Caerus

Weapon/off

1. The framework of The Weapon Spectrum

Can you build an atomic bomb? An AK-47 maybe? Can you make a killer drone? Okay, maybe that's unfair to ask. After all, you’re not some scientist working in arms engineering. You… You are a normal human. An average civilian. Or, should we ask a different question instead? Does the fact that the strongest weapons are impossible to produce for a normal person, not lead to an increasing imbalance between the civilian and the powerful? 

Why am I asking so many questions, you might wonder. Well. It is for a reason. 

In this, and several following entries, I will take you through these questions with the help of a new framework. A framework that I propose to call the Weapon Spectrum. In this first entry, I will introduce you to the Weapon Spectrum for it is essential to understand the basics of this system to understand my later argumentation and theorizing. 

First, let’s turn to a hero of mine: George Orwell. 

In October 1945, Orwell published an essay in Tribune titled ‘You and the Atomic Bomb’. Two months prior, the United States had dropped Fat Man and Little Boy on Japan. It was the first, and so far only, use of the atomic bomb as an actual weapon. Orwell, like others, was worried. Not just about the potentially impending end of civilization, but also about the consequences of this new “dominant weapon” to the political power balance. He feared that the atomic bomb would lead to increasingly more totalitarian police-states (the essay is a clear glimpse into the motivations for his later novel, 1984). He feared this because, in his assessment, “ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance” (Orwell, 1945). The atomic bomb, the most dominant weapon till this day, is clearly not cheap or simple to make, nor is it easy for the common man to have access to it. Thus, it would in Orwell’s analysis lead to increased despotism. A musket, the dominant weapon of the early 1800’s, on the other hand, is much more democratic. Many people can have one, making one requires little work and if you can’t make it, you could buy one rather cheaply.

Orwell, however, further limits his analysis to the macro level and goes into the consequences for the nations, but I think this question of the changing relation between the civilian and the state as a consequence of the dominant weapon demands more exploration. 

A weapon, if we accept Orwell’s assessment of dominant weapons, can be more or less democratic. A weapon that is more easily available and usable for the population is more democratic while a weapon that is hard to get, expensive, requires lots of knowledge to use, etc. is more despotic. I propose a framework in which we can use this “democratic value” of weapons to gain some insights into the current state of weaponry. A framework which I propose to call the Weapon Spectrum. It is a framework with two dimensions. The first (from left-to-right) shows the democratic value of a weapon. At the complete left are weapons which are completely democratic and on the complete right are purely despotic weapons. The second dimension goes from top to bottom and portrays the strength of weapons. Here, the weapons at the bottom are the weakest and those near the top are the strongest.

In this visualization we would then have in the bottom right corner, the weakest and most democratic weapons, and in the top right corner the strongest and most despotic weapons. This framework with the axis of weak/strong and of democratic/despotic is what I propose to call The Weapon Spectrum.

The Weapon Spectrum would then roughly look something like this:

So…

Would you agree with where I place these weapons?

Would you put them somewhere else, and why?

Where in this spectrum would you put an AK-47? 

What about a bazooka? 

And what about fists, or your body in general?

This last question, namely that of the position of your body is the main topic for the next entry. 

In that entry, I will expand the framework with one more line and try to use the State of Nature to inform us on the trajectory that society has taken with regards to The Weapon Spectrum.