Military Minds

I've attended several conferences sponsored by the military. They bring in a bunch of civilian experts (and one sci-fi author who is an expert in nothing, but he wrote Ender's Game) and seat them at a table and each of them gives a presentation. Then they question each other in sharp-witted conversation,proving and testing each other's ideas.

During all of this, the walls of the room are lined with soldiers. Officers young and old, who listen.

Just listen.

Not that they don't have opinions. On the contrary -- when I've met these same officers in other contexts, I have been deeply impressed by the level of intellectual rigor among our military.

I daresay that if you're looking for the sharpest thinking in America, you'll find more of it in the military than in the university -- because the military know that a lot of lives depend on their getting right answers, whereas is many academic departments absolutely nothing is at stake and they can teach and write any amount of nonsense without any effect in the real world.

But in those conferences, the soldiers sit silently against the wall, saying nothing; not even their faces show what they're thinking.

-- Orson Scott Card, meridianmagazine.com, 11/27/07