…or would the Ivy League poison the military? Colman McCarthy, a professor of absurd “peace studies” (there’s a course requiring intellectual rigor, I’ll bet…) has written an article claiming that having ROTC on campus would wreck “the intellectual purity of a school”. Victor Davis Hanson notes:
…What does “the intellectual purity of a school” mean in 2010? That was tragically lost a long time ago in the 1960s when “relevant” courses (particularly -studies courses) became deductive, with preconceived ends that justified biased means of teaching. Examine questions of free speech, intellectual diversity, and tolerance for minority opinion on an average campus, and the notion of “intellectual purity” is rendered Orwellian.
A reader over at Instapundit noted yesterday that our military force has been led magnificently by officers who come out of State colleges. Why risk leavening this with the sort of people who would even want to go to the Ivy League? And, think about it: if the kids of the Ivy League go in to the military, we’ll have junior officers just like President Obama (Columbia, ’83). Thanks, but if I’m to go to war, I’d like Lt. Col. Allen West (Univ. of Tennessee, ’83).
The sad fact of life is that our prestige universities – outside of some of the hard science disciplines – are just breeding grounds for the Ruling Class. People aren’t taught to think at places like Harvard and Yale; they are indoctrinated to believe in a certain way, and believe themselves to be an intellectual and moral elite. One wonders if any random Ivy League graduate of the past 20 years could give a quick sketch of the Battle of Lepanto and its effects; or if such a person would have any notion of who Cavour was, or what Polk did.
McCarthy is worried about the intellectual purity of the schools – and he’s probably right do to so, but for the wrong reason. The purity of Ivy League intellect is that it is completely wiped clean of anything smacking of thought or independence. Putting someone in there who is of the caliber of an army officer would disturb the sublime void which is elite education – and we can’t have any of that. Someone at Harvard starts thinking and the first thing you know, people might start questioning the liberal world view. Worse than that, however, having a crop of officers of Yale quality would mean a military lead by people who think they are inherently superior to the middle and lower class soldiers they command…”fragging” might become a reality in such a situation.
So, maybe we should just leave the elite schools alone – and let them eventually wither on the vine. Could be the best of both worlds here.
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