Here’s some (rare) video footage of Allan Silver, of Columbia’s Sociology department, speaking specifically on the topic of the return (or non-return, as it were) of ROTC to Ivy League campuses. This was from a conference held in early April at Harvard Divinity School on “Ivies and the Military – Toward Reconciliation,” which I actually attended – partly out of an interest in the topic, and partly out of desire to justify a weekend in Boston.
The conference was better attended by representatives of the military than the Ivy League*, and I came away from it thinking that there really are ‘two cultures’ in America – one pregnant with values, ideologies, myths, and so on drawn from or related to the military; and the other that’s acquired some distance, whether deliberately or not, from the military. (Having grown up as a civilian surrounded by military families and institutions, I felt awkwardly positioned in this dialogue.) Given that much of the discussion focused on the ‘legacy of 68′ and the resulting culture wars, the conference discussion didn’t give sufficient due to the degree of institutional collaboration and cooperation that’s existed and continues to exist between Ivy (and other elite) universities and the military. But there’s something to the idea, I think, much more emphasized in republican than liberal political theory, that a society misunderstands the social character and political position of its military institutions at its own peril.
In any event, for your perusal. More videos from the conference can be found on YouTube.
*As a side note, I was surprised at the robustness of the network of academic and training institutions within the military, which as one of its representatives said, no longer feels it can remain content with ‘training.’ Instead, it has to ‘educate’ itself, which means being open to acquiring and developing knowledge and expertise in all areas. Interesting thought.
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
