War and history with Victor Davis Hanson

09 Mar 2010

Speakers: Peter M Robinson, Victor Davis Hanson

Beginning with the assertion that “war is inseparable from the human condition,” Victor Hanson proceeds to explain the ways in which the American way of war is distinctive. For one, “Americans are united…by shared ideas and commitments, such as the ideals of equal opportunity and individual merit….Our military functions…as a reflection of our national meritocracy.”

He further reflects that Americans today, unlike previous generations, fail to understand the tragic nature of war because they have never come to understand the tragic nature of life itself, and that they are endangered by their lack of attention to the study of military history. “If we walked right over to the campus book store or looked in the university’s catalogue of classes, we would see gender studies … leisure studies, race studies, environmental studies. Military history? Not there.”