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The big one

By Paul Schollmeier

From one of the fifty winning entries in a contest to design a warning sign for a planned nuclear dumping site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The contest, sponsored by the Nevada Desert Space Foundation, aimed to find a symbol whose meaning would outlast the projected life span of contemporary language and culture, as the nuclear waste will remain dangerously radioactive for more than ten thousand years. The proposal, by Paul Schollmeier, was accompanied by a line drawing of an erect penis. Greenpeace, Zurich, will exhibit the winning entries later this year.

My proposal is to mark the nuclear repository with a phallic symbol to warn against transgression and trespass, especially if, as seems very likely, our culture should perish. The human phallus presents an immediately and universally recognizable symbol which transcends language and culture. Humans thus ought to have the ability to recognize this symbol as long as we retain our present anatomy. That our anatomy might change drastically in the next ten thousand years appears very unlikely, and if mutations become prevalent, a nuclear disaster of some sort must surely have taken place, and warning signs of any sort would serve no purpose.

I take the phallus to symbolize at once hierarchical and territorial dominance. Of course, some feminists would have much to say about phallocentric folly, but this behavior is a fact of life even in the most enlightened times. The phallus, therefore, presents an image which, for the foreseeable future of our species, should occasion attitudes of respect and circumspection in its beholder. This image ought to cause respect for possible hierarchies represented and circumspection for possible territories defended. Indeed, the very fact that I am using erudite euphemisms to refer to this portion of the human anatomy, not to mention the fact that many, if not most, people will initially react with unease and even aversion to a mere proposal to use the image of an erect penis as a warning sign, attests to the deterrent power this symbol will have on future generations.

I have also drawn the phallus to resemble, albeit suggestively, an atomic explosion. Some people, of course, might be so bold as to argue that all warfare, including atomic warfare, is a mere manifestation of our biological heritage. Whether or not we accept their argument, we may nevertheless admit that, even if our culture does not survive, some remnants of nuclear explosions and their mushroom clouds may yet figure in the memory or the myths of another culture years hence.

I would suggest that this image be carved on natural rock outcroppings along the perimeter of the proposed repository. The carvings ought to be especially prominent near its entrance. These carved images would very likely resist human tampering, given the labor required to alter or to remove them. They would also endure in the desert environment. Indeed, archaic petroglyphs of cultures unknown to us are now found in the Mojave.

My proposal, then, is that the nuclear repository be a modest site which sports an immodest warning sign, a symbol designed to engender hesitation and caution in future generations. My fear is that any nuclear repository will inevitably be breached. But my hope is that with phallic warning signs, most people would not be rash enough to enter it. The few who do eventually enter will no doubt soon learn for themselves of its hazards.

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SEE ALSO: Nevada; Radioactive waste sites; Signs and symbols; Yucca Mountain

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