Since the first use of nuclear weapons in war, 75 years ago this August, people concerned with the danger of large-scale nuclear war keep rediscovering a powerful tool for its prevention. If it were made of metal we would have built and deployed it long ago. It’s made instead of thought, and because thought has no permanence in and of itself, people keep forgetting it. But because thought is, or can be, insistent, urgent, compelling, they keep rediscovering it. Nor will it go away. It won’t go away because it’s the only answer to the threat of nuclear weapons that makes sense.
