None of this is an argument for the bombing of Hiroshima. All of it is an argument against war, an argument that can never be won but must never stop being made. Tragedy is sometimes understood as the conflict of one good against another. A more nuanced form of this idea is that tragedy is the conflict between what is perceived to be a lesser evil against what is perceived to be a greater evil. Tragedy exerts its hold upon our imaginations because it reminds us that justice is an illusion.
