Posted on 05/16/2007 3:05:15 PM PDT by Squidpup
Those Who Cannot Remember the Past
If you went to college in the sixties, like I did, you might not know how much higher education has changed since then. Universities today are different places. At Vanderbilt, where I got my law degree, I hear you can take courses in third wave feminism or colonial governmentality.
Your guess is as good as mine.
On the other hand, some of the courses that we took for granted aren't around at all. One area of study that's almost disappeared from universities today is military history -- the history of warfare.
I was reminded of this recently, reading a piece in The New Republic by historian David Bell. He's certainly not the only person to mourn this change, though. One of my favorite historians, Victor Davis Hanson, wrote on the same subject several years ago in National Review.
There are a number of reasons that military history is no longer taught. Partly, it has to do with the ideological shift in university faculties over the past few decades. The post-Vietnam anti-war movement tends to see all wars as mutual mistakes -- with both sides in a conflict equally wrong. Some of these folks think war can be avoided by refusing to have anything to do with it.
Hansen thinks it also has something to do with the spread of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. In an age with intercontinental ballistic missiles, the old subjects of strategy and tactics can seem obsolete. The importance of battles at Valley Forge or the Alamo might not be evident if you're thinking of warfare in terms only of pushing big red buttons.
The enemies of civilization, though, have adapted -- as they always do. Nuclear deterrence won't protect you if the other side thinks they win if we all die together. Furthermore, they've learned to hide among the innocent. Iran's missiles, nestled among civilian neighborhoods and UN outposts in Lebanon, were fired into Israel -- but Iran was never hit back. The British and the Spanish have discovered, through terrorist attacks on bus and train lines, that the enemy is studying us daily. They learn our every weakness by living and working among us – but our schools have stopped offering courses that would help us meet their challenge.
All of this means that if there were ever a time to put our best minds to the study of warfare, it is now. I know that, for many people, it's an unpleasant topic they would just as soon avoid -- but history that ignores the importance of warfare is not history. There is a reason that both sides in the Civil War studied Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” – though it was written in the 5th or 6th Century BC.
Hansen writes, "The hundred years of talking about slavery was not as important as two days at Gettysburg. The success or failure of Normandy affected Hitler more in an hour than had years of pleading with him in the 1930s."
If for no other reason than that we want to avoid war whenever we can, universities should at least offer the option of studying it. We know that students would sign up for the classes, because books on the subject are always reliable sellers. Television programmers have also responded to the sizable hunger for military history.
These alternate sources of information are important, but they don't replace the need for serious scholarship in our universities. If you agree, I have a suggestion.
One thing we know for sure about colleges, they're better than bill collectors at tracking you down. If you ever took a single class, you'll be asked for contributions the rest of your life. Next time you get one of those calls, ask that student fundraiser to pass on the message that you'd probably give more money to the old alma mater if the school were offering more classes in military history. It's worth a try, anyway.
?????
He is thoughtful AND well-read. Very rare in politics.
He is a reformer.
He is a Great Communicator in the mold of RWR.
reference Ping...
but it could also mean a convert..
the dangers of spelling mistakes ..... jsut sum fuhn...
Too inside for this goyem. ;)
Strum your frustrations away.
Some people may prefer action, but . . .
Gimme a folk song, any old day.
Actually history, itself, has virtually disappeared. Yes, there are history classes, but few take them. My kids (UVa and Cornell) took virtually no history classes while undergraduates.
ML/NJ
I’m not sure most colleges are the best place for military history, considering who would be likely to get tenure in the subject. I agree that it is a vital subject to study and understand however. Clausewitz, and maybe even Elliot Cohen and John Keegan should be required reading. What a lot of anti-war activists seem to fail to understand is that a badly prosecuted war is always worse for both sides than a well prosecuted one, regardless of moral right.
Ger tzeddik?
I think we’ve managed to sing the whole thing, in installments!
Right to the point.
GO FRED!!!
I also took a Women's Studies course (don't ask me why)--the History of Prostitution.
God, I hope he doesn’t pull a Ross Perot. Get in and stay in, no matter how ugly it gets.
Interestingly, the hypocritical left support ‘immediate’ punishment for people in our society like Imus etc., but want to ‘talk about it’ when it involves people like Saddam Hussein. This seemingly strange dichotomy exists because the ideology of the left is not about specific ‘principles’. It’s actually an ideology of personal righteousness. They believe they are ‘right’, whatever that means at the moment, because they are more sophisticated and ‘smarter’ that the rest of us. How silly of us not to be ‘smart’ enough to accept and understand this.
I absolutely disagree with Bay Buchanan’s assessment of Hillary as ‘insecure’. I don’t doubt that she has insecurities, but ultimately what drives Hillary is her narcissistic view of herself as the ‘woman chosen to save the world’. Peggy Noonan is incredibly bright, in my view, and although some here find her too tame sometimes, or too accommodating of the views of the ‘other side’, she is absolutely correct about Hillary being a narcissist.
By the way, Bay Buchanan is absolutely correct about Hillary being functionally ‘smart’ but not creative. Actually, this trait is in many ways a hallmark of the Ivy league. It’s a very closed minded culture that primarily rewards ‘mastery of the facts’ as they are defined by the Ivy League culture. Ultimately this doesn’t allow for the wide breadth of opinion and open mindedness that helps fuel creativity. This is not universally true, and some of the brightest and most creative people I’ve ever known where from or are at one of the Ivy’s. Nonetheless, I believe strongly that the open-minded quest for truth that was supposed to be the credo of higher education, and the Ivy’s as icons of higher education, is not the norm any more. It’s tragic, and needs to be fixed.
FDT is my man. I was for him before, but now he's quoting Victor David Hanson. That's a hat trick if there ever was one, pilgrim.
He makes me cry...he’s that good. (plus I went to Hillsdale and I have the same lament)
This giant of a man vs. ANY of the pygmies of the Democrats. My God, how I want to see him in open debate against any of those moral midgets.
Folk songs and flowers were not really part of the reality at that time in Tennessee. (thank God)
"Those who would forget history, are doomed to repeat it"
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