tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10348701.post8769286899544365992..comments2024-03-13T21:26:03.011-07:00Comments on Right on the Left Coast: Views From a Conservative Teacher: An Interesting Perspective on West Point, In The New York Times, Of All PlacesDarrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15730642770935985796noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10348701.post-75170004613765955382013-12-07T05:50:42.768-08:002013-12-07T05:50:42.768-08:00What I liked about the article was the writer'...What I liked about the article was the writer's treating West Point, and by extension the concept of the military, as if she were an anthropologist observing a Stone Age tribe in the jungles of New Guinea.<br /><br />Oh look at the strange inhabitants with their wonderfully colorful, ceremonial robes! Oh, look at their strange customs which dictate carefully structured, formal greetings to some and the inherently humorous ignoring of others!<br /><br />Aren't they strange? Aren't they wonderful? Notice the similarity to other exotic locales like Ghana and Jordan and Oxford where people also engage in strange rituals?<br /><br />The reason I enjoyed her viewpoint was its self-parodying nature. Certain of her own sophistication and worldliness the good instructor, incapable of confronting her own blinkered viewpoint, has to carefully concentrate on some comforting aspect her situation lest she confront the rather more serious purposes of the buildings, people and rituals surrounding her. She perfectly exemplifies the parochialism inherent to Pauline Keal's classic astonishment at the election of Richard Nixon.allen (in Michigan)noreply@blogger.com