The Divide Between Civilian and Military Societies

Long ago, in the age of the draft, the United States military was not only a reflection of the society it protected, but was society itself. Leaving aside issues of segregation from World War II and before, the military was indeed a slice of America. The draft created a confluence of ideas and mentality (although World War II helped) that kept the division betweeen the military and civilian soceity pretty close. James Homes looks at why a particular subset of civilian society, intellectuals, don't like the military

But the advent of an all-military force in the years following Vietnam has resulted in a larger divide between the military and civilian society. Until the mid-1980's it was a rare U.S. politician who didn't have some sort of military service and those who didn't were often women or somehow physically unable to serve. The class that Homes discusses, the intellectuals, likewise were just as likely, until the early 1980's to have served in the military. Homes notes that some of the animosity between intellectuals and the military stems from the different incentives and reward structures in the two segments.

Schooling, maintains Nozick, breeds in intellectuals a sense of superiority, and with it a sense of entitlement to the highest rewards society has to offer - not just top salaries but praise comparable to that lavished on them by their teachers.

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But, American society reserves the highest respect and admiration not for professors or journalists but for those in practical disciplines such as the armed forces, law enforcement, firefighting, or emergency medicine. Americans typically rate the military at or near the top of the nation's institutions, with journalism and lawmakers near or at the bottom. This status deficit rankles intellectuals. While America certainly needs academic skill and enterprise, an open society maddeningly-prizes other things as much as if not more than the ability to turn a clever phrase.


Success in such a society comes in large part from applied intellect, amplified by such virtues as technical proficiency and physical and moral courage. Schooling is not primarily responsible for instilling these virtues. Disaffection follows when society frustrates intellectuals' lofty expectations. Awarding superior status to people they learned in the schoolhouse to regard as their inferiors must trigger a certain revulsion.

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But here, too, the military allocates rewards-medals, ribbons, written evaluations-based on criteria that cut against the intellectual grain. While training and education provide the foundation for excellence in the armed forces, servicemen are judged primarily by factors such as technical acumen and valor under fire. In other words, Americans acclaim the military for reasons that have little to do with schooling-calling into question wordsmith intellectuals' feeling of superiority, and indeed their entire worldview.

Thus the intellectual elite, such as Hollywood, the upper echelons of the media and other "social superiors" don't like that ideas don't rule the day and that ideals are often lost in the shuffle.

Here too is a political problem. Democrats fancy themselves the party of lofty ideals, of peace and equality. But the military rankles them because its very existence measn that their utopian worldview cannot happen. Leaving aside the issue that "peace in our time," as Woodrow Wilson and many other leaders since them have claimed, is a compelte illusion. The existence of a military presupposes that concept that we somehow need protection from someone in the world. Liberal intellectualism rejects the notion of conflict and evil in the world.

So the big divide between intellectuals and the military is that intellectuals see the world in an ideal form, whereas the military sees the world from a historical sense. In a historical sense, the military knows that at some point its services will be needed.