[lbo-talk] Andie reviews Les Misérables

[Marv Gandall]

The common understanding, at least on the left, is that a politically conscious act is one aimed at changing the existing order, not buttressing it, as in the case of Teller and von Braun. While Oppenheimer and other left-wing scientists who contributed to the defeat of the Axis considered they were doing necessary work, I rather doubt they were in this instance under any illusions that they were acting against, rather than on behalf of, their own capitalist governments. When they later spoke out against the Cold War and the use to which their discoveries were being put, they were then acting politically. In providing Soviet intelligence with information about the Manhattan Project, Klaus Fuchs was acting wholly in accord with his political consciousness. To my knowledge, Turing was a patriotic but apolitical Englishman doing his bit for the war effort.

On 2013-01-16, at 7:55 AM, Andy wrote:


> On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:35 PM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>> Clearly Turing was a brilliant man who played in key role in the war by
>> breaking the code. But was that by definition an act of political and
>> social consciousness? Let's put it this way: was Edward Teller's
>> collaboration in building the atom bomb and act of political and social
>> consciousness? Given everything we know about Teller afterwards, no. Was it
>> such an act on the part of Oppenheimer? Given everything we know about
>> Oppenheimer afterward, possibly.
>> 
> 
> You wouldn't say Teller's work was informed by a political and social
> consciousness, even one that we would consider warped?
> 
> 
> -- 
> Andy
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