I found Dwight Macdonald's "The Decline to Barbarism" to be one of the most informative articles we have looked at this semester. It touched on two items of interest that I feel seem to be neglected when people discuss the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first of these items is the exponential growth of power between the weapons used up to that point, and that of the atomic bombs, and how it made the use of the atomic bomb more of a moral decision than other weapons. The second item of interest to me in this article is the individual's role in saving the world, versus that of group mentality.

Up until August 6, 1945, the best weapons that were being used were still each individually, at most, a little over three times as strong as black powder. Every country with weapons was on a pretty level playing field, and was able to use the same weapons, making for "fair" fighting in a war. When the United States unleashed the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, the power of it was over 12,000 times as destructive as the best weapons used before then.

To me, the bare fact of the amount of destruction able to be unleashed with a single blast called in an extreme moral decision. Suddenly, the US was given the ability to destroy entire cities, killing thousands of people with the push of one button. For the Japanese, it was like trying to fight a tank bare handed. I personally do not think that the dropping of the bomb was "fair." It just seems like the United States was able to bully the Japanese into a surrender that seems imminent without the use of the bomb.

Also, by resorting to using a weapon of the caliber of the atomic bomb, the United States opened the door to the arms race, which still continues to this day. This is not something that they did not realize would happen. It is simple common sense that if one country has a weapon, its opponent will seek a similar weapon, especially if the country without the weapon is at a great disadvantage by not having it. This led to the USSR seeking atomic weapons, and then to the rest of the world joining in the nuclear arms race.

As much as I was intrigued by the enormity of the atomic bomb, I was equally intrigued by the concept that individual people are the answer to stopping the atomic bomb and other such weapons. While the bomb more or less made war easier and less personal, it is ironic that making it a personal decision is the only way to fight it.

MacDonald speaks of the specialists who worked to construct the bomb as not being whole men. He states "that the scientist may deplore the uses to which his discoveries are put by the generals and politicians but may not refuse to make them for that reason". He then goes on to speak of the scientists who did, in fact, stand up and say no, as they "fear(ed) they might be creating a planet-destroying monster" (MacDonald 143). This more or less shows that group madness was at work in the building of the bomb, and that only the men who were thinking clearly and looking at the whole picture were able to say no to the building of the bomb. They were looking further ahead, at the consequences after the war with Japan.

This shows that if each person would think things out for themselves, rather than just give in to what is expected of them, things such as the atomic bomb could be stopped before they get off the ground. Buying into wartime mentality involves giving up a piece of a person's individuality. I find it ironic that everyone must band together by using his or her individuality, but it is the only way. Only if each person would feel individually responsible for such atrocities can we actually prevent them from occurring.