On September 26, 1983, the Soviet early-warning satellite system detected a supposed US attack by nuclear missiles heading towards the Soviet Union. Stanislav Petrov, who was on duty, was left to make a choice any sane person would not wish to be placed in: believe the report and report the first strike from the Americans, or disbelieve the system. He took the second option. The satellite system had been fooled by reflections from clouds into thinking there was an attack by the Americans.

The situation would appear to be the setup for a political satire. In fact, it did occur, but it is what the movie Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb by Stanley Kubrick reveals about the truth behind the movie, the apparatus of Armageddon does not have to be operated who want to see the end of the world. The irony is that one does not have to be evil to destroy the world. All one has to do is be dedicated enough to the systems, identities, and assumptions to render disaster logical.

The satire by Kubrick has been interpreted as a statement about nuclear arms, Cold War paranoia, and the ridiculous nature of military strategy. Each one is correct to an extent. However, none comes close to defining the real horror of the movie. The underlying theme is of ideology, institutional conformity, and masculine power: the way societies condition men to think about masculinity through domination, institutionalizing the same, and turning self-destruction into expertise.

To comprehend the message conveyed by the film, it is important to look at the context of its production. The Cold War cannot be understood in terms of geopolitical struggle between the US and the USSR, since the Cold War also represented a struggle of knowledge, national identity, technological prowess, and rationality. By the early 1960s, the use of nuclear weapons by both sides had changed military strategy. In the theory of deterrence, the potential for a counterattack played an important role. The two countries had compelling reasons to hold each other in check through the threat of destruction.

There were plans in America that took into account the idea that a nuclear confrontation could have developed to a state where it went beyond the control of whoever started it. The idea is mentioned in Thomas Schelling’s 1961 paper, which was prepared at the time of the Berlin crisis. The role of nuclear weapons would be risk management: to create a disaster to avoid one.

The thinking exemplifies one of the key contradictions inherent in nuclear deterrence theory. The weapon needs to be dangerous enough not to use, but the more real the threat is, the more dangerous the system becomes if things go wrong. The paradox was an ideal subject for ridicule in Kubrick’s eyes. Based on a book by Peter George called Red Alert, a serious discussion of nuclear accidents, in the course of production, however, Kubrick became inclined towards comedy, since the absurdity of the situation was inherent in the horror of it. Nuclear strategy was paradoxical enough.

From the opening disclaimer of the film, the viewer is assured that the US Air Force ensures such things do not take place. By doing so, it creates the very doubt it wants to resolve. If there are enough security measures, why should we be reassured? Organizational institutions offer up procedures to prove reliability. Safety protocols provide evidence of safety, professional credentials evidence of competence, and chains of command evidence that things will be kept in check, yet the organizational procedure is part of the problem.

According to Althusser’s view of ideology, it includes all sorts of practices that construct identity. Schools, workplaces, churches, and government are places where individuals learn certain roles and obligations as part of the norm. In Dr. Strangelove, the ideology is provided with structure, language, and materiality, recruited into the military learn how to view in terms of obedience, discipline, patriotism, and competence, become the subjects capable of executing military orders because execution of military orders becomes part of identity as soldiers.

It is why the scariest characters in the film are not the most insane-looking characters. General Jack D. Ripper is a paranoid character. General Buck Turgidson is able to make mass destruction look like a question of rational decision-making. Major T. J. “King” Kong views the threat of dropping the bomb as a chance to get glory.

Apocalypse comes at the point where it keeps working in conditions that demonstrate its premises to be catastrophic. For General Ripper, Russians are poisoning the American water supply with fluoride and hence give orders for a nuclear attack to save his nation from a conspiracy. For him, the fluoridation of his water source has contributed to the impurities of his fluids following sexual intercourse. From an outside force, his reaction to the situation is one of defending his vigor.

The absurdity is quite clear here, but it is important to analyze the reasoning behind it. For Ripper, his body must be defended from impurity. He understands an experience of vulnerability as an attack from outside forces. Rather than questioning himself, he turns his panic into a full-blown operation.

The concept of Male Fantasies by Theweleit, which studies the symbolism and psychology of the Freikorps and other militarized men in Germany between the wars, there is a discussion of how militarized masculinity revolves around the fantasy of being hard, disciplined, and invulnerable. The male body, according to him, exists to ward off threats posed by softness, liquidity, and dissolution.

As if an imaginary American general could replace the historical German soldiers whom Theweleit studied, however, the similarities are interesting. On fluids, Ripper’s fixation is an attempt at absolute domination of a body which, by its very nature, cannot be dominated. Since he feels insecure about his body, the state will also feel insecure. If his body feels under threat, the entire nation is under threat. If he cannot tolerate uncertainty about himself, he will remove uncertainty using the ultimate means available.

In his mouth, the ever-present cigar enhances the performance. Ripper maintains the image of the commanding male, who is intimidating, inflexible, and intolerant of weaknesses, but the strength he embodies relies on a vision of purity. His authority is laughable and frightening. Not only is he a man with strange beliefs, but his organization has provided him with nuclear weapons with which to carry out his beliefs.

In understanding how such authority functions, Ripper holds an office in a hierarchical structure that enables him to give orders. It is not that his underlings have his conspiratorial views. All that is required is to acknowledge his rank and proceed according to protocol. Ironically, the discipline of the army will not cure Ripper of his delusional state of mind. Indeed, discipline works to his advantage within his situation.

Theweleit’s analysis also sheds light on the movie’s larger issues surrounding the connection between masculinity and violence. The fears of Ripper are related to the larger idea of the male as needing to be sovereign over himself, his surroundings, and everyone else. His refusal to accept weakness is his excuse for power. Insecurity masquerades as strength, aggression as self-defense, and the unwillingness to show any sign of weakness becomes the reason for putting others in danger.

As the epitome of pathological militarism in the guise of masculine performance, the character of Ripper is balanced by Turgidson. Turgidson is boisterous, aggressive, and wants to prove how much he knows about strategy. After Turgidson finds out the bombers can bomb the Soviet Union, he figures out whether there is any advantage for the United States in launching an attack before being retaliated against by the Soviets.

He figures out how many Americans could be killed, and he states his estimate with incredible off-handedness:

“I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. No more than ten to twenty million killed, tops—uh, depending on the breaks.”

The joke succeeds because the language used by Turgidson is not irrational according to the profession he belongs to. He is doing his job as per his understanding of what he has been appointed to do, analyzing the military options, assessing the casualties, and gaining strategic advantages. According to the concept of hegemony by Gramsci, hegemony is the way in which an ideology is embraced as common sense, which informs people about what is practical, necessary, or possible.

In the film, the idea that the only way to ensure national security is through military dominance is so entrenched within the characters’ minds that they cannot think outside of it, argue about tactics and timing, but do so in the same mindset. If it leads to a good strategy, the idea of killing millions of people becomes acceptable. In nature, it sets the limits of dissent.

The character of Turgidson could speak up against the president, be aggressive towards his coworkers, and act on his accord. None of it can be considered an outsider status for the individual. Since it is the value of the institution, the aggressiveness of Turgidson could be interpreted as professionalism.

At the height of a nuclear crisis, he gets on the phone with his girlfriend to tell her romance is a humorous moment in the sense that his life encroaches upon a matter of significance to the nation as a whole, but at the same time, the humor underscores the limitations of his vision. Civilization must compete against his self-interest, and he does not always come out on top.

Turgidson’s aggressive and competitive nature indicates he is trying to create a dominant male identity for himself. He is forever putting on a show, one where he is able to assert his prowess. The calculations he makes on the military level lend credibility to the vocabulary of the performance. The paranoia of Ripper can be seen as madness, but Turgidson’s need for a preemptive advantage can be talked about in institutional language. The point is that the latter has managed to escape from ideology, whereas the former has fallen prey to it.

When the president states the program had failed to discover any dangerous commander, General Turgidson says it is not to blame for a whole program based on one blunder. It turns what could have been a disaster on a planetary scale into a PR issue, a perfect example of organizational self-protection. The threat is not great enough to make Turgidson reexamine the system he has created.

Without losing its power, common sense may embrace the experience of failure. A crisis becomes an anomaly, a flaw, or an error. Such a critique would lose some of its credibility if all characters in the movie were just caricatures of lunacy. Kubrick divides the blame among people belonging to different ranks who are motivated by rational reasons depending on the situation.

For example, Major Kong and his bomber crew are given instructions and check equipment before executing the mission. Kong views his task of delivering the hydrogen bomb as his moment of glory. He expects to earn promotions and citations, but not to destroy cities. However, the humor in it lies in the divide between the meaning of the act and its performer. Kong realizes what the mission is about. However, he fails to realize its human aspect.

In terms of Althusser’s theory of ideological subjectivity, the soldier should see his task as a legitimate one, the chain of command as authoritative, and his role as requiring him to obey orders. Ideology is expressed through practice. Through the regularities of practice, skill set, and professionalism of the crew, the mission routine persists despite its effects. The individuals involved in it are soldiers fulfilling duties.

The distribution of responsibility makes Kubrick’s satire work. Ripper launches the attack, but his orders take effect through a chain of practices. The bomber crew acts according to procedure, but the procedure has been made and approved far away from the airplane. The politicians try to cope with the situation, but are tied by policies they had a part in maintaining. The system shows how individual actions could merge into the result that none wanted.

As for the technicalities of the film, Ripper uses the techniques of the military to launch his assault. The communications system of the bomber stops the crew from receiving the corrective orders, and the contingency plan meant to provide the retaliatory option makes the bombers immune to any cancellations. On the other hand, the Soviet Doomsday Machine should provide the guarantee of retaliation, but it is not possible to stop it once started.

Every process has its reason. The controls are meant to make sure the actions are not unauthorized, maintain the effectiveness of the military actions, or deter the enemy, but the resulting interactions lead to the point where correction is no longer possible. As a nightmare of institutional rationality, every separate element can make sense individually while the whole system turns out to be extremely irrational.

Modern institutions become more and more dependent on automation, technological processes, performance indicators, and sophisticated systems of accountability. A bureaucratic decision might negatively affect people without anyone being responsible. If its creators say follow the algorithm, the algorithm can lead to discrimination. By mentioning how the goals set were achieved, a manager can justify a destructive decision.

What Dr. Strangelove teaches us is procedures cannot take the place of moral considerations when the institution sets up its goals in a very dangerous way. Probably the scariest figure in the movie is Dr. Strangelove, the ex-Nazi scientist working for the American government to provide nuclear strategy. He is the embodiment of scientific knowledge combined with militaristic strategy and ideological continuity.

With amazing technicality, Strangelove can speak about the annihilation of the world. He considers the survival of selected people in underground shelters and thinks about the ratio of men and women necessary for repopulating the Earth. Although ridiculous, when the aim is survival of the species, reproduction turns into a planning issue. When survival of civilization is the aim, the choice of survivors can be based on strategic grounds. When the disaster is unavoidable, the question is coping with the aftereffects.

The problem is eliminated when it comes to the question of what kind of civilization needs to be saved. The genius of Strangelove provides the ideology with more sophisticated language. The scientist’s reasoning operates within the framework of assumptions of hierarchy, male privilege, and the use of people as tools.

According to militarized masculinity by Theweleit, the underground civilization that appears as a result of the disaster is an embodiment of the fantasy of restoring dominance of masculinity. Women become the source of procreation; men (hierarchical order of usefulness, and survival of the human species) continue the existing hierarchy. The men in the War Room do not doubt the idea.

In the notion of hegemony as espoused by Gramsci, there is no need for the post-nuclear society to be defended through rhetoric, since the social system has been taken for granted in terms of its legitimacy. The men believe it. Further, for Althusser, ideology creates subjects as well as policies. In the new underground world, the same positions still exist. Men rule, women reproduce, technicians calculate, and the political system structures reality. The disaster has altered the landscape, but it has not altered the imaginary.

In embodied form, Strangelove’s unintended Nazi salute shows the continuity. His arm moves without his consent, as though the ideological past has been invested with a life of its own. Strangelove attempts to control himself, but the salute repeats. When the threat of nuclear destruction has created the chance for a new world order, he gets up out of his wheelchair and announces, “Mein Führer, I can walk!”

The scene is grotesque and frightening in equal measure. The restoration of Strangelove’s mastery takes place at the very moment when humanity is about to lose everything. The fantasy of mastery comes true exactly at the moment when mastery itself loses all meaning. Scientific knowledge is not moral. A scientist can know how to prolong people’s lives but cannot conceive of a world where people live not for purposes of survival and domination.

Kubrick’s use of humor to represent the apocalypse has been a subject of debate; some have considered it inappropriate to approach the topic with humor. Others have raised doubts as to whether the ridicule of military structures is capable of making any real change. However, laughter may devalue suffering. Satire might turn serious issues into entertainment, but Dr. Strangelove makes use of humor to reveal the strangeness of things we consider obvious.

For example, the War Room. With its huge round table, lighting, and illuminated map, the destruction of the planet turns into a game of chess. The fate of millions is decided at a table by people calculating numbers and arguing about how to play the game.

When the president announces, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!,” he makes fun of the disconnect between the language of bureaucracy and its actual setting. The room is the place where the results of the war are discussed, but it is disconnected from the humans who will suffer the consequences.

Comedy destroys the magic of seriousness in which authority is immersed. Until the priorities of this person are seen, a military person who speaks with gravity can be impressive. When what it actually means is stated, a proposal can look rational. A hierarchy of professionals can be important until its members cannot doubt assumptions. In effect, it is an ideological intervention in its own right. Gramsci’s common sense relies on the familiarity of ideas. Satire disturbs familiarity by creating a gap between an institution and how it sees itself.

Then, the humor can serve as a means of facing up to the anxiety without resorting to the discourse used to deal with it. However, the film does not propose a solution to the anxiety. Kubrick does not give us a heroic figure who comes along and figures out the proper procedure for dealing with the conspiracy and restoring order. Mandrake tries to stop Ripper, and Muffley attempts to reason with the Soviet premier, but the problem is too great to surmount.

It prevents viewers from seeing the problem as solvable by the replacement of a few foolish men with a number of wiser ones. However, 1964 cannot be considered to be our time. The Cold War is no more, the Soviet Union is gone, and there is no longer the political context of Kubrick’s age. Nonetheless, institutions may use a very specific conception of rationality and make dangerous collectivities out of it.

The case of nuclear warheads represents one of the most straightforward examples. In September 1983, a Soviet officer named Stanislav Petrov had warnings that American missiles had been launched. Petrov did not believe the warning to be true and hence did not confirm the fact. He prevented the possibility of a wrong retaliatory attack being made. The nuclear system may be subject to mistakes, to uncertainty, and to interpretation. In any case, the comparison with Kubrick’s film should not be overdone. The case of Petrov was not the case of Ripper’s fictitious attack.

Outside the realm of nuclear strategy, in each case, institutions may define success so strongly that proof of failure becomes a challenge to institutional identity. Politicians may justify aggression as a defense. Executives succeed at meeting financial goals, and institutions may maintain policies whose negative effects cannot be ignored. The point here is about how institutions define competency, apportion blame, and evaluate alternative courses of action.

In Theweleit’s analysis, public life today always celebrates acts of toughness, strength, and dominance; showing vulnerability is perceived as weak, while threats of disproportionate revenge can seem resolute. When political authority relies on proving invulnerability, admitting doubts is not easy, and aggression is an alternative to assurance, as is evident in the example of Ripper.

In the world of social media, according to Gramsci, repeated performance makes qualities look natural in a leader. Althusser, on the other hand, draws our attention to the institutions that sustain such expectations. Political parties, media outlets, professions, and social networks decide whose conduct deserves recognition and whose dissent comes with a price tag.

People are free to disagree with each other, but cannot avoid certain presuppositions about who should be a proper leader, citizen, or professional. Before such thinking leads to catastrophe, what Kubrick’s film requires from us is seeing the peril. For one thing, his characters are not all fools, and some are competent in domains, with the capacity to transcend the identity and frames within which competence.

Far more disturbing, madmen are the exceptions. Institutional common sense is not. In the concluding sequence, we hear “We’ll Meet Again” sung by Vera Lynn as the world blows up in nuclear explosions, a cheery tune made into a disturbing send-off for humankind.

In the War Room, all the men have been trying, through the course of the film, to maintain power, advantage, and control. When the destruction of the planet is guaranteed, imagine the future in terms of repeating the hierarchy brought to such a point. Here it is a system whose continuance is more important than the continuance where values exist.

Without resorting to didacticism, his success lies in his ability to show the convergence. Kubrick allows the characters to reveal, through words, movements, and attitudes, that absurdities are chilling because they are familiar to us. We ridicule arrogance, evasions, and obsessions, coming to the realization that they are not distractions from the political issue at hand. With regards to Dr. Strangelove, the men in charge of the machines of apocalypse fail to challenge imagining a new civilization, fantasy is a replica of the civilization hidden below ground, without any of the limitations.

The mind finds it easier to conceive of survival after the end of the world than of a world without domination.

References

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