Between Hiroshima and the Truman Doctrine: Framing American Belief - Report Example

Between Hiroshima and the Truman Doctrine: Framing American Belief The United s was formed onideologies that defined its philosophical concepts through notions of freedom and equality. Parts of those freedoms are founded on the idea that belief was up to the individual, not the state. People can believe and celebrate those beliefs in any way that they choose as long as they do not violate public law and policy. How belief is formed, on the other hand, is in high interest to the government and in the history of the United States it has been policy to work towards creating beliefs within the public that support policies that best suit the needs of the government. Censoring what is seen is a part of how that control is maintained. It is a delicate balance between what is created belief and what comes from individual consideration. A potent example of the use of language in order to frame public opinion can be seen through the way in which the use of the atom bomb in Hiroshima and in Nagasaki were framed for the public as well as the emergence of the idea of the ‘Communist Threat’ as it was begun in the Truman Doctrine. The government of the United States, contrary to the rights and freedoms sought within the nation, has often used language and power that would frame public opinion through censoring the truth and creating the foundation for desired public response through the manipulation of events and ideological frameworks. There have been many examples of how public opinion has been shaped through manipulations that come through media sources. Defining what actions are considered patriotic has been accomplished through the angle from which certain types of actions have been reported in the news. A recent example can be seen through a racially biased representation of a black man who had a boat and was getting provisions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the picture of a white woman doing the same thing. The photograph of the black man was captioned with the idea that he was ‘looting’, while the white woman was captioned with a statement that declared that she was scavenging food for survival. How an event is framed in the media goes a long way in developing a national belief on the events and how they fit into the framework of public opinion. This use of language to create pictures of events in order to frame public opinion was used to control how citizens created a point of view on the use of the atom bomb during World War II. The atom bomb was a horrific resource for war, its effect incinerating and obliterating families, creating terrible radiation contamination, and decidedly not American in its effect on another population. Lifton and Mitchell state that “We can come to recognize the extent to which that Hiroshima narrative has blunted our senses and subverted our moral imagination” (354). The action was not examined for its horrors during the time period in which it was dropped, but was lauded as a necessary act to secure the safety of the nation. The government had to justify and rally public opinion so that the use of the bomb did not adversely affect the sense of identity that was so strongly held by the citizens of the nation. The first way that the enemy was put into a position where such things were acceptable was through dehumanizing them, the ‘otherness’ of the Japanese placed in conflict with Americanism. This was not difficult to do with the reports of the attack at Pearl Harbor already imbedded in the outrage of American memory. The American self image was a belief that they represented all that was good and wholesome about human life, but if the public had been able to see images of what the atom bombs had done, if a human face was put on the weapons of war that had torn apart portions of Japan on an inhuman level, the national identity would have taken a serious blow, creating dissent and unrest. It is hoped, at least, that had the people known they would have protested. Instead, the government controlled the images that came out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an act that was in direct conflict with the freedoms of the press that is a central part of how the United States differentiates itself from other countries. Manipulation of the public by the media was not a new phenomenon, but the extent to which the idea of the heroic nation was hammered into the public stream of thought was so powerful that it reshaped the way in which the nation thought about itself as well as its ideologies. The new party line was although ‘we’ condemn all nations that falsely imprison or commit war crimes, when ‘we’ do it, it is beyond reproach. The current worldwide opinion of the United States, in that there is a sense of entitlement and arrogance that is born of hypocrisy, might be traced back to the events of World War II. The development of the national belief in ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as a way of dividing human existence in regard to nations might be traced back to this time period. Communism, as an example, was demonized by the government setting off a string of consequences for both foreign and domestic policy. The Truman Doctrine established the idea that regimes in which the rights and freedoms of citizens were subjugated were a threat to the freedoms that were the founding ideals of the United States. This new policy might be considered one of the first times that the American identity was framed through comparison to the policies of other nations rather than through defining the rights within the country. Instead of looking towards the accomplishments and development of freedoms within the nation, Americans turned towards Communists as the evil that was the opposite to the good of the United States. Instead of wanting to free the people who were subjugated, they became a part of a threat against the people of the United States. This distinction made demons out of the people as well as the governments, creating fear of the evil nature of the ‘Communist threat’. The Truman Doctrine is often considered the first step towards the Cold War that provided for a series of consequences in the development of foreign and domestic policy. The framing of the problem through creating a belief system that defined human beings in non-human terms supported a public opinion that grew to support the evil of Communism. In order to support foreign aid to Turkey and Greece against the threat of falling under the control of the Soviet Union, Truman established a narrative in which the evil of oppressive governments was in direct conflict with the continuation of the freedoms in the United States. The narrative was the story, the framing of the experiences in such a way to lead the people towards conclusions that would create support for foreign policies. The people were given enough information to have a base understanding of events with language that was designed to evoke an emotional response that supported what was intended by the government. Truth was not relevant to the aim of the rhetoric with which these foreign policies were sold to the people of the United States. The government has been known to lie to the people. This has been established through the events of the last one hundred years as history has revealed many of the truths that were either not revealed or covered up in order to sustain governmental power. The events that allowed for the decision to drop the atom bomb were not fully revealed to the public, and neither were seminal works that would reveal the consequences of dropping the bombs. Through manipulations of the truth the government has controlled public opinion in order to sustain its power. In creating belief systems that support foreign policy, the truth about those policies has been hidden and the United States has conducted itself in ways that it would condemn from other governments. In creating demons, the government justifies its actions and rallies citizen support. Works Cited Lifton, Robert J, and Greg Mitchell. Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial. New York: Avon Books, 1996. Print. Read More