The author’s view concerning history is an interesting one. The author seems to posses a hermeneutic disposition towards history. For the author history is an extremely dense and complicated matter and we look at it through different lenses (temporal) we find differing meanings to fit in that grand puzzle. “And as we look at history through our only lens, the present, we gain new information and insights, which translates into new conflicts” ultimately creating new issues because the actual point in time of a conflict is not the full conflict rather a representation of a conflict as it appears to be. The full scale of it and it’s consequences whether intended or an externality is yet to be foreseen until we allow for some time to pass. The specific issue at hand is the case of the atomic bomb more specifically the dropping of the atomic bomb and it’s consequences. Nations and people tend to glorify their institutions, – especially the military, one ought to take an immense pride from it as it being the thing that is “good” wholly. But there are extremes, – some would argue that glorification in itself is enough as a transgression. But I believe ultimately there is the unforgivable transgression.
It was Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche and others who realized with the “Death of God” the transcendental ideal “Godhead” would be either destroyed (nihilism: absence of objective value and morality) or transfigured into the political state (thus the 20th century exposes itself). The transvaluation of the Godhead objective can be imagined when the author states his family and thousands of others and their “pilgrimage” to the displays of planes and rockets. The aweness felt of course was not one that came from vice but a differing of emotions. The religious like feeling stems ultimately from that very transfiguring. The author’’s dizzy awe like state does well to empify that religious feeling. Or was it the body’s reaction to the essence of such a wretched machine drenched in the potential blood of many. The display of B-29 Superfortress which dropped the first atomic bomb was perhaps a way to not understand history intended for the common folk and layman but rather an attempt to establish that ill glorification and feigned religiosity towards it. That it which is directed in the blood of hundreds of thousands.
The exhibit was criticized for taking the Pacific war out of context and politically correct curating, then on to politics: a group of some House members signed a letter calling the exhibit a “historically narrow revisionist view.” The press and veterans put pressure in order for the exhibit to change and even trying to cut a grand portion of their funding. This does not interest me much for this is the political and the political is always corrupted, their fundamental ideal is not truth. That responsibility of truth I believe is for the scholars. When historians were outraged and flung accusations mainly towards the debate of the atomic bomb. To attempt to revisit this and question it alone was enough for their criticism. Scholars! Historians! The intellectual giant and erudite Noam Chomsky wrote his famous “On The Responsibility of Intellectuals” in it he states it is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies. The refutation of falsehood and speaking the truth are necessities for scholarship. It is because of rarity of their intellect and knowledge and expertise that should compel them speak the truth.
What do the veterans mean when they ask the museum to display the Enola Gay in its proper context? How would they tell the story? Many would begin their story some years before the war, when the country was reflecting on the empty victory of the Great War and pacifism was in vogue. Suddenly, bombs, fire, smoke and lolling ships: Pearl Harbor. Two thousand Americans, 18 ships and 292 aircraft were destroyed in the Japanese sneak attack.
Unconsciously consciously permissibility of the bomb via interactions with enemy.
Because of practices such as kamikaze missions (a suicidal flight into an enemy ship) and hara-kiri (ritual suicide chosen over dishonor), many Americans considered the Japanese to be “fanatics” who would never surrender. Surrender was dishonorable for Japanese soldiers; they held Allied soldiers to the same standards and treated them brutally. In short, the Japanese pursued the battle with a total commitment to victory and a complete disregard for what the Western world accepted as “rules of warfare.” This strategy was powerful. Where the Japanese did not win, they forced Allied troops to pay in blood for every inch gained.