Hugh Gusterson’s book, "Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War" (1996), is so rich, so packed with myriad concepts, that it is difficult to decide where to launch a discussion about it. An early critical point made by Gusterson is his identification of two competing “regimes of truth”: that of the weapons manufacturing industry and that of the antinuclear movement. For many people, a typical response to this identification might be the desire to determine which regime is the “correct” or “true” one. For Gusterson, however, that is not the question to ask. Rather, Gusterson is attempting to identify the multiple processes that inform and establish these respective truth regimes. What are the political, social, economic, bureaucratic, and even grammatical forces that empower these competing regimes of truth with their respective justification and validity? Gusterson argues that the nuclear weapons scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as well as policy advocates throughout the broader nuclear weapons community utilize a “technostrategic discourse” which affords them a degree of presupposed expertise when interacting with non-expert opponents outside of their truth regime. (p. 205) However, once each respective regime gradually accumulates a number of “specific intellectuals” who can effectively communicate with one another but nevertheless disagree with each other, the ensuing discourse opens the door to public skepticism and increased independent thinking with regard to the issue under discussion. (p. 206)
One of the strengths of Gusterson’s book is that it draws upon relatively complex sociological, political, and anthropological theories to clearly explicate the mundane and workaday elements of the story he is relating. Gusterson’s methodology, the anthropological “relativistic cultural critique approach,” is a reaction against the (neo) realist international relations political theory articulated by Kenneth Waltz and the psychopathology psychology theory advocated by Robert Jay Lifton. (p. 7-13) The theories of Waltz and Lifton are broadly encompassing and rest upon socially and politically constructed assumptions about the nature of the international community and individual psychology respectively. [For an early, indirect critique of Waltz’ position by a so-called “realist,” see Hedley Bull, "The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics" (Oxford, 1977)] Additionally, his shrewd application of several theories by Michel Foucault – particularly regarding surveillance and “docile bodies” – serve to successfully explicate those theories in a practical manner. While Gusterson acknowledges that his examination of the constructed worlds of nuclear weapons scientists and antinuclear activists (along with their corresponding regimes of truth) is “itself a construction,” it is nevertheless not a fabrication. (p. 13) Gusterson draws upon Donna Haraway’s concept of “situated knowledge” to argue that while the knowledge he is presenting may not be absolute knowledge, it is nevertheless assembled knowledge that does indeed exist. (p. 13)
Turning to some of the concrete examples garnered from Gusterson’s study, his discussion of the staff hierarchies that exist within the lab is exceptionally revealing. Gusterson notes that “the great divide within the laboratory social system is between the caste of scientists and engineers at the top and the caste of technicians and clerical workers who assist them. Mobility between castes is almost nonexistent.” (p. 27) Note Gusterson’s use of term caste as opposed to class. Caste denotes a rigidity that is difficult, if not impossible, to transcend. It reinforces the divide between the lab employees. The concept of secrecy plays a key role in this divide and serves to highlight the differences in job distinctions. Indeed, the issue of secrecy segregates employees to a degree that some find to nothing less than “humiliating.” (p. 72) Obviously, secrecy is necessary to keep sensitive information out of enemy hands. However, Gusterson argues that secrecy also serves to “resocialize” lab employees. Think here of secret societies, Greek organizations, and even such ubiquitous places of employment as colleges, universities, and law firms. Once an individual is granted access to certain secrets it tends to facilitate feelings of privilege, elitism, and power among those with access. As Gusterson notes, “within organizations practicing secrecy, compartmentalization of knowledge consolidates the power of senior members over their subordinates, who are less well-informed.” (p. 90) Note that it is of little consequence that “forbidden secrets often turn out to be surprisingly mundane and unexciting once they are revealed.” (p. 87) The point is that “secrecy is a means by which power constitutes itself as power, and the knowledge of secrets is a perquisite of power.” (p. 87) With respect to the weapons lab, the practice of secrecy creates an additional segregation between public and private life thereby socializing individuals into specific roles inside and outside the lab.
Gusterson also examines how individuals with a variety of backgrounds and ideologies are able to effectively work together in the lab. Gusterson argues that the lab achieves this cooperation by resocializing employees while constructing itself “as a moral and political community in which people with diverse overt political belief systems can participate.” While this may indeed be the case, how unique is the Livermore lab with respect to other institutions and workplaces within American society? People with differing ideologies and backgrounds are compelled to engage together in workplaces all over the country at all times. The larger community in which these institutions are imbedded tends to requires it. Each individual must “resolve their dilemmas” in some way or another otherwise he or she would have a difficult time functioning in society. Although the laboratory may in part “re-produce” its scientists by “turning them to the service of nuclear deterrence,” there is little doubt that a variety of other forces and choices are involved in their decisions to work in the lab as well. (p. 43) Issues like earning a living wage, providing for one’s family, costs associated with a child’s education, etc., all inform the decision as to why an individual accepts a particular job.
Regarding the antinuclear community, Alex Forman noted in his commentary at the end of the book how difficult it is to portray in print the “depth of despair and anger that drove so many people…to alter the course of our lives and join the antinuclear movement.” (p. 238) Still, Gusterson did manage to convey some of those emotions via his personal portraits of several antinuclear activists. The fact that the very dream life of numerous individuals was affected by the existence of nuclear weapons and their potential for destruction conveys the degree of depth that these concerns constituted (and no doubt continue to constitute) for some people. [One of the reasons frequently offered to explain the tremendous popularity of psychoanalysis in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s was the subconscious fear and anxiety caused by the nuclear arms race. For some people, those fears obviously remain to this day. See Howard B. Levine, Daniel Jacobs, and Lowell J. Rubin (eds.), "Psychoanalysis and the Nuclear Threat: Clinical and Theoretical Studies" (Hillsdale, 1988)] Once the effects of the impact that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs exerted upon individuals are clearly understood, it becomes difficult to conceive of nuclear weapons distinct from individual human concerns. As a consequence, no matter how much a nuclear weapons technician (or anyone else for that matter) may become caught up in the practice of technostrategic jargon employed by nuclear weapon manufacturers and policy makers, it is difficult to accept that the images of nuclear weapon victims – once acknowledged – are easily forgotten or ignored. This is not to say that time spent within certain socialized communities, such as a nuclear weapons lab or an antinuclear movement, does not generate the acceptance and reinforcement of mutually shared assumptions among members of those communities – it does. Rather, for some individuals, certain images, coupled with an informed narrative understanding of those images, may be too indelible to forget, or to become entirely subsumed by a competing truth regime.
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