Cracking prejudices vs. cracking an atom

I recently came across the journalism of I.F.  Stone, and I am staggered by his prescience and insight.

In article published on 12^th August, 1945, about the end of World War (part) Two, he wrote:

“But it is harder to break a prejudice than an atom.”

Now, this has been attributed to Einstein, but the basis for doing so is unclear. It seems that Izzy Stone wrote the above just days after the nuclear  bombings of Hiroshima  and  Nagasaki, so I’ll go with Mr Stone as the source. 

In any case, it is well worth a thought or two. 

A lot of Mr Stone’s journalism seems to be worth a thought or two - or more. 

On 1^st November, 1954, Mr Stone wrote of India’s proposal, conceived by then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal  Nehru and delivered to the UN General Assembly by Krishna  Menon, for a “pause” in nuclear testing - something that was later to become the (partial) nuclear  test  ban treaty. In the article, Mr Stone writes: 

“Menon uttered what may prove to be the prophetic epitaph of our civilization when he said use of H-bombs would prove “suicide for the nations who used them,genocide for those against whom they were used, and infanticide for posterity.””

I.F. Stone also wrote of a powerful bias against the USSR during the founding of the United Nations organisation in an article titled “Organization for Peace . . .  or Against the Soviet Union”, dated 4^th May, 1945. 

I’ve come across writings about that bias elsewhere, including assessments of the militarised distortion of George  Keenan's democracy-based (as yesterday’s news post quoted: “to defeat autocracy, weaponise transparency” (WotR)) containment  doctrine, but, with the benefit of hindsight, I consider Mr Stone’s attitudes towards the USSR and Stalin unduly generous: the “Cold War” was quite hot in some parts of the world. (PS - in later articles, he was critical.)

The collected writings at the link above are still worth a read and a think, though, in my opinion. 

Over to you, Dear Reader.

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• fair, just and equitable peace is good and beneficial; 
• decision making needs to be well informed (adequately and accurately so) and free of biases;
  

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider: 

• I am relying of the Internet sources I can access, and have done what I can to check these. My checks may be inadequate, and the sources may therefore be wrong;
  
• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend to Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”.