MindingTheCampus.com<\/a>, hosts Victor Davis Hanson to discuss his most recent article from the summer issue of\u00a0City Journal<\/i>, “Why Study War?”. Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a\u00a0City Journal<\/i>\u00a0Contributing Editor.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nLeo<\/b>: Welcome Dr. Hanson, your article “Why Study War?,” strongly criticizes the academy for its increasing neglect of military history. How do you explain this neglect?<\/p>\n
Hanson<\/b>: Mostly for three reasons. First, since the campus revolt against Vietnam, academia has associated war exclusively with amorality, forgetting, for example, that chattel slavery, Nazism, fascism, and Stalinism were ended by arms or military deterrence.<\/p>\n
Second, multiculturalism \u2014 no culture can be any worse than the West \u2014 has redefined the history of Western arms as exclusively in the service of racism, colonialism, and imperialism that in turn were unique to the West.<\/p>\n
And lastly, the advent of postmodernism, and indeed ‘theory’ in general, into the arts and sciences meant a general disdain for, and absence of mastery of, names, dates, personalities, facts themselves \u2014 the stuff of military history \u2014 in favor of seeing all of the past as a morality tale to be deconstructed on the basis of preconceived (and often anti-empirical) gender, class, and racial oppression.<\/p>\n
The result is that we have self-acclaimed sophisticated graduate students and professors that know very little about what actually transpired in the past, but who fret a great deal over whether anyone can know anything about what they don’t know.<\/p>\n
Leo<\/b>: Is opposition to military history related to the strength of anti-military opinion on campus since the Vietnam War? Or is it more often a feeling that studying war somehow dignifies human mayhem?<\/p>\n
Hanson<\/b>: Both, but there is still this crazy notion that anyone who studies war does so not to understand and thus often mitigate its effects, but rather out of a sort of repressed or even overt desire for bloodletting \u2014 as if a oncologist likes tumors or a virologist is de facto an advocate for AIDs. Almost all military history, even if written in the most banal sense of antiquarianism, ultimately seeks to record the tragedy of taking human life, and speculate on the ways in which wars could have either been prevented or conducted with the greatest rapidity and avoidance of loss of life.<\/p>\n
Leo<\/b>: At a time when almost everything prized in the popular culture ends up on a college curriculum, how is it that the enormous upsurge of books, movies and cable shows about war is occurring at the same time that the study of war is fading on campus?<\/p>\n
Hanson<\/b>: War by nature involves the ultimate sacrifice of soldiers, usually of a rare segment of the general population willing to die for an idea, an order, a good or bad cause, to inflict havoc or save humanity. And there is a sort of gut-level fascination why humans would do such things.<\/p>\n
In addition, there is a general societal fear, rightly so, that war de facto has the ability to destroy society as we know it \u2014 whether the Roman ‘peace’ at the end of the 3rd Punic War or the carnage of WWII Poland, Japan, and Russia \u2014 and thus should be examined if for prophylactic reasons alone. War, you see, is the ultimate expression, for good or evil, of action and the collision of material forces \u2014 in contrast to the steady devolution in the academia to discourse and theorizing. Pickett’s Charge or Normandy Beach will win anytime over the ‘Transvestism in the Medieval Cloister’ or ‘The Poetics of Manhood in the Renaissance Puppetry.” Finally, there are millions of Americans in the general public who served in the military or are the children, siblings, and parents of those who did, but perhaps far less of such a percentage among the cohort that now runs the academy.<\/p>\n
Leo<\/b>: You argue that a college class today on World War II “might emphasize Japanese internment, Rosie the Riveter and the horror of Hiroshima, not Guadacanal and Midway.” How can we overcome the obsession with race, class and gender in studying military history?<\/p>\n
Hanson<\/b>: I’m afraid an entire generation must pass first. Those who came of age in the university in the 1960s and 1970s \u2014 now department chairmen, deans, senior theses advisors, scholarly associations’ presidents, etc \u2014 wanted this revolution of easy arm-chair therapeutic moralizing and self-appointed censure of perceive contemporary sins, got it, turned off the students, forfeited hard-won standards, and lost their public readership \u2014 and now must suffer the consequences of irrelevancy for a generation. It is not an accident that a David McCullough or John Keegan or Martin Gilbert now writes outside the campus. Vibrant military history has gone on despite, or perhaps even because of the failure of the academia.<\/p>\n
Leo<\/b>: How can we convince academics and students that it’s important to study how wars began, how they were won and lost, and how they shaped our world?<\/p>\n
Hanson<\/b>: I think many genres have stepped up to fill the vacuum.<\/p>\n
Television \u2014 such as the History or Discovery Channels \u2014\u00a0mirabile dictu<\/i>\u00a0has helped. Dozens of magazines now discuss individual wars. Our politicians should likewise relate military history, both the science of writing it and the facts and lessons of studying it.<\/p>\n
Hollywood \u2014 whether\u00a0Saving Private Ryan<\/i>\u00a0or the\u00a0300<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 is doing better here than in its other genres, and being rewarded accordingly with an audience. Our military has regained public stature and soldiers enjoy a far higher reputation than politicians, journalists, and professors. War is an innate human phenomenon; it won’t disappear or be legislated out of existence \u2014 nor will the fascination with it. So we can either fail miserably to ignore it, or wish or dictate it gone \u2014 or study it to prevent it, in the frightening centuries to come, from ending us all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
\u00a92007 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Interview with Victor Davis Hanson MindingTheCampus.com John Leo, Editor of\u00a0MindingTheCampus.com, hosts Victor Davis Hanson to discuss his most recent article from the summer issue of\u00a0City Journal, “Why Study War?”. Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a\u00a0City Journal\u00a0Contributing Editor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[755,518],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1pR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10767,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/c-span-military-historian-victor-davis-hanson-recounts-the-key-battles-of-world-war-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":5447,"position":0},"title":"C-SPAN: Military Historian Victor Davis Hanson Recounts The Key Battles Of World War II","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson joins National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry to recount the key battles of World War II.\u00a0Airing Sunday, Dec 03 12:15am EST on C-SPAN2 Watch the full interview here \u00a0","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11459,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/us-strategy-on-china-great-powers\/","url_meta":{"origin":5447,"position":1},"title":"US Strategy On China, Great Powers","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Hoover Institution The United States should use a strategy of power, alliances, and triangulation to best navigate the emerging world of \u201cgreat power\u201d rivalries, Hoover scholar\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0says. The\u00a0post-Cold War global order is in flux with\u00a0the ascendency of an economically-driven China and its foreign policy of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "China"","block_context":{"text":"China","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/china\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11994,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-trump-wages-war-on-progressive-culture-dems-respond-with-trump-derangement-syndrome\/","url_meta":{"origin":5447,"position":2},"title":"Victor Davis Hanson: Trump wages war on progressive culture \u2013 Dems respond with Trump Derangement Syndrome","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Fox News President\u00a0Trump is\u00a0waging\u00a0a nonstop, all-encompassing war against progressive culture, in magnitude analogous to what 19th-century Germans once called a \"Kulturkampf.\" As a result, not even former President George W. Bush has incurred the degree of hatred from the left that is now directed at Trump.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10758,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/uncommon-knowledge-part-i-the-second-world-wars-with-victor-davis-hanson\/","url_meta":{"origin":5447,"position":3},"title":"Uncommon Knowledge Part I: The Second World Wars with Victor Davis Hanson","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EUELed7UuDQ How were the Axis powers able to instigate the most lethal conflict in human history? Find out in part one of this episode as Victor Davis Hanson, joins Peter Robinson on\u00a0Uncommon Knowledge to discuss his latest book,\u00a0The Second World Wars. Victor Davis Hanson explains how World War II\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/EUELed7UuDQ\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12928,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/war-and-peace-from-thucydides-to-biden\/","url_meta":{"origin":5447,"position":4},"title":"War and Peace: from Thucydides to Biden","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ The Classicist Listen to \"War and Peace\" Victor Davis Hanson explores how military history can illuminate current foreign policy challenges, delineates which nations pose the greatest threats to the United States, explores the role that human rights should play in international affairs, looks at the changing\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/classicist_vdh_itunes.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/classicist_vdh_itunes.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/classicist_vdh_itunes.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/classicist_vdh_itunes.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/classicist_vdh_itunes.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/classicist_vdh_itunes.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10815,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/axis-powers-miscalculated-after-early-advantages-in-world-war-ii-stanford-scholar-says\/","url_meta":{"origin":5447,"position":5},"title":"Axis powers miscalculated after early advantages in World War II, Stanford scholar says","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Axis powers miscalculated after early advantages in World War II, Stanford scholar says By 1942, the Axis powers seemed invincible. But the course of the war soon changed in ways that offer lessons for the U.S. and its allies in today\u2019s world, said Victor Davis Hanson, a Hoover Institution\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "War"","block_context":{"text":"War","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/stanford.ucomm.newsms.media\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/11124855\/ww2_istock-795x530.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5448,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5447\/revisions\/5448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}