Starting from Segal's paper on the conspiracy of silence woven by mankind in regard to the danger of nuclear war, the authors try to understand how the mind organizes the disavowal of such a terrifying danger. They examine the interaction between the mental dynamic and present-day culture and civilization based on their clinical experience. Three aspects of culture are examined: (1) the passion to annihilate; (2) the idealization of technology; and (3) the cult of the beyond (the presumed post-nuclear life).

The authors consider that today's personality has changed in several ways. They conclude that the death instinct in each individual is perversely aroused and stimulated by the power factors which are manifested through culture and that the acceptance of nuclear war constitutes a narcissistic fiction which is taken for reality. Psychoanalysts must be aware of these matters, which are so closely bound up with the preservation of life.