millions of people from dying. That doesn't make it right, but I think it does justify it.
I reject that framing though, because it seems to suggest that there actually is such a thing as a true moral dilemma, which I'm not convinced there ever is--in other words, that there may be a context where no choice is "right." That's precisely what I question.
Again, it comes down to the question of whether allowing a situation to arise in which a lot of good combatants will be killed (and perhaps non-combatants as a ripple effect) is morally equivalent to directly ordering a strike on non-combatants.
I believe the movie does a lot of hindsight rationalisation. There are lines of argument about use of nuclear weapons that were developed later wethin the discipline of International Relations. Moreover, were those dilemmas framed the same way then?
1) Truman had not known about the bomb before becoming president, that should be taken into account. How much could he have known about the potential damage?
2) Apparently, Oppenheimer's estimate of the losses were reported accurately in the movie (cca 20.000). The dilemma was not either risk American lives or kill 200.000 Japanese on one go...
3) That all in the context of massive bombing campaigns in Europe where civilian casualties were staggering. It was a military doctrine at the time. I believe it was faulty, inefficient but reality for the decision-makers.
4) That in context of projections of casualties of invasion of Japanese islands that were around half a million American servicemen - I read somewhere that the US ran out of Purple hearts coined in the expectations of the invasion only in 2000s.
Yes, he underestimated the number of people who would die. However, ethically speaking the most relevant consideration here is not quantity but quality.
True, on the firebombing as context. I believe that was also wrong.
You are dodging the problem. If you don't drop the bomb, huge numbers of Americans die. You are President so EITHER WAY the consequences are on you. Don't drop the bomb, you've condemned American boys (and others) to death. Is that the choice you would make?
No, I'm not dodging. We just fundamentally disagree about the nature of guilt and moral responsibility. As I said, I believe the active/passive distinction matters, and the consequences are not in fact "on you" in equivalent senses. But we can agree to disagree!
Don't know why am pursuing this, and I like to think if I were in Truman's situation I might have finessed it in some other way. Nobody would enjoy being in his position.
But my point is if you choose not to drop the bomb(s), you are in fact choosing many American servicemen will die. It seems like read 1 million casualties were expected if we invaded Japan, but I am on my phone and don't want to research that at the moment.
I am fine if that's your choice, not arguing you should choose otherwise, but do you accept that is the outcome of your choice?
Yes. A terrible outcome, to be sure. I've actually spent a lot of time reading about the Pacific theater and am very sensitive to the costs of war. But I don't think it could have justly been said Truman "killed" the additional dead.
Fair enough. In years past I spent a lot of time reading about WWII. Very gripping topic. A horrible war (as are all of them) and one wonders how or if somehow God's purposes are carried out in the midst of it.
Great review.
And "Truman, the man of action who didn’t have the luxury of inaction"
Yes. If he chooses inaction, many more American soldiers die.
Hollywood and others can be sanctimonious about dropping the bomb because no responsibility rests on them.
I should probably be clearer that I myself emphatically think it was wrong for Truman to drop the bomb, and I think given that he himself wrote his own worst-sounding lines in the movie, it was fine to build this performance with them. He wanted to be remembered as the bastard who made those bastards pay.
I can't address his motivation because I don't know much about him. Though you or I might have that same sentiment after years of horrible war and death, dead American boys coming home to devastated kin.
Suppose the choice was given you this very day. The Japanese refuse to surrender. Invading the home islands is predicted to result in staggering casualties. Soldiers who would not have to die if the Japanese surrendered. And remember vast numbers of Japanese are going to die too.
The choice is yours.
Action has a high cost, so does inaction.
I am curious about your response here.
Tell me honestly what do you choose?
I believe it's always and everywhere wrong to intentionally take innocent life, so I would choose not to do that. The active/passive distinction really matters. But my focus in this review was actually somewhat independent of this, because I would disagree with Oppenheimer for the same reason, yet I respect the fact that he suffered with a tortured conscience for it.
So surprised to read your words. You always seem steady and nonjudgmental. All my uncles fought in the second world war. All returned traumatized at Japanese torture and methods of slaughter. They knew what Japanese soldiers did to the Chinese and Koreans as wars continued. Perhaps the military culture has died in Japan by now. Perhaps there is regret and sorrow. But many of the men who saw WWII up close were never able to forget what they saw.
Isle of Palms
Yes, I've read a lot of that history. It's truly awful. I don't judge servicemen who would disagree with me. I simply maintain it was wrong to retaliate by killing noncombatants.
Ms. McGrew,
Paul Fussell’s essay, “Thank God for the Atom Bomb “ is well worth reading. It’s the view of a man who survived the Western front and anticipated being in the first wave invasion of the home islands.
Just read that.
Spot on.
That scene, where he leaves the baby with Chevalier, struck me at the time, but I've not had cause to revisit it since. I was hit by Chevalier's line when Oppenheimer is apologising - I can't remember the exact phrasing, but he says something like "this is the price brilliany people pay for seeing further", or something. Which, as a dad, I just thought sucked, and so the scene landed for me as one of Oppeneheimer's subjective moments of self-jusfitication. Did Chevalier even say that, or did Oppenheimer just remember him doing or, or wish that he had?
Yes, right. I have the same reaction, it feels sanctimonious in the moment. If there is an argument for relieving the Oppenheimers, it's for the more basic reason that his wife is literally going insane from postpartum.
It's a great question to what extent his memories are functioning as an unreliable narrator. All lines like that are, of course, in subjective color. This could be like The Prestige: "Are you watching closely?" I'm not sure though. I do think we're also glimpsing Nolan's vision there.
Yeah, dude, you don't need to be a Father of the Atomic Bomb to ask your friends for help.
And yes, despite Nolan revealing the whole "subjective colour scenes" thing, I don't know if he gives us enough to question the concrete facts of each scene. And yet it clearly gets more bizarre and subjective as things move on, principally in the scene with the Los Alamos employees in the theatre. So that then makes you wonder how much you can project the unreality of those scenes back into the earlier ones.
I maintain it was a 3 star movie, but my main change of heart is that I thought I wouldn't want to watch it again any time soon, but am now very keen to rewatch.
I missed a lot on first watch because it was so dense. Was glad I saw it twice. I'd give it 4/5 stars.
I can understand your take on this, but I don't agree.
I don't think Truman had the intention of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan with the intention of making those "bastards pay". I think Truman was a man who was faced with one of either two decisions: 1. conduct a conventional invasion of Japan where we were expecting a million casualties and God only knows how many Japanese dead, or 2. use a horrific new weapon to end the war.
I don't think he made the right decision. I think he made the best decision he could have.
As far as Oppenheimer goes, I think Truman was right. In real life (I just finished "American Prometheus" the other day), Oppenheimer said "Mr. President, I have blood on my hands", to which Truman replied, "Not half as much as I do." If Truman embellished the story later on and called Oppenheimer a "crybaby scientist", then it would appear that Donald Trump was anything but unprecedented...
The unfortunate, sad truth about humanity is that we're a violent, cruel, vicious species, and we're very good at killing each other (war as the "father of us all" and all that).
What I think isn't mentioned is that in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the United States had the capacity to conquer the world. We could have developed an arsenal of atomic weapons, dropped a few on strategic sites (Moscow, Paris, London) and been the world's unquestioned overlords. But we didn't. What other major world power in history would ever have done that?
Ultimately, we're still hunter-gatherers living in a modern age. Instead of sticks and stones, we have nukes and AI. I think that we have to understand that fact and be sure that our tribe has the biggest sticks and stones.
If you haven't seen it already, "Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie" is an excellent documentary. I think Edward Teller's remarks from 38:09 - 39:09 are accurate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4yXfrYSmuA&ab_channel=nokeradove
I do think there was a strong animus against Japan as a nation, built up over all the various brutalities they had perpetrated. Psychologically understandable, of course. But it's not the basis for an argument, which I've actually seen people try to make it in debates around this. I saw someone say in so many words that Japan forfeited the right to be treated justly themselves when their soldiers perpetrated war crimes. Of course that's a very obfuscating take.
I take a very hard ethical line on the intentional killing of innocents. Weighing the numbers of people who might die in different outcomes never sways me in these scenarios, because the fundamental moral axiom remains untouched, that it's always intrinsically wrong to take innocent life.
However, I don't think this means we are obliged to engage in one-sided disarmament, as some might. I suppose that could seem contradictory, but I think you can hold the two positions in balance--that there isn't a good reason to leave yourself completely exposed and vulnerable to a hostile power, even though it would be wrong to deploy a WMD yourself.
Teller was a great character in this!
I agree completely with your last point. I also agree with "it's always intrinsically wrong to take innocent life."
The problem is that sometimes you got to be the bad guy, whether you like it or not. Using the atomic bomb on Japan prevented hundreds of thousands if not millions of people from dying. That doesn't make it right, but I think it does justify it.
I reject that framing though, because it seems to suggest that there actually is such a thing as a true moral dilemma, which I'm not convinced there ever is--in other words, that there may be a context where no choice is "right." That's precisely what I question.
You may be right. I'd like it if you were.
Unfortunately, I don't think you are.
So it goes.
Again, it comes down to the question of whether allowing a situation to arise in which a lot of good combatants will be killed (and perhaps non-combatants as a ripple effect) is morally equivalent to directly ordering a strike on non-combatants.
I believe the movie does a lot of hindsight rationalisation. There are lines of argument about use of nuclear weapons that were developed later wethin the discipline of International Relations. Moreover, were those dilemmas framed the same way then?
1) Truman had not known about the bomb before becoming president, that should be taken into account. How much could he have known about the potential damage?
2) Apparently, Oppenheimer's estimate of the losses were reported accurately in the movie (cca 20.000). The dilemma was not either risk American lives or kill 200.000 Japanese on one go...
3) That all in the context of massive bombing campaigns in Europe where civilian casualties were staggering. It was a military doctrine at the time. I believe it was faulty, inefficient but reality for the decision-makers.
4) That in context of projections of casualties of invasion of Japanese islands that were around half a million American servicemen - I read somewhere that the US ran out of Purple hearts coined in the expectations of the invasion only in 2000s.
Yes, he underestimated the number of people who would die. However, ethically speaking the most relevant consideration here is not quantity but quality.
True, on the firebombing as context. I believe that was also wrong.