SWJ: praise given and reviews (merged)

[Umar Al-Mokhtār]

from an older thread on think tanks: "There are far more informed opinions, thoughts, and better analysis on here [SWJ] than the paid guns at Brookings, AEI, the Heritage Foundation, or the Council on Foreign Relations--most of whom have never engaged in actual foreign relations other than as a pundit, academic, or a student." While the quote was aimed at a different group of "thinkers" I think it also pertains to academia in general per this thread.

Marct responded to Tom with: "people here have much less "awe" of academic credentials and are more than happy to tell us ivory tower types that we are nuts ; people here tend to prefer experiential knowledge to academic knowledge - the pragmatic over the theoretical - so any theoretical plan or position gets vetted by pragmatists, not the other way around."

Which is also spot on. We blogospherites have not been properly "vetted" by the lofty academians and I feel we are thus held in very low esteem by those with larger brains and more parchment on their walls.

[William F. Owen]

We blogospherites have not been properly "vetted" by the lofty academians and I feel we are thus held in very low esteem by those with larger brains and more parchment on their walls.

I think some blogospherites should hold themselves in low esteem. The vast majority of what is written about military affairs on the internet is utter garbage. SWC is an exception because it holds people to rigour.

RIGOUR is what is mostly lacking. Lack of rigour gave us EBO, MW 4GW and a whole raft of other shaky strategic and military thought.

Having said that, there are very few academics in this area, I pay any attention to either. If you read some the PhDs that get handed out, or the work/papers that get cited as "insightful" the future is not bright.

It amazes me when folks, at conferences, come up to me and ask "where were you," as if having an MsC or PhD has anything to do with the credibility of my work.

[John T. Fishel]

with Academia, but neither are the practitioners innocents. After all, it was Colonel T. X, Hammes who popularized 4GW!!!! (Obviously, I agree with Wilf that that is not the best of terms...)

But, having said that, Academia is a market and, like all markets, is self-correcting over time. I find that my current academic affiliation, the U of OK, is a place of really insightful collegues who seem to appreciate the experience of practitioners as much as the theories of academicians. Of course, there are some old (and not so old) foolish Marxists who have never realized that the communists lost the Cold War and others caught up in gender studies nonsense. But overall, the trend is toward looking at the real world as it is - at least in the School of International and Area Studies. Similarly, I just saw a new program at my alma mater, Dartmouth College (home of our current and future - if taxes don't get him -Sec Treas), that is aimed at bringing classical education and rigor back in.

The point of this semi-rant is that there are good thinkers in both academia and in the real world. And, while PhDs in PC BS do still abound there are many PhDs in highly relevant subjects and granted to people with practitioner experience - not that that is any guarantee of real smarts

Cheers

JohnT

[Rex Brynen]

...others caught up in gender studies nonsense.

Having taught gender and development myself, I would warn about using too large a brush here. My students have gone on to work (in the field, either as practitioners, or researchers, or both) on rape in refugee camps, child soldiers, the disarmament/demobilization of female ex-combatants, and sex-selective killing in genocides—among other things.

It doesn't get much more important or real-world than that.

(And yes John, I realize it was only meant as a casual aside. However, I'm damn proud of what some of them have gone on to do!)

Now back to your regularly-scheduled thread

[Steve Blair]

The point of this semi-rant is that there are good thinkers in both academia and in the real world. And, while PhDs in PC BS do still abound there are many PhDs in highly relevant subjects and granted to people with practitioner experience - not that that is any guarantee of real smarts

Cheers

JohnT

Spot on, John. While not every academic knows what he or she is talking about, I've met my share of practitioners who would be best served by keeping their mouths shut. At the end of the day it all comes down to the individual. A credential or service is no guarantee (or even indicator, IMO) of actual intelligence or capability to innovate. (and thus ends my own rant....)

[John T. Fishel]

I have no quarrel with the issue of differential impact of war, custom, and law on the two sexes. That is very, often very unfortunately, real. But I do object to the notion that there ought to be a separate field called "gender" studies. From where I sit, "gender" refers to the nature of words and endings in language - men and women are not different genders, they are different sexes.

Are men and women treated differently by different cultures and by the products of those cultures - war, development, etc? Of course! I recall doing my doctoral research in a Peruvian mountain village where the males had acculturated to the national Peruvian standard at a much faster rate than the females. All the men of the village had adopted either Western dress partially or entirely and all spoke decent Spanish. Hardly and of the women dressed in Western styles even partially. Moreover, very few of the women spoke any Spanish at all. Women were clearly subordinate in that subculture but it was clearly something that was in the process of changing. The development activities of the government, aided by female US Peace Corps volunteers, was deliberately accelerating the changes in ways that would promote significantly greater equality between the sexes. Is this "gender studies"? I don't think so. It is the study of development through a process that involved culture change. I was and remain proud of the PCVs and the local women who took leadership roles in making this happen. And, you have every right to feel pride in your students, as we all should. But let's not muddy the real issues by some (of what I would consider) phony pseudo academic discipline.

Cheers

JohnT

[Rex Brynen]

I have no quarrel with the issue of differential impact of war, custom, and law on the two sexes. That is very, often very unfortunately, real. But I do object to the notion that there ought to be a separate field called "gender" studies. From where I sit, "gender" refers to the nature of words and endings in language - men and women are not different genders, they are different sexes.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this. I think there is value in the interdisciplinary field when it is done well (which, as with all trendy academic topics, it often isn't). I also think the concept of gender (rather than biological) has considerable value in signaling the extent gender roles are cultural constructs and not some immutable function of biology.

[John T. Fishel]

mankind invented culture; mankind can change it

We clearly disagree on the less important things and agree on the ones I think are more important.

Cheers

JohnT

BTW that is the only thing he said in the course that I remember...