The truth is how we solve problems.

Readership: All; Men;
Theme: Awareness and Introspection; Rationality;
Length: 1,300 words
Reading Time: 7 minutes

A Brief History of the Chernobyl Event

Forty years ago on this day, 1986/4/26, the most serious nuclear accident that has ever happened in the history of the nuclear power industry occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor near the city of Pripyat, Ukraine. The reactor was destroyed in the accident, and considerable amounts of radioactive material were vaporized and released into the environment. In the aftermath, radionuclides from the Chernobyl release were measurable in all countries of the northern hemisphere.

Large areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine were contaminated with lethal levels of radioactive materials. 335,000 people from these three countries were evacuated from the areas surrounding the reactor and were subsequently relocated. The area surrounding Chernobyl is expected to remain contaminated for the next 600+ years.

The accident caused radiation injuries leading to the deaths of more than a hundred workers, plus an unknown number of cancer cases and genetic defects. Furthermore, the accident caused serious social and psychological disruption in the lives of hundreds of people affected, as well as vast economic losses over the entire region.

The Film: Chernobyl

A film was made in 2019 to document and dramatize the events that happened at Chernobyl.

Chernobyl is a 2019 5-episode HBO disaster series directed by Johan Renck and starring Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Emily Watson, Jessie Buckley, Adam Nagitis and a whole bunch of other excellent actors.

Episode 1 covers the disaster as it happened. Episodes 2-4 cover the cleanup efforts and the human cost. Episode 5 covers the trial and intersperses flashback scenes to the events that led to the disaster.

Episode 1 of Chernobyl begins with a simple, profound question: “What is the cost of lies?” We’ve all heard that the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster was the worst in history, but there was a lot more to it than the technical failures. Everyone can learn from the human elements of the story and apply those lessons to their lives.

Jared Harris plays nuclear physicist Valery Legasov. Stellan Skarsgård plays Soviet Minister of Energy Boris Shcherbina. Together they lead the cleanup effort. Harris and Skarsgård are excellent in their roles, Skarsgård particularly so. He plays Shcherbina with poignant subtlety. You can see the unbearable weight of the decisions Shcherbina made on his face, but he never overacts, or gets melodramatic.

The show does take some artistic liberties. For example, Emily Watson’s character — nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk — is made up. She’s a composite of multiple real-life scientists. Nevertheless, with few exceptions, the storytellers did a great job at historical accuracy.

This is a grim tale. There is no happy ending. It’s also infuriating. Without giving too much away, it turns out that the Soviet government knew that something like the Chernobyl disaster was not just possible, but likely, and covered up their findings to avoid embarrassment. They didn’t just hide it from the general public, they hid the information from their own nuclear scientists and engineers. And that brings us back to the question: “What is the cost of lies?”

The Vice of Bureaucracy

Although there are many villains in Chernobyl, it would be more accurate to say that bureaucracy is the villain. Bureaucracy inherently attracts, rewards, and promotes petty little tyrants who only care about preserving or improving their position within the bureaucracy. All other considerations are at best a distant second. That leads to a lot of scheming, back-stabbing, blame-shifting, and lying. Bureaucrats make their living by telling their superiors what they want to hear, and talking subordinates into doing what they want, no matter how nonsensical that may be. This is true of all bureaucracies, whether in a large company or in government, but Communism cranks bureaucracy up to 11. The Chernobyl disaster illustrates how this phenomenon can result in the most mind-bogglingly stupid decision-making. Watch this short scene for an example.

Plant Manager Bryukhanov and Chief Engineer Fomin refused to believe — against all physical evidence — that the reactor core had exploded. After all, it was theoretically impossible for a Soviet-designed-and-built reactor core to explode. At the end of the scene, Nuclear Engineer Sitnikov, whom they ordered from the safety and comfort of a sealed bunker to go look at the reactor core, is sitting in the bunker with radiation burns on his face, knowing he will die (he lived 34 more days), and yet they’re still yelling at him that he didn’t see what he saw.

The Virtue of Common Sense

My favorite characters are the miners. Their absolute intolerance for BS adds levity to an otherwise relentlessly grim story.

Most people place common sense and logic in different categories, but they’re wrong. Common sense is logic learned through hard experience and observation — as opposed to a philosophy class — and applied to practical everyday situations. Miners move rock for a living, and they do it deep underground. It’s inherently dangerous work. Rock can’t be reasoned with, bribed, cajoled, threatened, or generally talked into doing what you want it to do. Rock stubbornly follows the laws of physics, and as Sir Francis Bacon said, “nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed”. When a miner screws up, the consequences are physical. They’re real. They’re true. The contrast between the miners and the bureaucrats could not be more stark.

Practical Applications

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. He is also the creator of the universe. Consequently, the truth is woven into the fabric of the universe. Consequently, the truth is not just some abstract concept debated by navel-gazing philosophers, or theologians. The truth is equally real as the rock the miners move, and equally unforgiving. We can ignore the truth for a while, but the truth always eventually asserts itself.

Androspherians love to point out how women lie to themselves, but many Androspherians do the same. For example, one lie I’ve seen Androspherians repeat over and over is that people eat junk food like McDonald’s because that’s all they can afford.

Bull$h!t.

Six of my 10 kids still live at home. Our food budget is $1,300/month. 8 people * 3 meals/day * 30 days/month = 720 meals/month. $1,300/720 meals = $1.81/meal. And that doesn’t even include all the snacks. Show me a meal at McDonald’s that’ll satisfy a 14-year-old male rugby player for $1.81. Go ahead. I dare you. The least expensive Happy Meal costs $6.29. Multiply that by 720 meals per month, and you get $4,528.80/month. It’s such a stupid lie that 10 seconds of third-grade math proves it to be a stupid lie, yet I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen Androspherians repeat the lie that junk food is less expensive than healthy food. A man can lie to himself that all he can afford is greasy fast food, but eventually obesity, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and impotence will assert themselves, not to mention the opportunity costs of wasting money on garbage.

What is the cost of lies? Lies cost us the ability to solve problems. The truth is how we solve, or better yet, prevent problems. Bad news doesn’t get better with time. The longer we refuse to accept the truth, the more painful the consequences get when the bill eventually comes due. And guess what? Men are the ones who usually get called upon to solve problems. From Legasov and Shcherbina, to the firefighters, to the miners, to the soldiers who had to clear radioactive debris, it was men solving the worst problems, oftentimes at the cost of their very own lives.

Even more so than women, men — especially Christian men — do NOT have the luxury to entertain lies, or liars. The cost is too high. I don’t know if the storytellers meant to, but Chernobyl teaches that lesson masterfully.

You can stream Chernobyl on HBO or Amazon Prime.

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