Introduction

Donald Alexander Downs; Ilia Murtazashvili

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511844447.002

1 - Introduction

The Closing of the University Mind: The Military–University Gap and the Problem of Civic and Liberal Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Donald Alexander Downs and

Ilia Murtazashvili

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Donald Alexander Downs: Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Ilia Murtazashvili: Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh

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Summary

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

– John Stuart Mill

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. . . . Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

– President Abraham Lincoln

The inspiration for this book arose several years before either of us actually sat down to begin the research that led to its publication. It was born when we observed events that took place on American campuses in the immediate aftermath of al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Most of the campus ceremonies and “teach-ins” addressing the attacks that we read about in the press emphasized such things as counseling students to resist the impulse to fight back and to think hard about why America was responsible for bringing this action upon itself. Various versions of pacifism were espoused on many occasions. A ceremony on our own campus in Madison, Wisconsin, that drew an estimated twenty thousand witnesses on September 14 fit this pattern to a “T.” Along with many of our colleagues, we understood and appreciated these remarks, but we also felt that something was missing.

Type: Chapter
Information: Arms and the University
Military Presence and the Civic Education of Non-Military Students
, pp. 3 - 39

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511844447.002 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2012

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Book contents

1 - Introduction

Summary

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References

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