Dr. Strangelove

Maddie D 

The discussion we had in class and the Atlantic reading reminded me of a conversation I had with my grandma about climate change. I was stressing out about the threat of climate change harming the world and impacting human existence. My grandma responded with a shake of her head and said that every generation has their battles: hers was nuclear war and mine was climate change. She continued to say something about how the threat of nuclear war passed and so would the threat of climate change. At the time this made me beyond frustrated because, in my mind, the threat of climate change was not at all similar to that of nuclear war because it wasn't continuous. 

Now, several years later, after learning more about the 'doomsday machine' that was created during the Cold War is still very much a threat today. It didn't simply go away like my grandma suggested. It has an ongoing shadow that has the potential to destroy human existence, just like climate change. The risks created by both of these threats have not been dissolved and will not be until people come together and commit to making big changes. 

Over the course of this colloquia we have looked at various social and political movements and how people have tried to support change and how that change has been stifled. We have seen over and over again how movements begin to create change and then lose momentum. We can see that many of the issues focused on in the films we watched are still present today and impact many Americans. It's difficult not to be disheartened by this (especially because how difficult it is to make changes in our political system), but I believe the only thing we can do is put effort into fixing these problems day by day. 

The film Dr. Strangelove did an excellent job of demonstrating how ineffective (and at times impotent) the US government can be through satire. When they are meeting in the war room there is a lack of urgency and ability to work together to come up with the best solution. The bureaucracy of the situation allowed many politicians to lose focus on the importance of the situation throughout the film which I think can be seen with many issues today.

Children practicing for a nuclear bombing during the Cold War. 


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