Transcending Despair: A Prelude to Action

The central thesis of this essay is that in order to feel empowered to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons, persons need to face and transcend their despair when they contemplate the nuclear destruction of the planet. The repression of fear of nuclear disaster results in a sense of powerlessness to do anything about the inevitable destruction and consequently nothing is done, thereby allowing the Lovers of Death (Fromm, 1964) to build bigger and better ways to destroy the planet