UC Irvine UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Publishing Words to Prevent Them from Becoming True: The Radical Praxis of Günther Anders Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5nr2z210 Author Costello, Daniel Christopher Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Publishing Words to Prevent Them from Becoming True: The Radical Praxis of Günther Anders DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Comparative Literature by Daniel C. Costello Dissertation Committee: Professor Jane O. Newman, Chair Professor Emeritus Alexander Gelley Associate Professor Kai Evers 2014 © 2014 Daniel C. Costello TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgments vi Curriculum Vitae vii Abstract of the Dissertation viii INTRODUCTION I. A Writerly Life a. Beginnings 1 b. A Note on Style 13 c. Prelude 19 CHAPTER ONE: COMPETENCE AND AUTHORITY I. Introductions a. The Promethean Discrepancy 25 b. Network and Actor-Network Theories 29 c. Archives and the Occasional Philosophy 31 II. Historical Contexts: The Scientists’ Movement a. Genesis 34 b. One World Government 37 c. The Changing Role of Science 44 d. Generational Outcomes 51 III. Backgrounds: Anders and the Bomb a. Wars and Exile 55 b. Return to Vienna 62 IV. Historical Contexts: The Second Wave a. Fallout 65 b. Forms: Diary, Fable, Dialog, and Commandment 69 c. Groundwork to Praxis 73 V. Organizational Work a. Pursuing Scientists 81 ii b. A Pugwash for the Humanities 86 VI. Conclusions 88 CHAPTER TWO: THE CASE OF CLAUDE EATHERLY I. Introductions a. Exemplars and Knowledge-Work 91 b. “Kuboyamas” 94 II. Seeking an Exemplar a. There Is no There 98 b. “Atom-Shock” 102 c. A Properly Mutilated Man 109 III. Living Symbols a. Theories of Framing 112 b. The Shirt and the Veil 115 c. Diagnoses and Visible Wounds 122 IV. Efficacy and Consequences a. Textual Control 132 b. Exhaustion 139 V. Conclusions 146 CHAPTER THREE: EXILE, TRANSLATION, AND PRE-LINGUISTIC SOLIDARITY I. Introductions a. An Account of Oneself 150 II. Pre-linguistic Solidarities and Possibilities a. “Pre-linguistic Solidarity” and “Global Good-enough” 152 b. “Delegate L.” 158 c. Kyoto, Solidarity, and Charity 162 d. The London Congress 166 e. Changes 172 III. Translation and Textual Control a. “I am not its author” 176 b. “Neither English nor American but Andersian” 181 iii IV. Exile a. Working with Trauma 183 b. “License to Live” 187 c. "The exile heart" 194 V. Conclusions 199 CHAPTER FOUR: IMAGINATIVE INTERVENTIONS I. Introductions a. “Imaginative power is the utmost necessity” 202 II. Vietnam and the Appraisal of Spectacle a. A-B-C 205 b. "Happenings" 207 III. The Legacy of Atoms for Peace a. Atoms for Peace ... or for War? 208 b. From California... 213 c. ... and Internationally 216 IV. Anders in the Shadow of Chernobyl a. Warlike Acts 219 b. Apocalypse from 384,000 Kilometers Above 221 c. Aftermath of the Return to Earth 228 d. “Every Nuclear Reactor is a Bomb” 232 e. Lettuce 238 f. False Modesties 242 V. Out of Time in the End Times a. Transitions 243 b. Emergency Self-defense 246 c. Candlelight 251 VI. Conclusions 253 CONCLUSION I. Legacies iv a. Continued Life and the Afterlife of Fear 258 b. Too Cheap to Meter and Carbon Free 261 c. “Is Earth F**ked?” 265 BIBLIOGRAPHY 272 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my committee members Kai Evers, Alex Gelley, and Jane Newman for their continual support and encouragement throughout my entire time at Irvine, and for their dedication in guiding me through the process of planning and writing this dissertation. I am also deeply grateful to Bindya Baliga for her advice and support throughout. This dissertation would not have been possible without financial support from the University of California, Irvine and the Strauss family. My research in Austria was enabled by the Fulbright Program and the Austrian-American Educational Commission. I am very grateful to the men and women of the AAEC and the Literary Archive of the Austrian National Library for their generous assistance. Furthermore, I would like to thank Petra Fröhlich as well as my colleagues and our students at BRG Pichelmayergasse for their support and fellowship during my time with them as a language assistant. I count myself lucky to have friends like Sally, Rachel, Bennett, Saul, Miha, Dian, Liz, Chris, and David, who were tireless allies and generous readers at all stages of this project. My brother John and my sister Kathleen gave much of themselves to help me through, as did my parents, and of course, Amelia. vi CURRICULUM VITAE Daniel C. Costello 2005 B.A. in Comparative Literature, University of Chicago 2007-10 Graduate Instructor, Composition Department, University of California, Irvine 2009 M.A. in Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine 2010 Teaching Assistant, German Department, University of California, Irvine 2010 Teaching Assistant, Department of European Studies, University of California, Irvine 2010-11 U.S. Fulbright Scholar 2010-11 Language Assistant, Bundesrealgymnasium Pichelmayergasse 2012-13 Recipient of the Strauss Family Fellowship for dissertation completion 2014 Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine FIELD OF STUDY Post-war German and American literatures, collective memory, and movement formation. vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Publishing Words to Prevent Them from Becoming True: The Radical Praxis of Günther Anders By Daniel C. Costello Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Irvine, 2014 Professor Jane O. Newman, Chair The German-Jewish philosopher and anti-nuclear activist Günther Anders (1902-1992) had an extremely long and prolific career as a public intellectual. Foremost among his concerns was understanding the implications of the nuclear age. Though he was immersed in a vibrant and influential circle of 20th-century intellectuals including Hannah Arendt and Theodore Adorno, he is little known in the English-speaking world. Previous work in English has surveyed and situated Anders in his philosophical milieu and undertaken investigations of his arc as a post- Marxist critic of technology; more broadly, Anders is generally viewed as an anti-nuclear theoretician. This dissertation views Anders first and foremost as an organizer and activist, one who pursued writerly attempts to grapple with a movement mobilization problem across three eras of anti-nuclear protest. I argue that Anders’ philosophy is best viewed as a series of imaginative interventions intended to enable people to undertake resistance within the confines of the nuclear security state. I approach the argument in four chapters. In the first, I show how viii Anders reacted to crises of competence and authority by recruiting a network of prestigious scientific correspondents. The second chapter examines his epistolary exchange with the former bomber pilot Claude Eatherly in order to see how the philosopher attempted to frame and deploy Eatherly as a moral exemplar and unifying activist symbol. The third examines the tensions between Anders’ exacting literary standards and the global demands of translation for a multilingual, international activist audience. The final chapter follows Anders to the limits of writerly language and analyzes the philosopher’s eventual endorsement of violence. Ultimately, I show that Anders’ concrete, occasional methods for philosophy were overwhelmed by his inability to maintain contact with rapidly fragmenting, highly changeable arrays of affiliation and identification within the activist milieus of the late Cold War. ix INTRODUCTION I. A Writerly Life a. Beginnings This dissertation examines the life and work of philosopher and anti-nuclear activist Günther Anders (1902-1992). Born in Breslau to the name Günther Stern, he was the German- Jewish son of Clara and William Stern, both influential pioneers in the science of child psychology. Anders’ work as a philosopher, activist, and writer opened new avenues of investigation for understanding humanity in the technological age and was foundational to anti- nuclear and pacifist campaigns throughout Europe. My research endeavors to understand how Anders translated his philosophical stance on technology into praxis by examining how he positioned himself as an advocate of a combative anti-nuclear narrative, how he advanced his narrative through multiple genres, and how his narrative was received by his intellectual and activist fellow-travelers. Much of the scholarly writing on Anders focuses on his intellectual and philosophical contributions. I consider him foremost as an activist, one whose writings were intended to facilitate his efforts to participate in the construction of the narratives—imaginative interventions—which make up our collective understanding of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the meanings assigned to those bombings by politicians, activists, and citizens in a European cold-war context. Using Anders as a central case study, this dissertation examines the relationships between literature, activism, and discursive structures. It is a genealogy, one that traces the growth of Anders’ thinking as a transnational, multilingual anti-nuclear activist and which situates him in 1 his historical era—the atomic era. My work furthers English-language scholarship on Anders, which at present is relatively limited, constituted of Paul van DiJk’s critical overview of