Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War

by Hugh Gusterson

Based on fieldwork at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory―the facility that designed the neutron bomb and the warhead for the MX missile― Nuclear Rites takes the reader deep inside the top-secret culture of a nuclear weapons lab. Exploring the scientists' world of dark humor, ritualized secrecy, and disciplined emotions, anthropologist Hugh Gusterson uncovers the beliefs and values that animate their work. He discovers that many of the scientists are Christians, deeply convinced of the morality of their work, and a number are liberals who opposed the Vietnam War and the Reagan-Bush agenda. Gusterson also examines the anti-nuclear movement, concluding that the scientists and protesters are alike in surprising ways, with both cultures reflecting the hopes and anxieties of an increasingly threatened middle class.

In a lively, wide-ranging account, Gusterson analyzes the ethics and politics of laboratory employees, the effects of security regulations on the scientists' private lives, and the role of nuclear tests―beyond the obvious scientific one―as rituals of initiation and transcendence. He shows how the scientists learn to identify in an almost romantic way with the power of the machines they design―machines they do not fear.

In the 1980s the "world behind the fence" was thrown into crisis by massive anti-nuclear protests at the gates of the lab and by the end of the Cold War. Linking the emergence of the anti-nuclear movement to shifting gender roles and the development of postindustrial capitalism, Gusterson concludes that the scientists and protesters are alike in surprising ways, and that both cultures reflect the hopes and anxieties of an increasingly threatened middle class.

Genres: Nonfiction, Anthropology, History, Science, Politics, College, American History

392 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 1996

Reviews

[Lukey Ellsberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A remarkable work of ethnography exporting the principles of cultural relativism to the divide between nuclear weapons scientists and anti-nuclear activists. Gusterson blends research, experience, and interviews with great skill, and it’s certainly admirable (from the social science perspective) that he is able to background his own convictions in order to approach the sides symmetrically. It is a testament to his abilities as an interviewer that the subjects shared so much revelatory information with him. Personally, I was boiling over with rage for most of the book because I do not think all moral issues can be relativized, and I think dispassion in this sphere is a politically irresponsible act. It would be unfair to expect an anthropologist in 1996 to adhere to some of the modern standards of science studies (such as broadening the scope of who counts as “doing science” rather than reifying the intellectual hierarchy the actors put forth, or else not essentializing non-human actants), but on moral grounds, I had qualms with the construction of the book. Many of us are familiar with the military force of “lies we use to tell the truth.” I found this book riddled with the opposite - true statements which nonetheless conceal more important facets of nuclear reality. I think many uninitiated readers would come away understanding less, rather than more, about our nuclear history and posture. It does lead to a deeper question: when an ethnographer is aware that a subject is lying, misleading, or obscuring, what is that ethnographer’s responsibility to contextualize the statement for the reader - especially if the truth claim is not salient to the project? I’d say: read this book as a work of anthropology, but not for its content about nuclear weapons.

[crth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book develops are really interesting insight onto the use of nuclear weapons, the scientists who create them and the wider communities attitudes to such weapons.

The author makes very interesting arguments from an anthropological perspective arguing that the main use of these weapons is to be used as a deterrence rather than as an actual weapon.

He also provides a perspective onto the community these weapons create - both those who are for and against - as well as their fears and priorities.

The main thing i found incredibly interesting about the book is the culture within the laboratory the anthropologist examines, how fear cannot manifest in a way that will affect there work, how they view each other, how they largely stay religious in spite of all these factors.

This book is very unorthodox for normal anthropology however, if you’re interested in such a topic, this book is a very good read.

[Elisa R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nuclear Rites is written by an anthropologist (and former antinuclear activist) on the weapons scientists at Livermore Lab (and the town of Livermore too). It’s a really cool intersection of theory with ethnography (interviews, observations) to consider how ideological norms are created and perpetuated (Gusterton pulls from Foucault's notion of "regimes of truth" and Roland Barthes' "the effect of the real"), and it’s been particularly interesting to see the parallels of crisis language/experience of nuclear that goes on today for climate.

For ex, a local teacher shares about her transformative experience watching The Last Epidemic, a short video on the health consequences of a nuclear disaster:

I woke up in the morning thinking, right, I'm changing all my priorities. This is it ... , I think I went through the stages overnight a lot of people go through over a period of time. I remember distinctly feeling straight after seeing the film very angry.... And then I felt very depressed.... Very sad. "Oh God! What on earth are we going to do?" It seemed so inevitable. And [I was] just really grief-stricken. And then gradually there just comes an acceptance, not of the situation, but of the fact that you know about it, you can't get away from it, and you have to do something about it, and if you don't make it the highest priority in your life, what the hell does your life mean?

How appropriate is this culture of fear? How much of it is spurred on by truth, versus by a shared sense of enlightenment? As Gusterton, observes, "Paradoxically, the sense that extinction might come at any moment led some to an exquisitely heightened awareness of each moment and a complete existential aliveness" (p. 202).

Pulling from Raymond Williams' structure of feeling concept, Gusterton further assesses (pp. 203–204):

Just as the cultural world of the laboratory tends toward producing a certain structure offeeling and a particular relationship of the self to others, so the cultural world ofthe antinuclear movement has tended to produce-even if it by no means always succeeded in doing so-a community ofthe afflicted with their own culturally constituted experience of self.

Interestingly, Gusterton also notes how the laboratory scientists pursuit of "rational" discourse on the nuclear dilemma was fought against by psychologists, who, "in concert with the women's sector of the peace movement...spearheaded the development of a new normalizing counterdiscourse in which it was claimed that it was inappropriate, maybe a sign of personal inadequacy or numbness, not to be emotional about nuclear weapons" (p. 209).

[Kevin Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for "Introduction to Anthropology" from MIT OpenCourseWare. It is an anthropology study of nuclear weapons scientists and some study of antinuclear activists in the 1980s. It describe the internal and social lives of weapon scientists, most notably their reasons for their work, in their lives and in relation to the wider world of politics.
There are remarkable quotes in there, my favorite is a senior weapons designer exclaiming that you can't blame a designer of a car for a drunk driver! My personal opinion is that the general public opinion is a blunt instrument that lacks experience to elect suitable leaders or to understand and, it seems, even care about detailed policy.

[Seyma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eski bir etnografi olmasına rağmen alana dair tartışmaların bir gıdım ilerlemediğini gösteren bir metin. İnanılmaz fazla notum var ama özetle bu kadar sınırlı bir saha çalışması imkanına rağmen iyi bir iş çıkmış diyebiliriz ortaya. Kitabın sonunda yer alan kitaba tepkiler kısmı da çok etkileyiciydi.

[Patrick Caldera · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing and thought provoking analysis of the people who design nuclear weapons

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly incredible writing and a *fun* read, not just an academic one. I read this the first time in a scientific anthropology course in undergrad and adored it for the completely novel perspective it gave me on an outside topic. I work as a practicing scientist now in a field with similar (although very different) ethical questions and reading it afresh recently with that perspective was every bit as interesting as the first time.

Would definitely recommend!

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far so good. I thought it would be a snoozer. It's an anthropologist's study of the men & women who work at Lawrence Livermore Labs in Livermore, CA where nuclear arms are designed. The study takes in the community of Livermore and how they too reconcile with the fact that nuclear arms are designed there. I'm about halfway through.

[Rachel Chalmers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago and it gave me an uncanny insight into the minds of technocrats. I work in Silicon Valley and I'd say I think about Nuclear Rites at least once a month, to contextualize the rites of passage engineers have invented for themselves.

[Katypies]

Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War by Hugh Gusterson (1998)

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! I got to meet Hugh Gusterson this year at a conference. Smart guy who knows a lot about the nuclear industry.