A Matter of Dissent

Since ROTC was welcomed back to campus in 2011, the once raucous debate over the matter has given way to a year and a half of silence. I’d like to re-spark the chatter by submitting a simple, provocative thesis: the program has no place at Harvard, nor at any other liberal arts college.
When the military returned to Cambridge 18 months ago, the ostensible reason, claimed President Faust, was the repeal of the controversial ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. But the armed forces’ mistreatment of homosexuals was never the root cause of Harvard’s objections to ROTC. Rather, DADT—like the college’s disapproval of civilian aid cuts under Reagan and of the military’s exclusion of the disabled after that—was just the scapegoat for more fundamental frictions between the academy and military that first arose with the emergence of the New Left in the ‘60s. Some of these frictions were only salient because of the era’s politicized, radicalized academic climate: Harvard was pacifistic; the military, by definition, was militaristic. While liberal arts colleges were known for their cultural relativism, the military, given its pro-capitalist mission in Southeast Asia, was absolutist to a fault.
One friction, however, was timeless in that it applied in all its strength regardless of the political context—and that was the friction between the intellectual independence of the academy, and the idea of committing students to a powerful government institution before they even began their so-called “liberal arts” education. ROTC trainees at Harvard, and at all liberal arts colleges, had and still have two mandates, one from the school—which beckons them to challenge—and one from the military—which teaches them to obey—and they could not and still cannot fulfill both.
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Before I provoke too much anger, let me say that I admire the bravery of our men and women in the armed forces and think several U.S. foreign interventions since Harvard’s ROTC suspension in 1969 have been justified. As a result, I’m not going to make the knee-jerk leftist claim, adopted by some ROTC opponents on campus, that the American military is inherently imperialistic.
Rather, I’m arguing that students at liberal arts colleges should be willing to have their most basic intellectual assumptions challenged; by entering college as a ROTC cadet, however, several assumptions are declared unshakeable at the ripe age of 18. Among these are (1.) that the U.S. military has and will continue to work for the net good of the relevant domestic and international actors, (2.) that our current military leadership deserves our trust, and (3.) that the most effective way a given student can labor in the name of social justice is by becoming an officer in the armed forces. This list is not even close to exhaustive, but it does offer a sample of the questions students should be willing to confront while at college.
For a ROTC cadet, however, one’s intellectual development does not have the free range necessary to grapple with these questions. “Yes, one is free to explore a variety of worldviews,” the program seems to admit, “but in the end, one’s final worldview must be consistent with serving the U.S. military in its current form.” Once the boundaries of one’s intellect are set in stone, learning becomes a form of Scholasticism, in which incoming knowledge must be fitted into existing preconceptions.
This view isn’t as radical as it seems: if one, after consuming a liberal arts education, then decides that his best course of action would be to join the armed forces, good for him (or her.) But the choice is just that, a choice; ROTC students do have some choices in this respect, too, and they can of course drop the program, but not without ostracizing one’s peers in uniform, one’s superiors, possibly even one’s relatives. In practical matters, switching one’s intellectual preconceptions and dropping out means serious back pay to the U.S. military—about $15,000 a year at Harvard, a sum that’s out of reach for many families. ROTC students are allowed to intellectually challenge the military in the classroom—and, in fact, some of my ROTC peers are quite critical of American foreign policy—but in the end, this is all empty chatter. In the end, they have to quit their contrarian bickering, fall into line, and obey.
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Many will accuse these views of elitism, and that is a valid argument. Plenty of Americans join the military without ever having gone to college, let alone a liberal arts college, and they shouldn’t be required to read Hegel and Derrida before doing so. But the fact is that in entering Harvard, one is signing an implicit contract that others do not sign. As a generic, but agreeable chunk of the undergraduate mission statement reads, an education here “should liberate students to explore, to create, to challenge, and to lead.” The ‘creation’ part of this statement is irrelevant, and ROTC certainly does teach the values of leadership. But ROTC makes the act of challenging impossible—at least challenging the military and the associated institutions, which is one of the most important challenges that the academy has historically offered. Academic exploration, as already mentioned, is compromised—rendered a form of close-minded Scholasticism, in which incoming ideas are conformed to a pre-existing martial commitment.
Others claim that this view is naïve and under-appreciative. They claim that the academic climate and relative freedom under which Harvard operates is only possible because of the military. (This is one of the main points made by Samuel Coffin, who has written prolifically in favor of ROTC in this magazine.) I claim, however, that this viewpoint is self-defeating.
If the military fights to defend our academic freedoms, then expects us to curtail these freedoms, the armed forces are compromising their own mission. One of the wonderful aspects of the American military is that it does not expect a tribute; it fights on our behalf without compromising our way of life—often in theory, and often in practice. I’d think that those with the most respect for the military, for the purity of its mission, would appreciate this argument most.
Things might be different if the armed forces were undermanned—if ROTC were a matter of necessity—but this is simply not the case, and with Secretary Hagel himself calling for aggressive cutbacks, it’s hard to imagine a situation in which it would be. I’m not making an argument about the size of the military per se, but I am implying that the armed forces are robust enough to recruit officers after their academic commitments have finished, rather than before they’ve begun.
Given the current academic and martial situation, liberal arts students should be able to both assent and, crucially, dissent to the powers that be. They’re expected to go into college with an open mind, follow an independent intellectual track, and freely arrive at academic conclusions. There’s no need to compromise this mission for an already robust military. Put another way, there’s no need to violate the academic integrity of Harvard and of liberal arts universities writ large.
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