By Thomas Merton
Published in Fellowship, March 1962
When an issue of credible gravity can be made to depend on an insane half truth, it becomes
important to analyze the so-called "thinking" that is involved.
The whole world is in the grip of pathological war preparations-all initiated in order to "preserve
peace "-and we find men who are considered sane, seriously resolving the whole problem into
the alternative: "red or dead." Either you survive and become a Communist, or risk annihilation
in the act of destroying communism For the latter, the destruction of communism has become
the one all-important aim of life, more important than the survival of civilization, crucial enough
to risk the annihilation of the entire human race.
To put it coldly and bluntly, the policy of nuclear deterrence which the majority of Americans,
Christian and non-Christian alike, seem to have implicitly accepted, at least in a general, tacit
way by not protesting against it, depends on a readiness to annihilate completely without
warning, the great civilian population centers of the enemy country, together with their military
installations. It is for this end that we are paying taxes. It is from the preparations for nuclear war
that a very significant percentage of the population is deriving its income either directly or
indirectly. It is on these preparations that the whole economy of the country rests.
In these circumstances I wonder if the cliche about being Red or dead does not acquire a sinister
hidden meaning. I wonder if, after all, without quite realizing the fact, we are beginning to feel
that our own inner contradictions are beyond solution, and are beginning to sense the climax of
despair which they have prepared for us.
From the moment you take the "red or dead" cliche as the expression of a realistic alternative,
from the moment you pretend to base serious discussion upon this alternative, you are implicitly
admitting the following propositions, which I for one find completely untenable.
1-You are saying that the very survival of democracy is bound up with total nuclear war. That
without recourse to the threat of total nuclear war, without the readiness to wage such a war,
without the ability to annihilate the enemy by a "first strike," the survival of democracy, freedom
and western civilization are no longer conceivable.
2--In other words, you are saying that it is not possible for democracy, for western civilization, to
survive by peaceful means. That we have exhausted the resources of humanity and
reasonableness which would make negotiation thinkable except on a basis of terror.
3--You are saying that if we of the West survive at all, we can only survive as Communists. That
is a choice between surviving and becoming a Communist, or dying in defense of the ideals of
democracy, the capitalist economy, freedom, the American Way of Life. If you push this far
enough you are simply implying that the American Way of life cannot survive except by war, but
that communism can survive without recourse to total nuclear war.
4--You are also saying that since for the Communists survival automatically means victory, they
must be prevented at all cost from surviving. That since for the West survival without nuclear
war practically means defeat, then to reject nuclear war in order to survive is purely and simply
to admit defeat.
5--The last assumption is at once the most horrible, the most absurd and the most revealing. It is purely and simply that if we are reduced to a choice between the survival of the Communists and the destruction of the entire human race, then the brave, noble, heroic and even Christian course is to choose the destruction of the human race. This is of course not frankly admitted, because their reasoning always leaves a kind of irrational loophole for "survival." There is always a chance that some "fifty million on our side" might be left standing after everyone else had been blown up. No one seems to consider the possibility that such survival might be at once culpable, subhuman and infernally awful.
To my mind this whole line of "reasoning" is purely and simply insane, if not actually demonic.
For all its gestures of conquest it is a mentality defeat. It is nothing but appeasement in reverse--it does not grovel, but it destroys itself, assuming there is no alternative between groveling and
destruction. Such an assumption is a pure surrender to irrationality and to hysteria. Nothing
could be more directly contrary to the spirit of liberty, and of reasonable initiative characteristic
of the American tradition.
1-This kind of thinking represents a mentality of defeat. All down the line it presumes that
democratic values are not strong enough to prevail by peaceful means. All down the line it
accepts the very arguments which Marx long ago drew up against the capitalist system: that it
could not survive except by recourse to war, and that it would resort to any extreme in order to
crush opposition. To admit this Marxian analysis as the last word on western civilization is, it
seems to me, a complete moral and intellectual capitulation. It means the complete
justification of all the self-righteous arguments on which the Communists base their hostility to
us.
2-It represents a mentality of despair. While claiming to believe in democratic ideals, in
freedom, in the creativity supposedly inherent in .r way of life, it admits in reality a radical
doubt of all these values. It has no practical faith in them because it cannot believe they have
retained enough power to overcome the opposition raised by communism. Only nuclear weapons
can do the trick. This attitude is the result of the secularist, irreligious pragmatic spirit which has
actually undermined the whole moral structure of the West. It springs from the emptiness, the
resentment, the sense of futility and meaninglessness which gnaw secretly at the heart of western
man.
3-It is finally nothing else than a mentality of suicide. It is the self-destructive, self-hating
resentment that follows from accumulated petty humiliations, repeated errors, reiterated
blunders and stupidities with which we have continually lost face before those whom we secretly
despised. In order to release the pent-up and desperate pressures of our self-hate we are now
ready to destroy ourselves and the whole world with us in one grand explosion. And we justify
ourselves by claiming that we prefer death (for ourselves and everyone else) to tyranny. What
right have we to choose death for everyone else? Is not that an act of supreme tyranny and
injustice?
Where have we seen this kind of thinking before? We do not have to look far. Have we already
forgotten Hitler? Have we already forgotten his paranoid hatreds, his love for "definitive
solutions," for "finalizing" such problems as the existence of races he did not happen to like?
Have we forgotten his ultimate determination to bring all Germany down with himself to
destruction? Have we forgotten that for the Nazis the greatest virtue, the greatest reasonableness,
was to be found in blind obedience to the destructive mania of the Fuehrer?
Those in this country who are now seriously thinking that it would be worthwhile to risk the
destruction of the whole world rather than allow it to become Communist are not only defeatists
who have lost their grasp of the democratic ideal, they are thinking like Hitler. They have a Nazi
mentality. And unfortunately they have much more powerful weapons of destruction than the
Nazis ever knew. Their so-called "thought," their puerile aberrations are no small matter. In so
far as they are prepared seriously to implement their thinking by destructive action, these men
are already war criminals. And those who follow them in their line of thought are in danger of
becoming criminals themselves.
Summary and conclusion: We are rational and responsible beings. No form of defeatism is
permitted to us, neither appeasement nor bullying. We have no right to solve our problems by
blowing ourselves up. Even if it were possible to destroy Russia and survive ourselves, this
would not be permitted. It would be a crime greater than any of Hitler's acts of genocide and
such crimes never go unpunished. We have no right to abandon the Christian moral values on
which our society was built and adopt the moral opportunism and irresponsibility of atheistic
materialism. If we live and act like atheists we will turn our world into a living hell, and that is
precisely what we are doing-for the Russians are not the only men in the world who are Godless!
We who still try to be Christians must be warned. Even for the best of ends it is not permitted to
do evil. Total war is nothing but mass murder.
We have got to find a human and reasonable way of solving our problems. And above all we must refuse to believe in any form of propaganda which tell us that nuclear war is necessary and right. We must say no to all such propaganda and demand that our government continue to seek a sane and prudent way to disarmament. If we give up hope of the only rational solution our blood and the blood of all mankind will be upon our own heads.
1. In a footnote to the article Merton explains the meaning of the title:
"In the current use of this phrase it would seem that Red means 'under Communist rule' and not 'converted to Communism,' though those who use the phrase with conviction seem to believe that if one is under Communist rule one is likely to be easily converted, hence 'better dead than red.'"