Analysis Of Survival Is Your Business By Joseph Masco

Survival of a nuclear apocalypse has long been ingrained in American culture. In “’Survival is Your Business’: Engineering Ruins and Affect in Nuclear America,” Joseph Masco argues that the Unite States government used tactics during the Cold War to incite a level of fear in the American population about a possible nuclear war. Masco writes, “I show that the early Cold War state sought explicitly to militarize U.S. citizens through contemplating the end of the nation-state, creating in the process a specific set of ideas and images of collective danger that continue to inform American society in powerful and increasingly complex ways” (362). According to Masco’s argument, the government attempted to use this fear of a possible war to convince Americans that survival was possible after an attack and that retaining order was crucial after such an attack. Masco’s observations and arguments suggest a clear effect by the media on the public, especially when such messages involve fear and anxiety. Masco …show more content…
Masco writes, “The notions of preemption and emergency response that inform the George W. Bush administration’s ‘war on terror’ derive meaning from the promises and institutions built by the Cold War security state” (387), suggesting that Bush’s administration studied and adopted the tactics used by the government in the Cold War era for its own ends during the War on terror. He goes on to argue that while the attacks on September 11 on New York City, which ushered in the newest wave of counter-terrorism, were nonnuclear, the messages released by the government in its aftermath were translated “into the emotional equivalent of the Cold War nuclear crisis” (388). This suggests that while the nature of the threats against the United States has changed since the Cold War era, the government’s message about threats have essentially remained