nuclear universalism

is a representation of a redemptive human ideal that mourns nuclear annihilation in advance (and thus warning itself).

anchors the ideal of a transcendent and 'anonymous' humanity, a humanity subject to naturally derived and 'commonly shared human thoughts, sentiments, and moral attitudes not limited by cultural boundaries.' Universalist representations of 'Hiroshima' depend upon a concept of annihilation that is both virtual and hypothetical, a process that has not yet happened and a state that can only be deduced retrospectively through the nontotality of its effects. Such representations mourn annihilation in advance and serve as its warning. They are, in other words, redemptive, reliant upon what Nietzsche calls the 'fundamental idea of the faith in humanity' that undergirds 'that hard relay-race of monumental history' (Cultures of Obsolescence: History, Materiality, and the Digital Age edited by Babette B. Tischleder, Sarah Wasserman p.153)

nuclear universalism, n.All

nuclear universalism