vivian shaw

Metaphors of the Cold War

Here’s an elegant pair of metaphors on the ideological and/or psychological processes at work during the Cold War, from Joseph S. Nye, Jr.’s book Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History.

“It was difficult for the Americans to understand the Soviet Union during the Cold War because the Soviet Union was like a black box. American leaders could see what went in and what came out of the box, but not what happened inside. The Americans confused the Soviets as well. The Americans were like a white noise machine that produced so much background noise that it was difficult to hear the true signals clearly. There were too many people saying too many things. Thus the Soviets were often confused about what the Americans really wanted.”

It’s interesting to think of nations and cultures as possessing distinct psychological positions, dispositions, and make ups. This sort of assumption that cultural populations (ethnicities, nationalities) tend to possess unified, mass feelings, and that they take action on these feelings, is so ingrained in the way that we talk about politics, economics, and ideology, that it’s difficult to imagine an alternative way of analyzing geopolitical and social movements.