This was the headline of a French newspaper in Cannes after being mistakenly informed about Alfred Nobel's death. Nobel, great engineer and inventor forever remembered by his patent of dynamite, was on the verge of being posthumously branded as the merchant of death because of a discovery he made in attempt to save miners' lives, a discovery made only to replace the more volatile nitroglycerin with a more stable alternative -- a peaceful discovery with a peaceful application forever scarred by humanity's perversion of it.
So why do I mention this in a blog reviewing two films analyzing the discovery of a scientific achievement and its application of it afterwards? Because this isn't the first time this question of scientific ethic has been sought, and it surely won't be the last time anytime soon.
"Fat Man and Little Boy" and "Gojira" both deal with the moral implications of the engineering of the atom bomb and then its eventual use and detonation. The former film delves into the conflicting moral consciousnesses of the engineers and scientists in the creation of this weapon while the latter is a allegorical film criticizing the implementation of this invention in the guise of a monster movie. But the question still persists: was this discovery of the invention wrong? I would have to say no. Even deeper, I would have to say the implementation of this invention wasn't entirely wrong either -- not on an ethical realm, but on a relative realm unique only to its situation.
On discussing the moral positions of the scientists in "Fat Man and Little Boy", I'd like to recall back to my opening on Alfred Nobel. I purposely painted Nobel entirely as a victim of his own discovery, when the truth isn't that clear-cut. It is true that Nobel began his discovery like any other scientist would have, seeing a puzzle in the volatility in nitroglycerin and using his understanding to solve it, which he did by adding silica to create a malleable and stable paste, thus, dynamite was born. As Neil deGrasse Tyson has said, "A discovery itself is not moral, it's our application of it." The moral dilemma here, however, began upon Nobel's response to when he saw how his invention was being used for martial and warlike purposes -- he decided to opt in. He even continued manufacturing and patenting inventions for the armaments industry beyond dynamite. It was only later in his life when his moral consciousness weighed upon him, and he began making excuses as a comfortable way to defend his activity -- "Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilized nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops" (this is actually how the urban legend began that Nobel purely invented the dynamite as a weapon of such terror that would demote the idea of war forever more, an idea interestingly held by post-atomic detonation scientists in the US). His despondence is what eventually lead to him posthumously arranging the Nobel Peace Prizes. The question still persists, however -- should his discovery have been made knowing what it would have lead to? Yes. Neil deGrasse Tyson continues from the quote above, saying "The world is accessible to us". Upon being asked the same question, coincidentally about the moral implications of the discovery of the atom bomb as well, he alludes to the discovery of smelting iron. Should the discovery of smelting iron have been prevented knowing that it would lead to the creation of the sword, a weapon of war? He let out a resounding "absolutely". I'm going to take a leap and say that all the combined deaths at the edge of a sword surpasses the deaths from the atomic bomb by far. But the creation of weapons was just one of many byproducts of the smelting of iron, most of which were beneficial in the progression of humanity's technological and scientific prowess. One detrimental application to a discovery shouldn't undermine the whole thing.
I put so much extensive focus on Nobel because he shared the same plight as the Manhattan Project scientists in regards to moral consciousness, the only difference is their inventions' initial purpose and eventual implementations were reversed -- dynamite was a peaceful tool turned weapon and atomic discovery began a weapon turned peaceful application (eventually). The moral quandary of the Manhattan Project scientists was that they fully understood that their scientific discovery was being weaponized from the get-go. Many held onto the Nobel-like belief that the US desperately needed a weapon of such destruction that it would forever secure its safety through fear. And in that moment, that assumption was right. As I stated before, I believe that the implementation of the atomic bomb on Japan was objectively right not on an ethical standpoint, but relatively due to the unique circumstance America found itself in opposition to Japan. Japan was under the leadership of extremist Prime Minister Tojo who instilled an utter sense of crazed nationalism into the country's citizens through which nothing short of a single display of shear annihilation would suppress them. Under the practice of extreme Bushido, even Japan's citizen populace was displaying fierce loyalty through suicide in a matter of ways to prove their devotion. The nation's army itself was already deploying an art of war not combatable against in the traditional sense of warfare through the form of kamikaze and guerrilla tactics. So that's exactly what the US did -- they combated Japan's nontraditional style of warfare with an equally nontraditional style in the form of the power of the atom. And only through this was the US able to suppress Japan into surrendering. The real problem began years later when the Soviet Union began atomic and eventually nuclear interest, because when you see someone with a big stick, you try and find a bigger one -- and that's the problem it always boils down to, which I think can be attributed to the human condition and not assigned and blamed on morals or ethics.
Now onto "Gojira". I think it's obvious as to why the US wouldn't allow the complete and original version of the film be viewed until 50 years later. It humanized Japan's citizens in a way and quite literally framed America as a monster. Ego aside, I think the bigger and more realistic reason was because the US was still in an arm's race against the Soviet Union at the time, an arm's race comprised entirely of nuclear warheads. If "Gojira" was publicly shown in America during this period, it could make the populace sympathetic in the plight to rid nuclear weapons. The fact of the matter was that America couldn't have a sympathetic populace because they needed their full support as they continued to make more nuclear warheads in opposition to the Soviet Union's own nuclear arsenal.
Ending my whole spiel on moral dilemma and now onto the literal possibility of a Godzilla creature, I don't think I can suspend my disbelief here. Godzilla is a big boy, and a big boy has got to eat. Tokyo really is a big entree, but unless Godzilla takes regular strolls to coastal cities and eats all their inhabitants on the daily throughout his lifetime, I don't think he can persist and thrive as an biological organism. And sadly, Japan isn't that big enough to support a diet like that. Besides, by his third of fourth meal in the quantity of a city, Japan would have already devised the oxygen destroyer, which leads me to my final piece of discussion...
The concept of the oxygen destroyer is actually kind of cool. It's beyond stupid, but cool nonetheless. The main idea behind the oxygen destroyer is mostly apparent in its name, in which it dissolves all oxygen in water. I don't necessarily think it would dissolve Godzilla completely as shown (a la the law of the conservation of mass), but I think the effect would be pretty destructive regardless. In line with the main properties behind the atom bomb, if the oxygen destroyer followed suit and achieved its effects through the splitting of the oxygen atom, an interesting effect would occur either way --all the O2 would be split into individual oxygen atoms. I can still safely say this wouldn't dissolve Godzilla either, but the effect would still probably end in his demise.
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I began this blog alluding to Alfred Nobel (and perhaps spent a little more time than necessary with this allusion, sorry) to drive home the point that scientific discovery and moral implications always have and always will collide. It didn't begin with Alfred Nobel, and it won't end (and obviously hasn't) with the scientists in the Manhattan Project. Ethics and science will always be opponents, but the discoveries themselves aren't to blame.
Very nice blog. I didn't remember Alfred Nobel's background.
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