‘Oy vey!’ said Einstein

Legend has it that when Albert Einstein was informed that the United States had just dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, he exclaimed Oy vey! in dismay. Perhaps if he had heard about the Oscar award for the film Oppenheimer he would have exclaimed something similar.

It is known that Einstein, who appears in the film in a sequence that is as enigmatic (for better) as it is unenlightening (for worse), was unaware of the U.S. nuclear program. The man considered to be one of the most brilliant minds in the history of humanity ardently maintained that the only solution for international politics was world unity. How little we pay attention to intelligent people: global unity has never been further from the program, if we even manage to achieve unity within countries. It is known that in a 1950 television program, Today with Mrs Roosevelt, he did express a clear warning about the risks of developing a hydrogen bomb: “If successful, radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere, hence the annihilation of any life on earth, has been brought within the range of technical possibilities,” he said, adding that the strange aspect of this development lies in “its apparently inexorable character. Each step appears as the inevitable consequence of the one that went before. And at the end, looming ever clearer, lies general annihilation.”

It is obvious that this speech was ignored, and war has once again become a resource. And powerful countries continue to present as inevitable not only the use and manufacture of bombs, but also their persistent threat and deterrence effect. We currently have men in charge of strong nations who will go down in history as murderers, and this is allowed and applauded by a large part of their citizens, who tend to confuse patriotism with tolerance for crime. In this sense, one would like to see the story of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan on two successive occasions not be told as a result of the inevitable. It would make no sense to separate it from the rise of ultranationalism and racism that elevated Hitler and the leaders who associated with him in Europe and Asia. But the bomb also established the future of political relations.

The second part of Nolan’s film, where the evolution of the anecdote is perhaps not so accelerated or so overwhelming, examines the way in which the United States government persecuted the scientist Oppenheimer to the point of public humiliation. His calls for disarmament and pacifism no longer served the interests of leaders and an arms industry that would turn fear and threats into big business. It is frightening that the reading of the film Oppenheimer should fall into superficiality, enjoyed only as the story of the audacity of a man to overcome his war rivals, as just one more triumphant heroic challenge. The haste in the descriptions of his personal life prevents us from delving into the spirituality that harassed him, confronting him with his own professional activity. It is there, in that contradiction, where Einstein’s expression takes on its full magnitude.

In a world in which every technological advance is unabashedly adored, with everyone oblivious to the consequences, it would be a good idea not to forget the human measure of things. We have distanced ourselves from ourselves. Even in the movies.

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