The rhetoric of nukespeak

Unnatural acts: Nuclear language, proliferation and order

“…This general claim has two dimensions: motive vocabularies and insidious modes of expression. First, scholars unite Burke's theory of perfection (all things proceed inexorably toward their ideal) with the notion that language shapes views and action to claim discourses (as things that contain meanings) advance toward their perfection, as well (Brummett 1989;Williams 1988;Schiappa 1989;Kauffman 1989). Second, scholars declare natural and familiar forms of expression serve at once as unseen, constraining and corrupting wellsprings of discourse (Easlea 1987;Brown 1989;Caputi 1994;Taylor 1997).…”

“…Hook writes: "The metaphors and euphemisms of those with the power to shape the nuclear discourse have obscured the inhumanity, immorality and irrationality of this undemocratic pact" (Hook 1985: 73-74). Farrell says elites justify: "their activity in a language that describes most inadequately the realities of the nuclear age…[thus] Americans do not understand and cannot speak the language of nuclear issues, and thus cannot intelligently express their opinions on the matter" (Farrell 1986: 939;Schiappa 1989;Rapoport 1986). Others reinforce the relation between nuclear language and faulty thinking when they conceive and promote solutions for it (Brummett 1989;Klein 1990;Scheick 1990;George 1988;Rowland, 1994).…”

“…"The covert nuclearization of language functions to neutralize, sanitize and cleanse the terminology used in the nuclear discourse in order to make nuclear weapons and nuclear war appear more acceptable and respectable" (Hook 1985: 69;Bowker and Star 1999). The third intuition is to replace repugnant with natural or familiar meanings, as molded language must be used widely to be transformational (Nelkin and Pollack 1980;Schiappa 1989;Mead and Lee 1990). The fourth intuition is to maximize transformational capacity by appropriating those deeply and eminently natural and familiar modes of expression: tropes, metaphors and euphemisms (for instance) of body, gender and home.…”

Orwellian Language and the Politics of Tribal Termination (1953–1960)

“…Concerned with deceptive political vocabularies, some critics have employed approaches that can be characterized as demystification (Aune, 1999;Cloud, 2003;Edelman, 1977Edelman, , 2001Pei, 1973;Schiappa, 1989), a Marxist strategy of uncovering false consciousness, or a social superstructure imposed over an unequal base that conceals the exploitative conditions of production (Foulkes, 1983). Applied to the ideological function of language, McGee (1984McGee ( , 1982 and Wander (1984Wander ( , 1983 contend that discourse serves agents of social and economic power.…”

The ‘standardization of catastrophe’: Nuclear disarmament, the Humanitarian Initiative and the politics of the unthinkable

“…There is much work across disciplines on the dominance of certain ways of speaking about nuclear weapons: on the standard tropes of guilt, redemption and responsibility (Peoples, 2016, Taylor et al, 2007Taylor, 2010), on prevailing themes of mystery, secrecy, potency and entelechy (Kinsella, 2005), on the highly gendered language in nuclear strategy (Cohn, 1987) and on Nukespeak (Aubrey, 1982, Chilton, 1982: Hilgartner et al, 1982Schiappa, 1989). Indeed, the very idea of saying something 'meaningful' in the face of nuclear holocaust has often been characterised in literature as impossible (Schley, 1983;Schwenger, 1986) for, as Martin Amis writes, 'everything that adapts to the nuclear reality is going to look preposterous -or ugly, or insane, or just preternaturally trivial ' (2002: 47).…”