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SPECIAL REPORT

Images of nuclear : Why people feel the way they do Emotions and ideas are more deeply rooted than realized

by ^/ontroversy over nuclear energy, both anxiety and anger. Even among pro-nuclear Spencer R. Weart and reactors, has been exceptionally durable and people, beneath the controlled language, there is violent, exciting more emotion and public a lot of anxiety, a lot of anger. And why not? protest than any other . A main reason After all, everyone has heard that nuclear is that during the , nuclear energy can blow up the world — or maybe gradually became a condensed symbol for many deter those who would blow it up. With nuclear features of industrial and bureucratic authority reactors, too, everyone agrees they are immense- (especially the horrors of modern ). ly important. They will save us from the global Propagandists found nuclear energy a useful disasters of the Greenhouse Effect — or perhaps symbol because it had become associated with they will poison all our posterity. potent images: not only weapons, but also un- Most of us take for granted these intensely canny scientists with mysterious rays' and mutant emotional ideas; we suppose the ideas flow from monsters; technological Utopia or universal the nature of the bombs and reactors themselves. doom; and even spiritual degradation or rebirth. But I have come to feel uneasy about this over These images had archaic connections stretching the years doing historical research on nuclear back to alchemical visions of transmutation. energy. The fact is, emotions came first, and the Decades before fission was discovered, the im- powerful devices themselves came later. ages had already become associated with radioactivity and nuclear energy; thus they relate less to technical facts than to deep-rooted con- cerns about authority and personal and social "The New Alchemists" transformations. Nuclear energy is the most extreme case When I studied the nuclear debates of the where public of technology goes beyond mid-century, I was bothered that the most what seems reasonable in the of actual ex- powerful images people used — for example, the perience. Recent surveys of both Americans and cartoon picture of a planet like a round on Japanese show that for evoking feelings of a fuse — are far from literal truth. What most dread, reactor accidents outweigh every other disturbed me was that I had run across all this modern risk, including problems that each year before. Studying the history of at the turn visibly harm millions of people. The only risk of the century, long before fission was that is feared as much is nuclear war. There is discovered, I had seen this same imagery of nothing anywhere near this for a topic that looks exploding planets and so forth. So the images on the surface to be a of plain technology, could not have come from any realistic appraisal yet that when looked at more deeply turns out to of nuclear energy; they came from somewhere involve such a great deal more. else. It is easy to see that on nuclear issues, It was all there already at the very beginning whether weapons or reactors, the rallies and of the history of nuclear energy, back in 1901. demonstrations of protestors are filled with What happened then was that two scientists, and , dis- covered that radioactivity signals a change of from one element to another. "I was over- Dr Weart is Director of the Centre for History of . American Institute of Physics and author of the book Nuclear whelmed," Soddy recalled, "with something Fear A History of Images, published in 1988 by Harvard greater than joy. . . a kind of exaltation." He University Press, Cambridge. Massachusetts. USA. blurted out, "Rutherford, this is transmutation!"

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Nuclear energy: "a great symbolic power". (Credit: Sodel, Phototeque EdF)

"For Mike's sake. Soddy," his colleague shot traditionally called to mind the great theme of back, "don't call it transmutation. They'll have spiritual rebirth. our heads off as alchemists." Already at the mo- It doesn't stop there. In many cultures around ment the new science was born, it was flooded the world, the descent into corruption symbol- with emotion, both exaltation and anxiety. izes not only personal, but social trouble — a Why this emotion? What did the word "trans- coming time of chaos, when humanity will be mutation" mean? It meant, of course, the thing victimized by plagues and , and in the ex- the alchemists had been looking for. That's truly treme the entire universe will be destroyed. The important, because for the first generation of secret of transmutation was the secret of nuclear research, reminders of alchemy were Armageddon. Beyond this could come the mil- everywhere. The press called nuclear scientists lenium, all of society purified by fire, transmuted "The New Alchemists" - eventually even into perfection, into what was called — by no Rutherford used these words. An old tradition coincidence — the Golden Age. In short, the was at work. moment the idea of transmutation was brought Scholars have studied the alchemical tradi- up — and this was central in the early years of tion, and they have uncovered some surprising — personal and social transfor- things about what these images have traditional- mation, hopes for the greatest conceivable ly signified. Transmutation of base metal into things, and shattering dangers ranging right up to was only an aid, a symbol, for deeper the end of the world were brought up. too. mysteries. Alchemy was a quest for ultimate All this may sound unfamiliar. And certainly knowledge. Transmutation concealed a great irrational. Is it far-fetched to suppose that these and perilous secret: the divine secret of life itself. ancient traditions had anything to do with early The alchemists believed that in their crucibles, feelings about nuclear energy? No. In fact within substances literally died and were reborn: things a year of the discovery of transmutation. Soddy descended into corruption and putrefaction announced that the energy locked within atoms before they could be transformed into pure gold. was so great that the earth must be seen as a And this process could be an aid. a symbol for storehouse full of : a man who could the agonizing descent into spiritual darkness that unleash this energy, he said, "could destroy the is necessary, some believe, for any great psy- earth if he chose." Soon everyone had heard the chological transformation. So transmutation idea that, as Rutherford put it. "some fool in a

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laboratory might blow up the universe un- Soddy said that nuclear energy would fulfill awares." the old alchemists' dreams of a Golden Age. He There was nothing new about the idea of the meant this literally; he had read up on the history end of the world, of course. What was relatively of alchemy and deliberately called the old myths new was the idea that the end of the world could into modern times. In a book that was widely be brought on not by some act of God, nor by a read everywhere from the to the cosmic catastrophe beyond any human control, USSR, he wrote: "A race which could transmute but by one group, even a single person: the matter would have little need to earn its bread by sorcerer's apprentice would no longer endanger the sweat of its brow. . . such a race could only himself, but everybody. Journalists and transform a desert continent, thaw the frozen authors warned that a careless poles, and make the whole world one smiling nuclear experimenter could destroy the world, Garden of Eden." even the entire universe. If this sounds like Wells, it's because Wells had read Soddy. This kind of millenial talk be- It wasn't new for people to exclaim that came familiar to everyone. The hopes for nuclear science was going too far. We've always had energy were just as grandiose as the . worries about men who poke unwisely into the secrets of nature: alchemists, sorcerers, Faust, Frankenstein. But in modern times the old Atomic rays and nuclear forces stereotype was transformed into a new and more specific figure: the mad scientist. He is a brilliant man, at first almost a fatherly authority figure; But the main public interest in nuclear ener- but then something goes wrong. One example gy, however, had little to do with either bombs or was a 1936 American movie, "The Invisible industrial energy. Soddy put it in a nutshell. Ray", in which Boris Karloff played a scientist "The philosopher's stone," he said, "was ac- — tampering, as his mother tells him, "with credited the power not only of transmuting the Secrets We Are Not Meant to Probe!" He built a metals, but of acting as the ELIXIR OF LIFE." ray projector, capable of blasting people The elixir of life, bringing the transmutation of or curing their illnesses — a sort of magic wand. the body, perfect health, perhaps even bodily Karloff meant to use it only for good, but then he immortality. That shouldn't be surprising, since gets a dose of his own weird , and the secret of transmutation, as I said, was the begins to glow in the dark. He goes murderously secret of life-force, rebirth. insane, and creeps about killing people with a Radium was in fact useful in treating certain touch of his hand. types of cancer. But the press solemnly reported that radium might entirely conquer all cancer. It So it's not just accidents we have to fear, but might cure tuberculosis, make the blind see. It deliberate use of the secret dangerous powers. might create life, said the newspapers, and raise There's some deep psychology here — but I the dead. By 1930 there were about 100 patent won't get into that. It's enough to say that it's medicines on the market whose active ingredient "natural" for people, when they hear about was radium — pastes, tonics, powders, pills, and mighty secrets and new forces, to think of suppositories, that promised to cure everything weapons. Even before I, physicists from warts to baldness; indeed they could restore were speculating about nuclear weapons. The your youth, and revive flagging sexual powers. phrase "atomic bomb" was first used by H.G. Mineral springs were proud of the radioactive Wells in a 1913 novel. He described a cataclys- content of their waters — something most of mic world war in which the bombs and their them don't advertise nowadays. radioactivity rendered cities uninhabitable for The public was aware that nuclear energy generations. But people realized that now there had a harmful side. Newspapers correctly had to be a world government, run in fact by reported that rays could cause sterility, genetic scientists and science-minded people. Soon mutations, and cancer. Yet so could many other -powered cars were flitting about, atom- things, such as common chemicals. In the hands powered cities rose in deserts and arctic wastes, of competent doctors, people said, radiation there was universal peace and even free love. would save far more lives than it would take— The old alchemists would not have been which was in fact the case. We should not let surprised. The descent into corruption leads to people forget that radiation has been and still is salvation, Armageddon leads to the millenium. responsible for saving many millions of lives, The secret of transmutation conceals terrrors, many times what it has cost us even through yes, but also the path to the Golden Age. That's nuclear bombs. the standard way the old myths went. And the It's only when you look behind the optimism, early nuclear physicists said exactly the same. away from journalism and into the deeper levels

32 IAEA BULLETIN, 3/1991 SPECIAL REPORT of culture revealed by science fiction stories and the lobbying group at Los Alamos sent lumps of B-movies, that you find a special anxiety about fused sand from the first test site to the mayors radioactivity. For radioactivity — as the name of 42 cities, just to remind them what could says — is about rays, and rays are another of happen to their cities. The scientists wanted to those symbols with ancient meanings. In mythol- scare people into taking action to prevent another ogy, rays carry magic power — even the mystic war. Of course, other cities had been treated the life-force itself. same during World War II — the fire bombing And death, of course: these symbols are all of Tokyo had wiped out 17 square miles and two-sided. There were thunderbolts, the evil eye, caused a million casualties, far more than at and many other forms of baleful rays. Even and combined. But that before nuclear energy was discovered, scientists wasn't the point; the point was that science and studying X-rays got letters from people who technology could now do almost anything. Thus thought it wrong to probe the secrets of "death atomic bombs came to stand for something more rays." Such talk redoubled after the discovery of than just themselves; they became a condensed radioactivity. By the 1930s there were literally representation for all the horrors of modern dozens of death-ray movies like Boris Karloff technological warfare. with his ray projector: radiation had become a The people who spread the fear of atomic secret power in the hands of the authorities, for good or evil. bombs believed that fear could be a goad to Still, through the 1930s the anxieties healthy action—war could be avoided; they remained a matter off to the side, restricted to the would set people on the path to the Golden Age. adolescent world of science fiction. The present Scientists and journalists, perhaps even political reality of was medical blessings, leaders, remembered the science-fiction Utopias and the future possibilities were still more entic- of their childhood, and said that ing- plants could make them come true. The world's After atomic bombs were actually built, it's deserts would become "blooming gardens," not surprising that the frightening side of the jungles would become "lands flowing with milk picture began to grow stronger. People could and honey," the earth would become "a only understand the news in terms of what they Promised Land". If only scientists were given already had in their heads. As soon as people enough money to work with, they would make heard the words "atomic bomb," if you look at an Atomic Golden Age. It was the old double- what was said on radio and so forth even before faced image of danger and redemption. there was any accurate report about what had The most common image was a actually happened at Hiroshima, everywhere "crossroads". One road led to atomic destruc- you find talk of doomsday and hellfire, cosmic tion, the other to an Atomic Golden Age. The secrets, and Frankenstein. possible futures were extreme. Nobody realized By that time physicists were coming to un- we would in fact take neither road, but strike out derstand the fact that nuclear forces are neither cross country between them. more nor less cosmic than more familiar electri- To be blunt: the public views of nuclear cal forces — that a release of nuclear energy is energy after Hiroshima were just about the same magical only in the same sense that the burning as the views they held before Hiroshima — and of a match is. But most people took it as a fact right back to the turn of the century. The image that there was something supremely mysterious, seemed dominated by optimism, but it had a almost divine, in any manifestation of atomic powerful undercurrent of anxiety. energy. By the 1950s if not much earlier, for most of the world, nuclear energy had come to stand for Fears of nuclear energy more important things. Nuclear energy wasn't just reactors that could produce electricity, and Scientists didn't point out that nuclear energy that could fight cancer; it stood for is nothing mystical; rather they took advantage magical devices that could bring a Utopian new of their association with the magical power. civilization. And nuclear energy wasn't just Hundreds of these atomic scientists gave weapons that could destroy cities; it stood for speeches and wrote articles. And they got a murderously crazy inventiveness and universal respectful hearing — after all, they were the new death itself. magicians. Far from denying that, scientists The possible destruction of civilization deliberately made the story even more frighten- around the world was something new in human ing. history. It was hard for people to consider it The scientists made sure everybody grew objectively, and there is much evidence that familiar with images of Hiroshima. For example. most people preferred to just ignore the awful

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thoughts. But in the late 1950s there was one The protestors made it clear that their fight way the hidden anxiety did lead to public action. was with and political authority. These Radioactivity was an aspect of nuclear weapons were dedicated, honest people, and they were that people felt they just had to do something right to protest against the spread of radioactive about — for it was already drifting into their own dust from bomb tests. But most people, including living rooms. I'm talking about fallout. the protest leaders themselves, agreed that fall- out was far from a leading cause of death in the From fallout to protests world. Fallout was really a stalking-horse for the problem of nuclear war itself. This was sensible enough; the protesters Fallout from bomb tests became a big-time made radioactivity a dirty word because they issue in the mid-1950s, after radioactive dust thought that a moratorium on bomb tests could from a bomb test killed a Japanese be a first step towards slowing the nuclear arms fisherman. Public debate began, starting in race. Unfortunately, the tactic failed. It turned Japan; within the next few years protests be- out to be possible to continue to conduct bomb came worldwide and vehement. The biggest tests underground. And when atmospheric fall- protests outside Japan were in Britain, but the out ceased, so did the protests — out of sight was same ideas spread everywhere, even in the out of mind. Of course the fears remained: so Soviet bloc. It got to the point where some long as nuclear weapons might kill us all in the mothers worried about giving children fresh next half hour, the word "nuclear" would carry a milk, since it could be contaminated by stron- burden of deep, scarcely admitted anxieties. tium-90. Something new was happening in the im- agery now. Radiation no longer seemed benign (even though it continued to help millions of cancer victims). It wasn't even seen as a mixture Opposing the authorities of good and bad magic. Now it began to seem only evil, a sort of ultimate . Total dis- There was another aspect of nuclear energy trust had now fallen, and for the first time in that could not be shoved under the rug: history, an aspect of our science and knowledge nuclear energy. This began in the crusade to — radiation and nuclear energy — now seemed bring the technological Utopia, the transforma- to many people a wholly evil thing. tion of society, the Atomic Golden Age. There If you wanted to see what radiation from were more rational arguments for promoting bomb tests can do, American and Japanese film- nuclear reactors, of course — and rational argu- makers were glad to show you. Ever since the ments for opposing them, too. Yet images made 1950s many popular films have featured a difference. monsters created by radioactivity — gigantic The image of radioactivity, once it was ants, crabs, spiders, squids, even grasshoppers. linked with bombs and fallout, came to seem It still goes on today, with cartoons about giant supremely monstrous and polluting. By around cockroaches or whatever. Of course radiation 1970 this had transferred over to civilian uses of won't really make things bigger! What we see radioactivity. Of all kinds of industrial waste, it here is the ancient myths about rays as bearers of was the radioactive wastes that stirred the magic life-force. In this case, a force that trans- deepest anxieties. lates into monsters: here is pollution writ large. So radiation had come to seem the most cos- Another obvious symbolism was in the mic pollution — but that wasn't the only force monsters released by bomb tests. When behind the outcry against reactors. Even more stomped Tokyo flat he was acting like a sur- important images were at stake. Nuclear energy rogate atomic bomb. These are just updated ver- had become a supreme symbol of science and sions of the magician's demons and mad modern technology in general. Scientists had scientist's creatures: the monsters that have al- worked to make it so. But with atomic bombs ways served as warnings — as the movies said hanging over everyone's heads, modern technol- explicitly — against men who went too far, men ogy no longer sounded so wonderful. The lead- who tried to grasp more than is proper. The ing opponents were perfectly clear on this: they implicit risk was authority, overweening, grasp- opposed nuclear energy as a way of opposing all ing for power. The urge to master, to conquer, to complex centralized power — of fighting destroy — this is what is embodied in the symbol military, industrial, bureaucratic authority in of the monster; this is what is in reality embodied general. in nuclear weapons; and this destructive power- Nothing represented this authority so per- drive is what people hated, now more than ever, fectly as the old US Atomic Energy Commission in authorities. (AEC), and its counterparts in other countries —

34 IAEA BULLETIN, 3/1991 SPECIAL REPORT which now came to stand for all that people These negative associations had become in- distrusted in government. That distrust had to do separable from the most seemingly rational dis- first with nuclear weapons, but the old AEC and cussion. For example, in 1989 the atomic energy some other agencies made things worse by earn- authorities in Taiwan launched an elaborate and ing a reputation for arrogance, indifference to the expensive "risk " programme to public, and secrecy. The commissions seemed to promote public support for building a new reac- be saying, "We're the experts, the masters of tor. Surveys showed that if the programme made cosmic force, we cannot share these great secrets any difference, it was to increase public worries with the public." about reactors. Simply to be reminded of nuclear That carried over into the reactor controver- energy's power, even in the most reassuring con- sy, where nuclear leaders often took a sort of text, was to become more anxious. "father-knows-best" attitude. This was not the sort of father, the sort of authority, people A special kind of power wanted. The critics in return began to call the nuclear industry arrogant, secretive, heartless, To sum up, what has given nuclear energy its and dangerous. The image of the overweening special power? Its remarkable ability to serve as expert and his uncanny monster — those were a focus for a tremendous variety of things, rang- now attached to the whole system of authority. ing from ancient archetypal images to modern Nuclear energy wasn't just a symbol of the worst political concerns? There are four levels of ex- features of technology, but of all the problems of planation. First are the technical realities — after modern bureaucracy and industrial power. all, reactors really are a fantastically condensed How did this come about? If you study the source of power, radiation really can cause hor- process of symbol-making in detail, you'll find, rible mutations, and so forth. From these realities and it seems natural, that the main role was particular facts have been selected out and played by people whose special expertise was in stressed. That is because of the second level: just such work — people whose careers were nuclear energy has acquired social and political based not on industrial production, but on com- meaning, including especially ideas involving munications. I mean, for example, journalists, modern technology and the authorities that con- public interest group leaders, professors, movie trol it. Reactors became a condensed symbol for stars, and cartoonists. Some sociologists call all modern industrial society. Why were they such people a "new class". Notice that these are singled out for this role? I think largely because people whose position, whose power in society, of a third level: old myths about divine secrets, would be more enhanced, the more they could mad scientists, dreadful pollution, and cosmic discredit the traditional, industrially based struc- apocalypse. All these gathered around nuclear tures of authority. In a totally level democratic energy from its very birth, far more than they society, policy would be set most of all by expert have connected up with any other technological communicators. And surveys have shown that it development. And the fourth level, providing a is indeed people who work in these professions, deep anxiety underlying everything: the threat of not in the traditional industrial and governmental nuclear war, never for a moment really forgotten. It is hard to handle such problems rationally. hierarchies, who most oppose nuclear reactors. When we take nuclear energy as a surrogate for The purest case can be seen in Eastern all the problems of warfare and industry, of Europe, where the new class is now coming to modern society and technology at large, we are power. Poll results from the USSR show tremen- not picking up something simple. The instant dous public opposition to nuclear reactors. you grasp it you drag up a tangled web of ancient They're dead in the water. We can't blame this images. Whenever we form a picture in our head on Western-type opponents: there was 40 years of a nuclear or a reactor, we should of pure and undisputed pro-nuclear propaganda. imagine a sign posted across it: "CAUTION— Some people say, "Rather than have a reactor, GREAT SYMBOLIC POWER!" Nuclear energy we'll live in the forest with candles—like we did has become a full symbolic representation for the during the War". entire bundle of themes involving personal and By now nuclear energy had come to carry social destruction and rebirth — transmutation. quite a burden. There were images associated There is an opportunity here. If we can deal with weird radiation and mad scientists, and with these strong feelings, then we will have alongside that, all the destruction of modern war, gone a long way toward handling feelings about and everything people disliked about technol- science and technology and modern social ogy, impersonal and manipulative authorities. authority in general. Dealing with these feelings Behind that always stood the magical and cosmic does not mean enticing people with gorgeous forces of life and death. promises or terrifying them with apocalyptic

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visions. That propaganda tends to defeat its own people who expect to benefit from a technology- purposes, keeping alive everything irrational. are led to routinely respect the rights of the No, the way to address people's hopes and people who might be hurt by it. A familiar ex- fears is to respect them, to take on the genuine ample is charging people who use radioactive problems of reactors, and of weapons. This materials and must dispose of the waste, then means working toward true fail-safe setups in giving the money to people who live near the industry, and foreign policy too. We must work waste repository — money they can use. if they a step at a time, modestly making our systems for like, to hire their own experts and monitors. In power production and military security better in the long run the way to a solution is to give all their complex effects. people a share of power. Until ordinary people It will be fruitless to do that through some feel that they have a genuine say in decisions sort of totally rational authority, some scientist or about which technology is deployed for whose bureaucrat who decides what is best for benefit, we cannot expect them to respond to the everyone. The only solution will come when the technical realities alone.

Public attitudes about the used to generate electricity are increasingly influenced by environmental considerations. (Credit: NorEnergi)

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