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Why Study War?
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_military_history.html ^
| Victor Davis Hanson
Posted on 08/19/2007 8:05:59 PM PDT by ventanax5
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To: tailgunner
And what will we do about all these op;inions based on ignorance. George Bush majored in history, reads it all the time, and was last reading the Algerian war. What he needs is citizens who reqad more and opine less.
21
posted on
08/19/2007 10:35:59 PM PDT
by
ClaireSolt
(Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
To: Eternal_Bear
How is it that they passed you over for that job?
I'll just add that studying history gives people better perspective. It enables one to imagine the range of possibiities from a course of action so that little things are not blown out of proportion. That is sorely lacking in all coverage of the Iraq war.
22
posted on
08/19/2007 10:39:25 PM PDT
by
ClaireSolt
(Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
To: SteveMcKing
" Be happy that 15% of everyone knows what the hell is going on, and that one-third of them are conservative."
That sounds about right.
To: Brad from Tennessee
a man who murdered his brother with 762-millimeter rifleThat would do it.
24
posted on
08/19/2007 11:04:50 PM PDT
by
Jeff Chandler
("A person's a person no matter how small." -Dr. Seuss)
To: Sola Veritas
Indeed, Sherman understood what total war was about...as did Thomas J. Jackson on the Confederate side. Sadly, these men would be considered war criminals today. I have no doubt that, given opportunity for reflection, you will withdraw your observation as it applies to Stonewall Jackson.
I see nothing in Jackson's campaigns which violate the laws of 19th-century warfare or even of modern warfare.
Incidentally, I experienced the identical academic reaction, described by Dr. Hanson, to military studies a decade earlier in the 1960s before the Vietnam War had become a factor.
25
posted on
08/20/2007 12:57:19 AM PDT
by
nathanbedford
("I like to legislate. I feel I've done a lot of good." Sen. Robert Byrd)
To: Brad from Tennessee
A big part of the problem is the post-modern irrationalism that is taught nowadays. Mere facts do not matter, so a news reporter may not be bothered at all if he discovers that he mis-reported something. Facts are taken to be merely meaningless social constructs that get in the way of the real truth — the real truth being your feelings.
26
posted on
08/20/2007 2:43:33 AM PDT
by
Wilhelm Tell
(True or False? This is not a tag line.)
To: ventanax5
It isn’t just military history. If you gave my three liberal sisters a test on American history, I sincerely doubt that any of them could pass the test. You’d get blank stares on virtually every question. Ditto for geography.
To: driftless2
Fax. We don’t need no stink’en fax. It’s what they want, how they feel, don’t confuse them with the facts.
28
posted on
08/20/2007 5:25:33 AM PDT
by
USS Alaska
(Nuke the terrorist savages - In Honor of Standing Wolf)
To: Brad from Tennessee
The reporter, who is an acquaintance of mine, just kind of shrugged when I explained the error. Since the U.S. has been in Afghanistan and Iraq I see this kind of ignorance almost daily in the media. Don't forget, these are the same people who question whether or not the troops should have a certain kind of body armour, or whether Aegis is a viable defense system, or whether a "surge" in Iraq makes sense.
29
posted on
08/20/2007 6:29:08 AM PDT
by
Lou L
To: Wilhelm Tell; Lou L
Since Watergate journalism schools and the news media began to attract political activists who realized a U.S. president could be brought down with a typewriter. In time these people took over the news side of the print and broadcast industry and have become a closed shop cult. They exist under the protection of Western democracy which is the institution they seem bent on destroying. Under totalitarianism they would be the first ones judged “unreliable” and shipped off to a labor camp.
30
posted on
08/20/2007 11:48:04 AM PDT
by
Brad from Tennessee
("A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.")
To: ClaireSolt
How is it that they passed you over for that job? pwned!
To: ventanax5
military historyunderstood broadly as the investigation of why one side wins and another loses a war, and encompassing reflections on magisterial or foolish generalship, technological stagnation or breakthrough, and the roles of discipline, bravery, national will, and culture in determining a conflicts outcome and its consequenceshad already become unfashionable on campus. One small objection - that description matches the curriculum of military science of which military history is only one part. At least that was the case when I sat through some of the most interesting classes on campus on the topic. These weren't populated just by enlisted students and ROTC types, either - it was a serious curriculum of which the history portion came under the rubric of the history department. That was, admittedly, in the 1970's.
What has changed isn't simply a rejection of militaria in general although that is certainly contributory. It is a change in the history and historiography canons themselves to include the "new" history which includes race, "gender" and sexuality filters, and such hideous amalgamations of ideology and sheer BS as "Peace Studies." The very methodologies of this "new" history make the classic study of military history impossible.
Victor Davis Hanson has propounded at length on the topic and probably need not be recommended yet again. I would point the curious reader to Gertrude Himmelfarb's The New History And The Old for an appraisal of how this all came about and where it's likely to go. Highly recommended.
To: Brad from Tennessee
Under totalitarianism they would be the first ones judged unreliable and shipped off to a labor camp. You summed it up well. Still, I think these journalists would be seen as "useful idiots" in a totalitarian regime, particularly when it came to towing a Marxist line. I mean think about it, when it comes to totalitarianism, what are these journalists going to do? Become suddenly law-abiding, pro-democracy, pro-freedom loving, pro-Constitutionists?
33
posted on
08/20/2007 12:09:15 PM PDT
by
Lou L
To: Lou L
Journalists are accustomed to having the power to criticize anyone and print anything no matter how outrageous. They fancy themselves as anti-establishment. Many of them wouldn’t mesh well with a totalitarian regime.
When the North Vietnamese took over South Vietnam they judged many of the Viet Cong—their allies in the fight against the U.S. and RVN—as “politically unreliable” and imprisoned them. Though the National Liberation Front (VC) was Marxist in ideology, many of its members were not Stalinist as the North Vietnamese had become under Ho Chi Minh.
34
posted on
08/20/2007 12:30:16 PM PDT
by
Brad from Tennessee
("A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.")
To: ventanax5
35
posted on
08/20/2007 1:45:41 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(Call talk radio. We need a Constitutional Amendment for Congressional term limits. Let's Roll!)
To: Luke Skyfreeper
The average American sincerely thinks that "The Tet Offensive" was Janet Jackson's so-called wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl. LOL! Perhaps that's the direct French translation...but I think that it would be rendered "The Offensive Tet" in English.
36
posted on
08/20/2007 2:13:46 PM PDT
by
Gondring
(I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
To: ventanax5; Tolik
editorial sidebar bump & a ping
37
posted on
08/20/2007 2:35:14 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(Call talk radio. We need a Constitutional Amendment for Congressional term limits. Let's Roll!)
To: nathanbedford
I believe it was the esteemed Col. Jeff Cooper who said:
"If you don't understand weapons, you don't understand fighting. If you don't understand fighting, you don't understand war. If you don't understand war, you don't understand history. And if you don't understand history you might as well live with your head in a sack."
The good Colonel knew how to turn a phrase.
L
38
posted on
08/20/2007 2:51:07 PM PDT
by
Lurker
(Comparing moderate islam to extremist islam is like comparing small pox to ebola.)
To: SteveMcKing
It used to bother me too, but I've come to believe it has always been this way, and will always be (and of course not just for Americans). Hasn't always been this way... :-(
39
posted on
08/20/2007 5:25:48 PM PDT
by
Gondring
(I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
To: jude24
"while generals are bereft of the cultural context that academics can provide." Ummmm how do you figure that?
40
posted on
08/20/2007 5:29:07 PM PDT
by
bluetone006
(Peace - or I guess war if given no other option)
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