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I like reading W. Patrick Lang's blog sometimes. Lang is a military man who retired as a colonel and now writes novels. He made an interesting comment about how
by gruseom 14y ago
I like reading W. Patrick Lang's blog sometimes. Lang is a military man who retired as a colonel and now writes novels. He made an interesting comment about how, traditionally, it was through the arts and letters that soldiers got to know what their values were - values such as honor. In his view, with the decline of humanities education, the military has become increasingly purely technocratic and these values are being lost, with considerable implications for society as a whole. This is a defense of the humanities I had never heard before, and it really stuck with me. I think there is something profound to it.
- mc32 14y agoThe article stated that in some academies, at least, they were surpassing the 20% civilian faculty goal, so it seems that they are trying to make it less 'technocratic'.
- gruseom 14y agoTechnocratic vs. humanities is orthogonal to military vs. civilian, so it depends entirely on what they're teaching. In any case, these changes in military education are simply mirroring society as a whole, as peter_l_downs pointed out. Lang observed that it has consequences for the military, and for the relationship of the military to society, that are not obvious at first.