One of my favorites episodes. Definitely made a big impression on me about having the guts to face harsh reality now and prepare, or have it forced on you later.
I think this is applicable to plenty of modern day issues people would rather not look into or think too much about, like climate change, peak oil, or even the still everpresent threat and maybe even increasing likelihood of nuclear war.
Also interesting how societal attitudes change, if you compare this episode to the one which came later that had the same topic with a radically different message.
"The idea that friends could become instant enemies when the world was at the door, and that civilization and civility are only thin veneers that wash away at the first sign of threat, is a common threat in literature, sociological musings, and post-apocalyptic fiction."
It absolutely is -- which is why Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise Built in Hell" is so important as a corrective. Her research shows that it's also entirely possible to have community increase after a disaster, not decrease -- and cites examples that we never hear of, drowned out by the drumbeat of "disasters = barbarism" stories. I had never even heard of the 9/11 boatlift, for example.
But Solnit acknowledges it doesn't always work -- and points to Hurricane Katrina as a case in point. In that case, however, it was more disaster + racism = barbarism. To tie this back to your previous post, Alex: one can safely assume that the white disaster preppers of 1960s Georgia would not have opened their shelters to their Black neighbors.
One of R. A. Heinlein's (deservedly) less famous books, "Farnham's Freehold" from 1964 addresses the private fallout shelter trend. In which novel the 100MT all up version of the Tsar Bomba is the deus ex machina which blows our eponymous heroe's shelter a few thousand years into the (now less radioactive) future for a mixed plot of "Giligans Island" crossed with a Star Trek episode titled "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.". Hilarity ensues-
Thank you. I've always had "issues" with that book. I was going to say "Gilligan's Island meets patriarchal circle-jerk," but the Star Trek reference works beautifully too.
We are all creatures of our times. The book was a product of mid 1960s CA milieu when Heinlein had to move back to near sea level altitude for his wife’s health, which was also the time that saw Ronald Reagan become a popular politician, enough said?
How ever Heinlein managed to write Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love & similar “less conventionally red blooded American” SF mystify me. Did someone introduce him to peyote during his high desert period?!
Maybe not peyote but I do remember him mentioning an interest in early Canadian research in using LSD as a rehab tool in a fan magazine back in the early 70s. I wonder if he'd thought about That and eventually incorporated it into some of his stories somehow:
It's not surprising that he would express the views mentioned at the end of the article. Sirling was nearly two decades past his own experience in wearing the iron face of combat by the time of that interview, and I imagine that he'd thought a great deal about what he'd seen and what he felt in that time. Combat in the Pacific theatre was brutal in the extreme and I can't imagine someone as thoughtful as Sirling Not spending a lot of time thinking about what he had experienced and trying to give it all some kind of meaning after the last shot had been fired and the dust had finally settled,....
The Twilight Zone was a very popular show. A lot of people saw that episode. They watched it ans talked with others about it. I was young, but I was around then. I know it had a big impact. Today it's a well known tale - but at the time it was a new idea, a new strange problem of modern life. Millions of Americans watched 'The Shelter' in their living rooms, and then shortly after went to bed and laid there thinking about it. Maybe they dreamed about it. I know I did and I still have nightmares about that fallout shelter and those people 65 years later!
Why not write a piece on how Trump has, or has not managed to reduce the chances of nuclear war, especially in the context or Iran. Frame it correctly to avoid allegations of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
True on Mr. T. It was arrogant of me to suggest "our host" is not aware of this, my apologies, I hope you and he, will accept them.
And I think "our host" is perfectly capable of deciding this himself. History is not just about the past. It is also about what will be revised, in the future.
"The undeclared World War continued its bloody, blundering way at half a dozen spots around a tortured globe. Breen did not chart it; the head lines were there for anyone to read."
One of my favorites episodes. Definitely made a big impression on me about having the guts to face harsh reality now and prepare, or have it forced on you later.
I think this is applicable to plenty of modern day issues people would rather not look into or think too much about, like climate change, peak oil, or even the still everpresent threat and maybe even increasing likelihood of nuclear war.
Also interesting how societal attitudes change, if you compare this episode to the one which came later that had the same topic with a radically different message.
"The idea that friends could become instant enemies when the world was at the door, and that civilization and civility are only thin veneers that wash away at the first sign of threat, is a common threat in literature, sociological musings, and post-apocalyptic fiction."
It absolutely is -- which is why Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise Built in Hell" is so important as a corrective. Her research shows that it's also entirely possible to have community increase after a disaster, not decrease -- and cites examples that we never hear of, drowned out by the drumbeat of "disasters = barbarism" stories. I had never even heard of the 9/11 boatlift, for example.
But Solnit acknowledges it doesn't always work -- and points to Hurricane Katrina as a case in point. In that case, however, it was more disaster + racism = barbarism. To tie this back to your previous post, Alex: one can safely assume that the white disaster preppers of 1960s Georgia would not have opened their shelters to their Black neighbors.
One of R. A. Heinlein's (deservedly) less famous books, "Farnham's Freehold" from 1964 addresses the private fallout shelter trend. In which novel the 100MT all up version of the Tsar Bomba is the deus ex machina which blows our eponymous heroe's shelter a few thousand years into the (now less radioactive) future for a mixed plot of "Giligans Island" crossed with a Star Trek episode titled "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.". Hilarity ensues-
https://read.amazon.com/sample/B08PP1CNX9?f=1&l=en_US&r=f8644d66&rid=BNXRJYHFMGM08YMDD0X9&sid=146-1165571-1161623&cid=A39NJMOJTX1THZ&ref_=litb_m
Thank you. I've always had "issues" with that book. I was going to say "Gilligan's Island meets patriarchal circle-jerk," but the Star Trek reference works beautifully too.
We are all creatures of our times. The book was a product of mid 1960s CA milieu when Heinlein had to move back to near sea level altitude for his wife’s health, which was also the time that saw Ronald Reagan become a popular politician, enough said?
How ever Heinlein managed to write Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love & similar “less conventionally red blooded American” SF mystify me. Did someone introduce him to peyote during his high desert period?!
Maybe not peyote but I do remember him mentioning an interest in early Canadian research in using LSD as a rehab tool in a fan magazine back in the early 70s. I wonder if he'd thought about That and eventually incorporated it into some of his stories somehow:
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/psychedelic-research-in-1950s-saskatchewan
It's not surprising that he would express the views mentioned at the end of the article. Sirling was nearly two decades past his own experience in wearing the iron face of combat by the time of that interview, and I imagine that he'd thought a great deal about what he'd seen and what he felt in that time. Combat in the Pacific theatre was brutal in the extreme and I can't imagine someone as thoughtful as Sirling Not spending a lot of time thinking about what he had experienced and trying to give it all some kind of meaning after the last shot had been fired and the dust had finally settled,....
The Twilight Zone was a very popular show. A lot of people saw that episode. They watched it ans talked with others about it. I was young, but I was around then. I know it had a big impact. Today it's a well known tale - but at the time it was a new idea, a new strange problem of modern life. Millions of Americans watched 'The Shelter' in their living rooms, and then shortly after went to bed and laid there thinking about it. Maybe they dreamed about it. I know I did and I still have nightmares about that fallout shelter and those people 65 years later!
This is an interesting bit of atomic horology.
Here's another, more "light-hearted" take on the same issue, from the same era.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYtVc56o9oo
🎶Well, I rung me fallout shelter bell
And I leaned my head and I gave a yell
"Give me a string bean, I'm a hungry man"
Shotgun fired and away I ran
I don't blame them too much though, they didn't know me🎶
Why not write a piece on how Trump has, or has not managed to reduce the chances of nuclear war, especially in the context or Iran. Frame it correctly to avoid allegations of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
@Robin Smith
I believe our host here is more of an early nuclear era historian than a commentator on current events/predictive political pundit?
(Also, Trump is impossible to study & comment upon without being accused of derangement from some on BOTH "sides")
@PFC Billy
True on Mr. T. It was arrogant of me to suggest "our host" is not aware of this, my apologies, I hope you and he, will accept them.
And I think "our host" is perfectly capable of deciding this himself. History is not just about the past. It is also about what will be revised, in the future.
The future might be pretty much what it was imagined to be? From 1952.
"This year the human race is letting down its hair, flipping its lip with a finger, and saying, 'Wubba, wubba, wubba."'
http://www.weylmann.com/The_Year_of_the_Jackpot.pdf
"The undeclared World War continued its bloody, blundering way at half a dozen spots around a tortured globe. Breen did not chart it; the head lines were there for anyone to read."
We all have a theory:
https://www.northstokelife.com/2026/05/we-all-have-theory.html
Ummmmm...because that would not be true 😑.
What might not be true?