POLSCI 3N06 Lecture Notes - Categorical Logic, Counterforce, Participant Observation

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLSCI 3N06
• Professor: Todd Alway

Document Summary

For the research method (answering the research question) Human concerns are projected on to the weapons themselves; Need to see their everyday language; internal language; how do these people talk amongst themselves, when they talk about the weapons; metaphors that are drawn out; Method: a year-long fieldwork study of defense intellectuals. Cohn observes and maps out the experts" everyday language. She records a series of metaphors and analogies that are used by the rational defense experts again and again: as they interact with their missiles and each other. The placid world of domestic life is projected onto the missiles. Trinity religious metaphors being brought inside the nuclear. Priesthood; etc: discourse that operates in a particular way, that the concerns of the human world are brought inside the weapons themselves; The expert discourse extracts the nuclear deterrence issue from its less savory and destructive connotations: by literally domesticating the weapons.