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?