| Sunday,
June 2, 2002
>From Alan E Brain,
Canberra, Australia. Publication permitted.
While having my usual squizz at http://www.strategypage.com
, I came across a most impressive (but long) article.
http://www.cryptome.org/cuw.htm
This consists of excerpts from "Unrestricted
Warfare", by two Chinese colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui.
Despite a few minor omissions (e.g. use of the US
legal system against itself, and undesirable effects of collateral damage
in economic warfare), I'd put this one up with both Sun-Tzu's classic
"Art of War" and Clausewitz' "Vom Krieg".
Anyone interested in Homeland Defence should read
this. Because the opposition certainly has.
Thanks.
Subj: Unholy Lands
Neil Schulman, alas!, is infected with Liberalism.
With part of it, anyway.
Specifically, he confuses _evil_ with _illness_.
To get the worst devil, you start with the best
angel. So too, to get the evil of the Muslims-vs-Jews -- with a lot of
Christians getting trampled by the way, as those two elephants fight -- in
Palestine/Israel, you start with love of ancestral homeland. Just like
Horatius at the Gate. On both sides.
Rod Montgomery == monty@sprintmail.com
Indeed. Good point. Neil
replies below.
Dear Dr. Pournelle:
You asked:
But where does one go for an education now? By
education I mean a systematic introduction to the essentials of Western
Civilization, what makes it tick, why the West is what it is, and we are
who we are; why the imbecilities that have become political correctness
are exaggerations of Western trends, and when they collapse from inner
absurdity there will be little to inspire a recovery.
I am not personally acquainted with Thomas Aquinas
College in Santa Paula, California beyond what I have read about them in
various publications, such as the LA Times; but from what I have read,
plus their self-description on their website (http://www.thomasaquinas.edu)
I am guessing they may fit the criteria that you are looking for.
The institution with which I'm associated (Quartz
Hill School of Theology) is strictly a Bible School and seminary, designed
to teach pastors and lay people for ministry in local congregations; of
course, we do require a western civilization course and a course in logic,
but our emphasis is more on biblical languages (Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic),
Bible, and theology, with some courses in ethics and the like. But I doubt
we exactly fit what you're talking about. Of course, we're not attempting
to be a liberal arts institution. Thomas Aquinas College is, and it sounds
to me like they are doing a good job.
Again, I have no connection to them.
Sincerely,
R.P. Nettelhorst Academic Vice President Quartz Hill
School of Theology www.theology.edu
I knew and worked with the founders of Aquinas,
and yes, that school does the kind of thing I mean. There are a few. The
problem is there are not many, and many of the most prestigious colleges
in the nation no longer require -- and some do not allow -- what we would
have called an "ordinary" liberal education when I was a young
man.
And one suspects this is how democracies commit
suicide. It was one of H. Beam Piper's scenarios. People who do not know
their roots and their history have trouble defending them. I do not mean
that every soldier at Normandy understood the Constitution or knew Western
history, but many did, and the others trusted their comrades -- not just
their officers -- knew what was worth fighting for.
Today we have professional soldiers and they are
very good indeed. But they are soldiers first and citizens second, it
seems to me. And Rome had good soldiers right down to the time that the
Emperor cut off his right hand with his left...
Your question,
"But where does one go for an education
now?"
...really does have an answer, but it's a real tough
one.
Unless parents and other people who are concerned
not only for the future of present students but our nation take our
primary and secondary education back from government-fed and post-modern
relativistic know-nothing academics, then so-called "higher
education" will continue to become ever more meaningless, because
there will be fewer and fewer students attending our colleges and
universities who can even see that the emperor has no clothes.
Here are some folks who, though I do not agree with
them on particulars, have an approach that seems to take your question
seriously. Maybe even more seriously than you do. :-)
http://www.newstandrews.org/
and their "parent" organization, the
provocative *Credenda Agenda* at http://www.credenda.org/
The folks at Veritas Press, along with many other
small-time publishers, are also attempting a modern sort of "counter
reformation" of education with their offerings of materials for a
classical education which include such things as primary grade Latin
courses (including, of course, classical texts).
But in the end, it's up to the education
"consumer" to demand --and to pay the more than merely monetary
price!-- an educational atmosphere that teaches students whence we came.
The greatest "expense" would be the one likliest NOT to be paid:
the discipline necessary to attain a decent liberal education. And the
discipline would have to begin with the people least likely to embrace it:
the parents. Then of course, lazy, poorly prepared teachers would likely
balk at the disciple necessary to actually read and teach real history,
read and teach real literature, etc.
And, of course, communities at large would have to
find the backbone to stand up to the fedgov tyrants and Western
Civilization hating "academics" and refuse to water down the
backbone of primary and secondary education with "politically
correct" culturally relativistic junk. And, of course again, that
would mean firing nearly all the administrators and letting their
secretaries do the necessary work (all the real and useful administrative
work at public schools is done at that level anyway).
When things start to change at that level, then
students who do attend colleges and universities will be prepared to teach
current academia a thing or two about a classic liberal education.
David W Needham
Reform from the bottom up is needed, but where do
the teachers come from when the universities are rapidly becoming lost?
Ortega y Gasset said that for philosophy to prevail it is not required
that philosophers be kings or that kings be philosophers, but it is
necessary that philosophers be philosophers. We do not seem to have that
now.
But perhaps I am merely being a pessimist. I hope
so.
Jerry,
Just saw your comments on the value of a college
education.
You raise a good set of points. But, speaking as a
finance weenie, what's struck me most about trends in college education is
not the value of what's taught, per se, but the cost of obtaining it.
Costs keep rising (faster than inflation, I think), but the value of the
product doesn't go up (and may even be going down).
If that perception is true...why is it? I would
generally associate such a pattern with a lack of significant competition.
Does that mean we don't have enough colleges? Or that there is de facto
collusion among them to prop up prices? - Mark mark@arcabama.com
And "equal opportunity" breeds
credentialism, which makes this overpriced "education" necessary
since you need to have credentials to show you should be hired. You
can't really win. And education costs as much as the traffic will bear.
More below
Does anyone else have experience with:
After getting as fed up with SPAM as you are, I
began a search for a solution and found a program on Freashmeat ( http://www.freshmeat.net
) which may significantly reduce the SPAM I get called ASK (Active Spam
Killer). See http://www.paganini.net/ask/ for more information.
ASK works by having a "whitelist" of
approved email senders. You can manually add names to the "whitelist",
which is used mainly for mailing lists. The beauty of ASK is that it
allows a sender to automatically add his name to your "whitelist".
The first time a sender not on your "whitelist" sends you an
email, his mail is queued and he gets an automated reply explaining that
he must reply to the message to release the email he sent you. Once the
reply is sent, the sender is added to your "whitelist" and his
message is released. Since virtually all spammers use fake addresses,
their mail is never delivered to your mailbox. ASK also has an "ignorelist"
which ignores any email from a sender on the list and a
"blacklist" which sends a nastygram to the sender.
I have installed ASK on my mail server. I put your
email address in my "whitelist", so any email you send me will
get through. If you want to see how it works. send my an email from
another email address, like Roberta's.
Since most spam is sent from phony email addresses
and it takes manual intervention to release a message from a legitimate
sender, I expect my spam will be reduced significantly.
Rick Samuels in Portland
The name does not inspire confidence but the
notion is probably a good one. And do let me know the results.
Jerry,
To reach the conclusion he did about my article, Mr.
Montgomery could not have read it thoroughly. My point was that obsessive
attachment to "ancestral homelands" is the core problem -- and
that is a discussion of values, not of illness.
As I said, I have no problem with people wanting to
defend their homes. But I have no sympathy for turf wars because one is
deluded into thinking it holy. Argument by analogy is often, as Mr.
Heinlein pointed out, slippery; but I fail to see any fundamental
difference between the Israelis and Palestinians, on the one hand, and the
Crips and the Bloods on the other.
Best regards,
Neil
Whatever else one may accuse Monty of, not
reading closely is unlikely. I suspect you are talking past each other.
This discussion continues next week.
Dr. Pournelle:
Reading the material on this site probably provides
your readership with more actual worthwhile knowledge than any equivalent
time spent in modern academia.
Two comments about the effects of modern education:
1. Minnesota's governor, Jesse Ventura, vetoed
legislation mandating the weekly recitation of "The Pledge of
Allegiance."
It occurred to me that many of the legislators
debating the bill could not themselves paraphrase the language-- that is,
a legislator could recite the pledge from memory, but he would have had
great difficulty stating the pledge in his own words. [Red Skelton had a
memorable short monologue which did paraphrase and explain The Pledge.]
Apparently not one of the legislators debating the
bill ever conceived the thought that "THE Pledge of Allegiance"
is simply A pledge of allegiance and that other, more personal,
re-statements of the sentiments expressed in The Pledge might be more
useful, and more compelling, to many individuals.
Years ago, in a methods class, my instructor
criticized my performance as a teacher because, among other things, I used
the word 'anomaly'--high school students wouldn't know what it meant[!],
so I would not be surprised to hear of a school that refused to recite The
Pledge not because of any free-speech constraints but because children
can't understand it.
2. In the late presidential campaign, Al Gore, on
national television, referred to Benjamin Franklin's comment about the
form of the new government. Gore said that Franklin had said, "A
democracy, Madam, if you can keep it."
What bothered me most about that misquote was not
that Gore made it--mistaken quotes happen in politics--but that apparently
no journalist of any stripe knew enough about Ben Franklin or the Founders
to notice the error, let alone comment.
So we have legislators, many of whom are lawyers,
desiring to require children to recite words the legislators themselves
would have to work hard to explain, and we have journalists, strong
defenders of the First Amendment, who apparently can't spot a notable
error in a quote from one of the members of the Constitutional Convention,
and a candidate for President who certainly ought to have known better.
All of the people involved have college educations.
Strange times.
name withheld
Exactly
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