Why do liberal professors hate the military?

[yamiyugikun]

Hi everyone

Thank you for replying to my post before on "appreciation for the military from civilians." I learned that you folks in uniform work in beauracries like those of us in academia, and also have to earn a living to buy bread and eat

I just started reading Gen. Petraeus's dissertation on "The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A study of Military Influence and the Use of Force in the Post-Vietnam Era." Gen. Petraeus's is amazing in his scholarship and depth of knowledge, but what surprises me more is the sense of realism in his work. I noticed that people in the armed forces, at least from what I understand on this forum, are a lot of realistic, seeing reality for what it is, instead of seeming to live in their heads like those of us in academia.

I like what Petraeus said about "perceptions" people have of reality, instead of what reality really is or "objective reality." Why can't those of us in academia have a healthy dose of reality? I will be honest: if I speak out against the liberalism so prevalent in academia I would probably be shunned by my peers. I feel I can be far more honest with you folks on small wars journal, then my fellow academics.

I don't like living in my head. I want to see the world for what it is. Maybe that makes me strange compared to other academics Here is my question for you folks in uniform: the situations of Iraq and Afghanistan are clearly different than Vietnam. You guys in Afghanistan are trying to help the Afghan people rebuild their lives, so that the conditions that give rise to war are stopped. That is real social justice and caring. I read in Time magazine last week that Admiral Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff was trying to help the Afghan people establish farming.

Could you imagine my reaction!? An admiral of all people, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this nation's highest ranked military officer works with the Afghan people himself and cares about them! Why don't we academics or civilians hear about this kind of thing? Why do liberal professors continue to cling to outdated ideas of the military from Vietnam, instead of understanding that the military wants to help people rebuild their lives? The example of Admiral Mike Mullen proves what real social justice is. Thoughts? Comments? Opinions?

Naomi

[William F. Owen]

Naomi, hi.

While I also dislike the liberal tendency within academia, I am equally dismissive of it in the military, or any other field. A lot of Afghans have no problem farming. They grow lots of Heroine poppies.

The US military should not be engaged in social work. It's job in A'Stan is to secure the population - a concept the US re-realised in Vietnam - to enable political and social solutions to work. This is not new.

The problem with liberal academics are same of those of conservative academics, in that they are generally very ignorant of both the history and realities of the use of lethal force for political gain, and have a problem understanding that killing and the breaking of will is a necessary part of ensuring human security and social order.

[AmericanPride]

I'd be careful with words like "hate", "social justice", and some of your assessments. Yes - the US military is helping the development of the Afghan people, but is it because policymakers "care" about Afghans? Remember -- the military, when ordered, also burned Vietnamese villages, firebombed Japanese cities, and took part in indian population transfers. Note Wilf's key terms: "political gain", "killing", and "breaking of will". That comes first -- the justifications come afterwards. It is what it is.

[goesh]

Theory and application - we all have notions of how others should live their lives. What distinguishes the military professional from the Liberal professor is the degree to which the former is willing to go to see theory enacted. The military man gets to live in both worlds, Liberals for the most part don't. Enlist in the Marines or any other branch and validate for yourself what I am saying. I don't know your life's circumstance and they are none of my business but if you are young, there is a darn good educational allotment in place. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it is going to be bumped up to a 90K package - you'll even get to eat wonderful mess hall chow.

[John T. Fishel]

As an academic for the past 38 years and as a retired officer with 28 years of commissioned service, I have a foot in each camp. The first thing I'd say to you is a quote of one of my favortie lines, "Always bet on stupidity." - whether it is found in academia or the military. I really have heard some remarkably stupid things said by liberals and conservatives, civilians and military alike. Occasionally, I hear smart things said by folks in all of these camps.

The second point I'd make is one that you have already discovered. This site is much more civil about disagreement and debate than most. Bill and Dave and the moderators simply won't accept incivility and we all try to keep our discussion on a professional level.

Third, we have a pretty wide range of opinion and experience here. We have old guys like Ken and me, and many young folk and a whole bunch in between. We have academics, cops, soldiers, marines, and even a lawyer or two (like JMM). So, this is a place to hold real intellectual discussions, grounded in "boots on the ground" reality.

One suggestion: Perhaps, you could introduce some of your academic colleagues to the SWJ - a few might actually choose to contribute.

Cheers

JohnT

[BayonetBrant]

Well... after 8 years (and counting) back in grad school - and most of it while also serving in the National Guard - I have a small and untested theory, but one I seem to find more credence to every day.

Many academics fail to address 'reality' because it has very little impact on their lives. Campus is a great bubble to live in. It's a steady stream of 'customers' the academic freedom to pursue whatever personal science project you're after, and remarkably few consequences for being wrong. I spent one quarter suffering through a class with a professor who was still convinced that Marx was right, despite all the historical evidence to the contrary. In the political field, espousing Marxism gets you laughed at, for good reason. In the academic world, if you laugh at her for it, you're somehow failing to show proper 'tolerance.'

I had a professor openly brag to me that he went from kindergarten to PhD without a break. He had the odd bartender gig here and there to score pocket money and phone numbers. But he'd never had a 'real' job, never mind one with real consequences. When he was 22, he was pouring drinks between research papers. When I was 22, I was signed for $11 million of Uncle Sam's equipment, responsible for 18 soldiers, and chasing helicopters around the central California mountains at 2am. Our perspectives of 'real' were very, very different.

Liberal professors hate the military because they can. They've lived in their bubbles for so long that they lack an appreciation of people whose lives actually have some real meaning. They lack a perspective because the skewed ones they have don't include any consequences for being wrong. They lack an appreciation of history - especially recent history - because there's no negative penalty for it.

This harsh sentiment might come as a surprise to those of you who have seen me rather vociferously defend journalists before, but I see liberal academia as far, far worse in it's overt bias and lack of consequences than any journalist you can point to.

[MikeF]

Hi everyone

Thank you for replying to my post before on "appreciation for the military from civilians." I learned that you folks in uniform work in beauracries like those of us in academia, and also have to earn a living to buy bread and eat


I don't like living in my head. I want to see the world for what it is.

Hi Naomi,

Liberal professors should love us. We define the perfection of communism- our food, housing, and health care are free. All we have to do is implement policy.

If you want to see the world, start at the village level. Go outside and talk to the homeless guy on the street. You might find that he doesn't have a homeless problem- he may simply like being free. Go volunteer to help some teenagers in a halfway house- give them a little faith, hope, and love so they avoid the gangs. Invite a young marine/army veteran over to your house for dinner to say thank you. If you do those three things, then you'll gain more wisdom than you could ever imagine.

In other words, give up control to regain control.

You don't have to enlist to blow stuff up to see the world.

v/r

Mike

[Bob's World]

Just applying my commonsense psychology:

People tend to hate what they fear.
People tend to fear (or at a minimum disrespect) what they don't understand.

Many liberals cannot understand the sense of duty that would cause a person to risk ultimate self-sacrafice for the sake of the whole. They know they are very smart and that tbey would never do anything so foolish, so therefore those who do such things must not be as smart as them (but with that nagging irritating bit of self-doubt in the rational part of their mind that questions what if those who are willing to do so ARE as smart as them and also have a SUPERIOR value system?) This really drives them crazy.

Thus the expressed disdain. Its a rationalization process that helps them feel good about themselves.

[selil]

I’m a professor. I am a tenured associate professor with all the privileges that entails. Next year I will be the chair of our faculty senate. I am more liberal than some, more conservative than many, and hopelessly academic. I have been a member of the Army National Guard then transferred to the United States Marine Corps, and I served in two different sheriffs offices as a deputized officer. Given the opportunity I would sign up and serve in the military again without thought. At age 42 I doubt they would take me. I’d make an ugly fat lieutenant.

I am not an expert at counter insurgency. I am a parasite sucking the ideas of counter insurgency out of the community and reusing it to explain the transnational nature of cyber crime and cyber warfare. As an academic I look for information and data that allows me to test my theories in the real world. I would rather learn from the mistakes of others than endure the same pain for no gain. I am slightly different because my discipline is technology. I am inherently an applied academician. My fellow faculty in the liberal arts say when being nice that I am “a bit rough around the edges.”

Not all the faculty agree even among themselves.

A few weeks ago a hopeless Marxist sociologist was incensed that the United States Marine Corps sponsored an event on campus about leadership. Simply put he was angered that they may have been involved in recruiting even though he didn’t see any. He was also very angry that they were in full uniform. He would argue to have the military banned from campus though patently illegal.

Across the nation violence on campus has gone up as the economy has gone down. A few weeks ago a student was car jacked at gunpoint, and recently two students were “hand assaulted” by eight ski mask wearing individuals inside one of the laboratories. There was an awful hue and cry about something should be done. Even though our campus is in Hammond, IN next to Gary, IN a top pick for murder capital of the United States and all we’ve had were two smallish assaults. Perspective is not one of our strong suits in academia. I put together a quick study on policing standards and what the per capita officer ratio was for other campuses. Showing we had an officer shortage though not drastic.

Students though were incensed about one thing. They are not allowed to carry weapons on campus. Though Indiana has a specific provision about cities and counties making laws regarding weapons campuses can make rules and enforce them as law respecting weapons. No weapons allowed on campus. Students have been asking that the law be changed by the state. This last week there has been a cry of alarm by the faculty that students might be armed. Since I teach forensics and security topics several of my students are officers or deputies. They all carry concealed weapons all the time much like I did. Some faculty want to take the weapons away from our state certified fully commissioned campus police officers on campus.

On the one hand there are demands that something be done, and on the other hand they would remove the rights of people to protect themselves and the tools from those they have charged with that protection.

I think the fact is that you find divergent opinions among the faculty, students, and community. The entire faculty does not unanimously agree on any single point anymore than any community agrees on a single point. It is easy to pick single loud opinions out of the mix and paint a broad brush across the community. As an example a pundit here on Small Wars Council often paints a broad brush of slacker, drunk, lazy, idiocy across the entire college student community. Yet my students are smart, brave, often veterans, work 40 hours a week, take 48 hours a week of course work, do 30 to 40 hours of homework a week and rarely sleep. Many are first generation. Most are on the “pay as you go” plan since they can do the math on student loans.

Think of it this way. When you paint with broad words like liberal and conservative the chance is you are just going to make a mess. Sure you may paint the wall quickly but you cover up the windows to deeper meaning and discussion too.

[Hacksaw]

why did you have to throw in that last line and make us think...

"Think of it this way. When you paint with broad words like liberal and conservative the chance is you are just going to make a mess. Sure you may paint the wall quickly but you cover up the windows to deeper meaning and discussion too."

just like a conflicted academian...

[Ken White]

...the situations of Iraq and Afghanistan are clearly different than Vietnam. You guys in Afghanistan are trying to help the Afghan people rebuild their lives, so that the conditions that give rise to war are stopped. That is real social justice and caring. I read in Time magazine last week that Admiral Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff was trying to help the Afghan people establish farming.

Contrary to many myths, there was a great amount of "real social justice and caring" in Viet Nam and we started that way, then digressed badly and later eventually go that part again raised to the fore.

Unfortunately, by the time that succeeded, it was too late due to earlier major mismanagement of the problem by the Army having done a tremendous amount of unnecessary damage. We just got a lot smarter a lot faster this time around -- partly as a result of recalling the errors we made in Viet Nam and refusing to replicate them.

On your broader question, Others above have answered better than I could but I will paraphrase Bob's World: People tend to disparage what they do not understand -- even when the perception is flawed.

[bourbon]

Something I often think about is how some people desperately need to have enemies. How their hyper sense of self righteousness requires an enemy. From this frame you can see how ‘enlightened’ members of academia from a progressive-activist bent will demonize the military to secure their identity.

“I’m a good person, seeking to advance humanity” they think, therefore there must be forces that are bad and regressive. The military will then personify these bad and regressive forces, it must, because it is the closest thing available. The military deals in death and destruction; like most people (even military people) they see death and destruction with disgust, but they turn their disgust of these acts into moral disgust.

I like giving the argument to such people that a military base operates similar to ideal socialism; and how surprised I am that a socially conscious person such as themselves is not indeed celebrating this. Sometimes I will get a smile and can see their mind opening. Often this comment is a surgical strike on their worldview, and is met with anger, hostility, and a belligerent response.

Hah, that’s irony; this post delves more into the theoretical then realistic.

[Van]

The academic eggheads vs. the military knuckledraggers stems from a much older issue than contemporary academic life and differing political philosophies. It is a contemporary manifestation of the classic "active live" vs "contemplative life". This is something the Greek philosophers wrote about, and, ironically, they understood better than most contemporary philosophers. The Greeks were combat veterans from an era when combat was at a range to smell your opponent's breath. In the Renaissance, there was a degree of integrity, where active and contemplative were viewed as essential parts of a whole. Sadly, these values are gone from academia, even though Generals Petreaus and Caldwell are doing exemplary work to bring them back to the military.

[rant] Today, I would argue that we are in the most openly hostile point in this conflict since the Renaissance, and part of the issue is that all commissioned military leaders have attended college and if it was a civilian institution (and most were) were subjected to open and institutionally accepted harassment and denigration from people who hypocritically claimed to embrace diversity and acceptance of all people. Four years of verbal abuse and corrupt academics grading on political agenda rather than substance and structure leave an indelible mark.

Now these coddled academics attack any act by the military or anyone affiliated with the military but won't come up with viable alternatives or go into harms' way to try to help (unless they're being paid five times what the officer next to them is getting).

Let academics stay in their cloisters pursuing their contemplations. They clearly view themselves as 'too good' to do manual labor in combat zones to make a real difference in the problems they blather on about. [/rant]

So Naomi, how do we convince academia that they need to strike a better balance between the contemplative life and the active life?

[AmericanPride]

part of the issue is that all commissioned military leaders have attended college and if it was a civilian institution (and most were) were subjected to open and institutionally accepted harassment and denigration from people who hypocritically claimed to embrace diversity and acceptance of all people.

I never experienced this during my four years of college. 'Criticisms' came from fellow students who met most of the conditions you describe.

[William F. Owen]

IAs an example a pundit here on Small Wars Council often paints a broad brush of slacker, drunk, lazy, idiocy across the entire college student community.

...well that pretty much describes me as an 18 year-old Rifleman! Throw in the complete lack of qualifications and the then reading age of an 8 year old and you've got me exactly!

[Hacksaw]

I've been contemplating whether to post, but since its a decent story I'll go ahead whether it moves the thread forward or not...

I attended what is routinely regarded the most liberal of Illinois public universities (NIU)... whose liberal traditions date back to well before the campus radicals raided and burnt down the ROTC offices back in the Vietnam era...

Northern Illinois Peace Activist Committee, John Lennon Society and the Gay-Lesbian Union routinely "picketed/protested" our weekly labs in which we mostly marched around in circles... rather humorous to be honest since I'm convinced none of the participants really had a solid idea why they were marching in protest (except maybe the Gay-Lesbian consituents)...

In my senior year, I was a social science course short and had no choice (based on scheduling constraints) but to take a course with the Campus' most notorious card carrying communist... he literally took great pride in displaying his communist party membership card, and of course my lab immediately followed the class period so I was always front and center in my uniform...

I was convinced that he intentionally spouted the most ridiculous BS just to piss me off, I literally took exception with nearly every discussion item he presented to the class... my graded course work after the final exam = D...

I simply refused to give him the answers he wanted... so needing at least a B to finish with a 3.0 GPA, I went in to see Dr K....

He greeted me very cordially and was surprised that I wanted to come in and discuss my grade since it never seemed to concern me in the past... then he let me know that he had already intended to give me an A for vigor in which I engaged him during class....

Go figure...

Have fun storming the castle err.. admissions office...

[Ken White]

...'Criticisms' came from fellow students who met most of the conditions you describe.

is this:

""civilian institution ... subjected to open and institutionally accepted harassment and denigration from people who hypocritically claimed to embrace diversity and acceptance of all people.""(emphasis added /kw

Acknowledging that the other factor "...and corrupt academics grading on political agenda rather than substance and structure leave an indelible mark." is probably the exception rather than the rule, still when it occurs is more discomfiting than is the institutional toleration if not encouragement of student expressed disapproval...

I am specifically recalling a Son converting an 'A' in 'US history After 1865' to a final 'D' because he accurately stated that Kennedy started the Viet Nam war partly to boost the US economy arousing great ire and a lengthy lecture from the instructor.

[selil]

This is a plaque on the Purdue campus. The word academy has it's roots fully entrenched in the realm of veterans.

[AmericanPride]

Ken,

I would agree with your assessment that it was "institutionally accepted harassment" if I was not permitted to voice my thoughts in response.

[J Wolfsberger]

I took several courses in Pol. Sci. from a very liberal professor in the early 70s. Our classroom "discussions" became famous within the department. But he graded me on mastery of facts and reasoning, and I got Bs in his courses.

On the other hand, I also had several professors (even back then) who graded on ... if not "ideological purity," then on whether my work demonstrated an ability to regurgitate what they said. Hard to tell the difference - especially when you get hammered for predicting the USSR won't last out the century.

As to the OP, along the lines of Bob's post, I've noticed in conversation with friends (yes, really) who are liberal/left academics, that they don't understand or relate to conservative values, and the military is nothing if not the embodiment of conservative values.