warfare and devotion to the sacred ideal

[marct]

Hi JW,

I love it when poor thinking leads to good. I agree about the decoupling of rights and responsibilities. (As an aside, the theme of Heinlein's Starship Troopers was the obligation of the individual to society, and, coincidentally, the nobility of choosing to be one of its defenders. Pity it was turned into such a terrible, obnoxious movie.)

Why am I not surprised to find so any Heinlein fans here . Yes, the movie was an obnoxious piece of trash that totally betrayed the book.

I remember one evening at a conference where I was talking with Jerome Barkow about using biological imperatives as the basis for an actual science of morals. Jerry, who is one of the brightest people I know, started joking about creating a Church of Fundamentalist Sociobiology and, a couple of years later, put together a schtic talk on it that was really good (I don't think he ever published it). The intriguing thing about it was that Jerry came to it from sociobiology and evolutionary psychology and I came to it from a study of religion and mysticism (and Heinlein ).

The best example of the problem I can think of is Kerry's insinuation that losers wind up in the military. Cultures that see no value in defending themselves are at a severe disadvantage to those with different views. I have a copy of a Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940 by Marc Bloch, medieval historian and French officer. The most striking thing about it was the description of fellow officers who seemed (to me) to think France wasn't worth defending. It helps explain why France, with greater manpower and better equipment, collapsed so completely and quickly.

I've read several of Bloch's books, but not that one - l'll have to dig it up. I think a more up to date version of the same meme, albeit slightly less overtly poisonous, is the "support the troops but not the mission" meme that the Democrats are using right now. While we could probably write reams about why this is happening, I would suggest that that the core of it is a loss of a cultural goal or "vision" that inspires people and imbues them with the idea that what they are doing is worthwhile both individually and as a culture / society.

I think for North America (i.e. Canada and the US), his has come about partly as a loss of the frontier (yeah, the old Turner hypothesis), although we (Canada) still have one (although it's way to cold for me ). Personally, I would like to see much more emphasis put on space exploration / development leading towards colonization. I think this would give both our societies a stronger "vision", more "hope" in general terms, and cause a radical shift in youth perceptions away from post-Industrial nihilism.

Marc