Ronald Reagan's “star wars” address: Mythic containment of technical reasoning

Abstract

Ronald Reagan's “Star Wars” address is viewed as part of the culturally evolving myth of the New Frontier. The speech creates the illusion of both preserving and transcending science by subordinating technical reasoning to the purpose of nuclear holocaust, and by using technical reasoning to the purpose of preventing nuclear holocaust, and by using technoscience to rescript history to remove temporal and spatial markers. Science is left free to advance progress. But Reagan determines the parameters for future technical debate; thus, scientists who would argue against SDI must contest their own status.