Cohn Summary

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In this essay, Carol Cohn illustrates her concern towards the use of domestic imagery by male nuclear strategists in the United States during the late 1980’s. By domestic imagery, Cohn means using “nuclear warfare- based” language, and having it pertain to the home, family or household affairs. For example, “RVs” is a short term that was used to describe “reentry vehicles” which dropped nuclear explosives. Cohn’s objection to this use of domestic imagery has to do with associating a bomb that can incinerate whole cities, with the image of recreational vehicles used for family vacations. Cohn does not agree with this parallel because it allows the nuclear strategists to be completely “removed from the reality of a bomb.” By this, she means the men do not associate these nuclear bombs with the real world or the damage that could potentially be done to it. In Cohn’s opinion, using domestic imagery takes the men’s “accountability” away from their actions. Along with “RVs,” nuclear strategists employ a number of domesticated images such as, “the Christmas tree farm” of missiles in the submarines, or the president’s annual stockpile memorandum called the “shopping list.” Cohn is convinced that this type of language should be of concern to the human population. She argues, “[t]he imagery that domesticates, that humanizes insentient weapons, may also serve, paradoxically, to make it all right to ignore sentient human being.” Cohn is stating that because domestic words are being used, the nuclear strategists tend to exclude human beings as any source of concern compared to the concern of the weapons systems. Cohn believes that the conversations about these nuclear technologies should never stop because it the human population’s “survivability” that is at
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