In his 1987 Nobel lecture, Joseph Brodsky said, anthropologically speaking, a human being is primarily a creature of aesthetics, and only after, an ethical one.
This assertion sounds true in the case of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The scientific leaps in the field of quantum physics fascinated Oppenheimer. He was driven to follow the path of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Returning from Cambridge to expand his research in Berkeley, he fell into the arms of the American state and became part of the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb.
It is comic irony that Lewis Strauss, who secretly plotted against Oppenheimer, was forced to work as a shoe salesman during the recession, while Oppenheimer achieved the distinction of Edward Teller calling him, “the great salesman of science.” This explains the moral turn in the life of Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan likened his character to the titan Prometheus, though midway he seemed to metamorphose into Frankenstein. The hamartia of Oppenheimer’s life, Aristotle’s term for the Greek tragic hero’s fatal flaw, turned into a modern horror story.
The poet Joseph Brodsky’s distinction becomes relevant at this point: Oppenheimer abandoned the moral for the aesthetic. My scholar friend (who wishes to remain unnamed) shared the opinion that Oppenheimer, initially lost in the beauty of pure theory, transforms that aesthetic obsession into a monstrous one. She added the sharp insight: “Oppenheimer tells himself a lie. That the bomb has a moral end.” The act of lying to oneself produced a psychic wound within Oppenheimer. He lost sight of the moral aspect within his aesthetic pursuit. The lie made the transformation possible. The sublime beauty of studying quantum physics was ruined the moment Oppenheimer decided to use his expertise for a detrimental cause.
A still from the film ‘Oppenheimer’.
The sale of his scientific skills to the American state for making the bomb had a clear political objective for Oppenheimer: to finish off Hitler. This logic led him to overcome the moral dilemma behind his job. Any force that can destroy evil is legitimate. The destructive power of science was a seductive option to nullify the power of fascism. The Jewish Oppenheimer did not have his revenge over the Nazis (who were already defeated when the bomb was ready). The American state used it against a weakened Japan to declare its omnipotence.
Young Oppenheimer’s interest in T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland’ and the Gita has a deep connection: Eliot’s poem ends by evoking the Upanishad, “Shantih shantih shantih”, a peace of the grave that fell upon a world torn apart by the end of World War I and the flu epidemic. Oppenheimer’s translation of the line from the Gita, “I am become Death, destroyer of worlds” was what Krishna said about his divinity being time itself that destroys the world at will. It was meant to exhort a weak-kneed Arjuna (who did not want to kill his cousins, seniors and kinsmen), reminding him of his duty as a warrior to prepare him for battle. The figure of divine incarnation and warrior-prince got fused into the scientist who invented a weapon that could kill millions.
Oppenheimer’s interest in the evocative moments in the two texts shows a certain death wish he carried within himself. When you are hell-bent to destroy the enemy, you are also out to kill a part of yourself through the act of retributive justice.
Oppenheimer was not able to distinguish between the ethical difference between annihilating a system of power and annihilating people. This failure, however, is an intimate part of the modern West’s history. It produced ideas of the state – fascism, communism and imperial democracies – where the other within and outside one’s ideological fold was demonised as the absolute enemy and was meant to be exterminated. Making the bomb to be used for war, Oppenheimer not just used science as a tool for destruction, but created an ideology of science as divine power that could kill uncountable numbers of people as much as it could heal the world.
It has been acknowledged that Nolan did not glorify war by not showing the bomb being dropped on the two Japanese cities. Still, as my scholar friend pointed out, Nolan could not prevent himself from indulging in Hollywood’s fetish for spectacle. There was a clear lack of self-restraint. The slow-motion explosion of the bomb that filled the screen numbed the audience, and engulfed it into the terror of its silence.
Contrast it with Abbas Kiarostami, who did not display the earthquakes that rocked Iran in Koker Trilogy in order to portray its psycho-social repercussion on the lives of residents who suffered its impact. Kiarostami’s art of filmmaking is deeply informed by his ethical hesitation.
A still from Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘And Life Goes on’.
Nolan had more reasons to hold back from depicting the technological grandeur of an instrument of death. The temptation to recreate the spectacle is not simply an aesthetic flaw.
The euphoria of the scientific feat was viscerally exhibited by bodies of people stomping the floor of the hall celebrating Oppenheimer. It announced the coming of a new crowd in world history that took nationalist pride in mass destruction of other people. Oppenheimer looked conflicted, remorseful and eaten by guilt. But there were no indications to suggest he completely regretted his success. Truman, embodying the masculine pragmatism of the American state, lampooned Oppenheimer as “crybaby”. No one cared about the real babies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Such is the moral indifference of war. It causes deafness of the soul.
Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee is an author. His latest book is Nehru and the Spirit of India.
