I tried the link and got: "This site is experiencing high traffic. Please try back later today."
I wanted to clarify if "our invasion" referred to Afghanistan or Iraq, just out of trivial perverse curiosity.
But I just wanted to highlight one sentence--one word, in fact; one "probably"--and let it stand for the rot of moral reasoning in the academy.
Well, I can see you're not one for making gross generalizations.
Here I go again, manifesting moral rot. I haven't read the column in question, but that's not really the point-- I want to try out a line of reasoning re Tillman on you. Self-sacrifice in the service of an ideal? Hurray for that. Joining the military after 9-11? Mixed feelings, given the known probability that the current Administration would use its tools in questionable (and, clearly at least in the Iraq case, counterproductive) ways.
Honestly, I'm not sure how to feel about this. The strong line I'm not willing to defend is that this a sort of counterexample to the unity of virtues, that is, a clear case of courage in the service of some morally flawed ideal. But, thinking that military service sometimes is the right ideal, I can't go in for this. The Aministration is botching Afghanistan, but things could have been done right.
The awfulness of this story, for me, is partly the contrast between the people who live through the war and the people who wait it out-- or those who pull strings to shirk their share of the load.
Sorry. Those who don't live through the war, obviously.
You're right: "probably" is a gem.
I do think the fact that he was in Afghanistan makes it easier to defend him.
I was hoping that the column would make an intelligent case that, while one can show courage and commitment in any situation, the ends matter, and we should take that into account when anointing our heros.
Now, in the present case, especially if we leave Iraq aside, it doesn't seem like we're even close enough to having a clear idea about the wrongness of invading Afghanistan to pass judgment on the soldiers who are there. I'd say we should only discount bravery and loyalty and the martial virtues when any reasonable soldier ought to know that the ends of his army are malign. Otherwise, they're all praiseworthy insofar as they're soldiers in battle, and the ones, like Tillman, who are there when they have other attractive possibilities in life, are more praiseworthy still.
And mondo, it's a generalization, but, well, that was made pretty explicit, and, in any case, I don't think it's gross. I spent enough time in grad school (partly studying ethics, as it happens) to know that 1) the writer is not atypical and 2) he didn't just happen to miss all the great work being done in ethics.
I agree that Afghanistan makes a difference, though of course it wasn't his choice (that's what makes the cases tricky-- what's chosen is a commitment that might or might not involve a person in awful behavior, though the fine-grained choices are taken off the table, more or less).
If we were in the mood, we could harp on "more legitimate" as well as "probably." What department is this person in?
Google cache. The author is named Rene Gonzalez and is apparently a grad student at UMass, but a search at umass.edu for his only reveals that his undergrad degree (also at UMass, class of '01) was in African-American Music and Jazz Studies. Can't find out what he studies now.
The paper's responded to the furor about his column here (google cache link):
Rene Gonzalez is a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts who occasionally submits columns to The Collegian. While his views in no way reflect the opinion of our editorial board or staff, we base our decisions not on whether we agree with the opinion of students submitting opinion pieces, but on the backbone of journalism: The First Amendment.
This reminds me of George Carlin on Dennis Miller's old show. Re the vietnam war, I believe, Carlin proclaimed, "I blame the troops...there couldn't be war if no one showed up...I know it's not practical, but I'm a macro thinker..."
Anyway, enough with distasteful pop-ethics. I know next to zilch about this whole Pat Tillman thing except the basic facts. But from what I've heard, there's a big hooplah been made over his death, and he has been promoted to hero status. The reason given seems to be that he turned down a lot of money to serve his country. I like this. It's terrific confirmation on a mass scale of what we've all known anyway; the lives of the rich ARE worth more! If a poor American dies in Afghanistan, he's a number, and, if you scour the internet, a name, rank, and hometown. But if you're rich and you die, we'll, you're a hero and briefly more famous than ben affleck.
One might object to my sarcasm by pointing out that Mr. Tillman gave up more than the average man to voluntarily serve his country. In fact, that idea crossed my mind as I was writing. But that really goes to show how ingrained class warfare is, doesn't it? The fact that we are extrodinarily surprised to find the rich to be fighting alongside the 'average american'. But that is a consequence of a volunteer military. Maybe this kind of sensationalism is necessary enticement to keep even the marginal numbers of rich americans in the military. Perhaps they'll be more apt to join knowing that if they do they will instantly become SuperPatriots for stooping down to the level of the ordinary soldier in the service of their country. Is this not what is happening?
Just in case, I thought I'd add a quick disclaimer to the above post: I don't mean to devalue Tillman's sacrifice or even, necessarily, to snub rich people. I am, however, upset over the reaction that Tillman's death received in comparison to the 'regular' soldiers. It's that reaction which I'm holding up to ridicule.
And mondo, it's a generalization, but, well, that was made pretty explicit, and, in any case, I don't think it's gross.
So academia has "moral rot" because some frat-boy moron writes a stupid article. OK. I guess the blogoshere has it in spades, then--and believe me, I've spent enough time surfing to know that such comments are not atypical.
I would submit that: (a) a certain degree of said "rot" is a consequence of the human condition, and can therefore be found in any human enterprise; (b) a corollary to (a) is that academia has it--but universities are still a major anti-entropic (non-rot) force within our culture, and your cynicism (a particularly pernicious form of moral rot, by the way) can't negate that; (c) if academia has moral rot, what does the public sphere--encompassing the Enron shenanigans, a lazy and willfully ignorant electorate, and reality TV, to just name a few items--have? moral putrifaction? moral toxicity? the moral void?
Look, I don't mean to overly bust your chops here. I agree that the article is poorly written. But in some ways using it to slander "the academy" is pretty much equivalent ethically to what you object to in the very article you are criticising.
So academia has "moral rot" because some frat-boy moron writes a stupid article.
No, not at all. I do think the stupid article is stupid in an indicative and representive way. Look, in much of the humanities, there's an aversion to making cross-cultural value judgments (and "culture" is often defined so narrowly that "cross-cultural" becomes indistinguishable from "inter-personal"), and I think that aversion is, in part, a consequence of the dearth of interesting moral theory available today. We (academics all, in this case) just aren't sure how to think about these things.
... I think that aversion is, in part, a consequence of the dearth of interesting moral theory available today.
OK. I think I overinterpreted your use of "moral rot" as being innapropriately moralistic, and given the current fashion for attacking academia, I'm perhaps a bit to inclined to defend and counterattack--but now I see that what you're really complaining about is the inadequate state of moral theory. That I can get behind.
Cheers.
I don't think it's right to fault moral theory for academic rot. Ethicists of all stripes -- analytic, continental, whatever -- distain cultural relativism. Rather, I think it's that philosophy as a serious discipline has become detached from the larger practice of the humanities. That's what has allowed wussified non-judgementalism and not-quite-wrong-but-not-quite-useful "anti-essentialism" to infest the practice of literature, history, and to spawn new, largely bogus disciplines.
Righto mondo.
baa, I agree with the "detached" analysis, but it also seems to me that the ethicists' disdain doesn't do much good, because their theories are so damn unconvincing, or just unhelpful. But I'm not sure that's an argument I'm up for having...
Kant isn't convincing? Aristotle isn't convincing? Whassamatter you?
...will not be baited...will not be baited...
Rising to bait is your characteristic function; thus, excellence consists in rising to the bait.
Remember the scene at the end of Inherit the Wind, where Bryant collapses, still mumbling his stock phrases of belief...?
I know when I'm being mocked, Mr. Farber. I didn't want to say anything, but this shit is all your fault.
Did I mention, being baited is the sickness unto death? Or is it not being baited?
It is both (by virtue of the absurd).
baa, you forget that excellence consists in rising to the bait excellently. As with wealth, flutes, and instruments generally, of course.
FL, it's a fair cop. I fear that ogged's nature partakes only of the life of nutrition and growth.
20 years of schooling and they put you on the day shift. Ain't that that truth.