Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby nathan28 » Sat Jan 22, 2011 2:26 pm

No, but with the qualification that things may be changing.

From the NY Times:

Compared to their contemporaries in civilian life, the armed forces have a greater percentage of minorities, a higher proportion of high school graduates and better reading levels. As a group, about 60 percent of enlisted men and women are white; they tend to be married and upwardly mobile, but to come from families without the resources to send them to college.

While blacks make up about 12.7 per cent of the same-age civilian population, they constitute about 22 per cent of enlisted personnel. Perhaps most striking is the number of enlisted women who are black: more than 35 percent, according to Pentagon figures, indicating not only that black women enlist at higher rates, but that they stay in the military longer. In the Army, in fact, half of all enlisted women are black, outnumbering whites, who account for 38 percent.


Most enlisted men and women are slightly more educated than average, so "upwardly mobile, but [] come from families without [] resources" sounds to me a lot like a matter of expediency. They 'place out' of the opportunities they have at home, which is typically rural.

Cf. this very suspect report from the Heritage Found'n (http colon slash slash www-dot-heritage.org/research/reports/2005/11/who-bears-the-burden-demographic-characteristics-of-us-military-recruits-before-and-after-9-11), which uses a questionable "zip code" methodology (when the data doesn't fit, fit the data) to claim that the empirical research of dozens of sociologists is false. In any event, Kane's own figures, contrary to his conclusions (he notes that he didn't do the research at the bottom of the paper), show that the US military recruits almost entirely from people living in areas that earn or below the national median income--median hometown income for those who join the military still ranks below the national median--and from one indecipherable chart if I read it correctly recruits heavily from people who live in areas of least-affordable housing.

Likewise, the disproportionate representation of black men and women speaks volumes about motivations behind military enlistment.

Both the Times piece and Kane report that the typical enlisted military employee is more educated, as I've mentioned, so, so much for being "less intelligent".

Of course, Kane does note that post 11 Sept. 2001, representation of the wealthy in the US military has increased substantially (though not at all proportionally). Likewise there's no mention of the phenomenon of the growing "warrior caste" phenomena that several, notably Charles Moskos, observed, the latter, which strikes me as something that makes these arguments moot. One observation, which seems poorly documented if not necessarily false, is that families with military service histories tend to have later generations serve. Another thing worth noting is that the CIA recruits heavily from college campuses, which suggests a class-based split in the types of military service when broadened to include the intel complex. The most obvious aspect of this is the growth of mercenary firms, which pay on an order of magnitude greater than the Pentagon's payroll dep't.
„MAN MUSS BEFUERCHTEN, DASS DAS GANZE IN GOTTES HAND IST"

THE JEERLEADER
User avatar
nathan28
 
Posts: 2957
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:48 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby brainpanhandler » Sat Jan 22, 2011 3:43 pm

Both the Times piece and Kane report that the typical enlisted military employee is more educated, as I've mentioned, so, so much for being "less intelligent".


I suppose we could argue about the nature of intelligence, but I don't really want to have that argument. Suffice it to say though, education does not always equal more intelligence, nor does it equal more wisdom. Points which hopefully we don't have to argue about. However, you'd have a fair objection if you pointed out I was the one that mentioned a bell curve.

Likewise, the disproportionate representation of black men and women speaks volumes about motivations behind military enlistment.


Yes, it really does, doesn't it.

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
User avatar
brainpanhandler
 
Posts: 5121
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2006 9:38 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby nathan28 » Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:17 pm

brainpanhandler wrote:
Both the Times piece and Kane report that the typical enlisted military employee is more educated, as I've mentioned, so, so much for being "less intelligent".


I suppose we could argue about the nature of intelligence, but I don't really want to have that argument. Suffice it to say though, education does not always equal more intelligence, nor does it equal more wisdom. Points which hopefully we don't have to argue about. However, you'd have a fair objection if you pointed out I was the one that mentioned a bell curve.


Yes, that's really here nor there, but we can't at present use a social program to "raise intelligence", a disputed category to start and one I find highly suspect--to start it's measured with inordinately obtuse pattern-matching tests--the way we can with schooling, something far more discrete, at least at some levels.**


Likewise, the disproportionate representation of black men and women speaks volumes about motivations behind military enlistment.


Yes, it really does, doesn't it.


Hence, my contention that they aren't in the military b/c they're cowards or idiots, unless a black man who sees a third of black men without jobs and another third in prison qualifies as a "coward" or "idiot" for trying to secure a stable situation for himself. Again, the military is one of the only institutions in the US to achieve noteworthy integration.

Even among white kids--and that's what "enlisted men" are, kids--who have more access to other jobs in other industries, they're still largely coming from "rural" and de-urbanized areas where, simply put, there are less worthwhile and/or stable jobs.

"Expediency" can be very close to "necessity".


Of course, for every working class kid who was making an economic decision, and for everyone, like that one mil-blogger who said something like "I'm pretty much forced to deal with the ethical quandary that getting into a firefight is an incredible rush but it also means I'm disgusted with myself b/c I enjoy killing people" there's a forty-year-old balding man who will spew disgusting pabulum about "Red White and Blue" "service" etc., etc.



**And I'm not interested in debating the value of education, either. Efforts at reform in the late 19th and early 20th century increased the literacy among freed slaves by, very roughly, 400%, and among whites literacy became nearly universal.

FWIW, IIRC either Stanford or Binet, or someone else among the first "IQ" score people, hoped that their tests could be used to establish a merit-based system irrespective of class etc., though it almost immediately became a tool of eugenecists despite the very earliest studies indicated that scores varied dramatically between immigrants and their children.
„MAN MUSS BEFUERCHTEN, DASS DAS GANZE IN GOTTES HAND IST"

THE JEERLEADER
User avatar
nathan28
 
Posts: 2957
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:48 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:25 pm

One problem with upward mobility, especially for people trying to move out of poverty is their susceptibility to right wing tropes.
Joe Hillshoist
 
Posts: 10616
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2006 10:45 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby wintler2 » Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:49 am

nathan28 wrote:..
crickett means, if I understand him and what some friends have told me, that you do whatever the fuck your superiors tell you, especially in basic training, without pausing to reflect, question, etc., because it's one of the only ways to stay intact psychologically, especially if you are a critical thinker. You just suspend judgment--you can always reclaim it. We're not talking about Mai Lai here, we're talking about stupid power trips and systemic bullying. I'm not going to say that I "understand", but I once had a supervisor who was best treated in this manner--do whatever it is you need to get them off your back so you can lay low, I think, is what crickett means.
..


Thats a great rationalisation with many applications: i can suspend my moral sense to go cheat on my partner/defraud my employer/kill my neighbour, cos i can always reclaim it later. Can you write me a note to the jury explaining this?
"Wintler2, you are a disgusting example of a human being, the worst kind in existence on God's Earth. This is not just my personal judgement.." BenD

Research question: are all god botherers authoritarians?
User avatar
wintler2
 
Posts: 2884
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 3:43 am
Location: Inland SE Aus.
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby Simulist » Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:12 am

How can anyone who has voluntarily joined an organization that may require that person to murder one or more other human beings — based sometimes on nothing more than simply another person's order to do so! — ever be considered "spiritually fit"?

If such a person could be deemed "spiritually fit," then the standards for "spiritual fitness" might well be so low as to be meaningless.
"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
    — Alan Watts
User avatar
Simulist
 
Posts: 4713
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:13 pm
Location: Here, and now.
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby crikkett » Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:37 pm

brainpanhandler wrote:
crikkett wrote:
Hedges, author of the book "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle," wrote, "positive psychology, which claims to be able to engineer happiness and provides the psychological tools for enforcing corporate conformity, is to the corporate state what eugenics was to the Nazis."


...Godwin's law fulfilled, that's where I get to stop reading.


Actually it's a fairly apt comparison. "positive psychology" seeks to brand whistleblowers or anyone unwilling to toe the corporate line as naysayers and malcontents and enemies of happiness. Purge them. Cleanse the corporation of those unwilling to blind themselves and see as instructed.


I got that. So, did I actually need to read further? Because that was my claim.
My experience is that the intelligent soldier understands that it's better to give the Army what they're looking for than to actually answer truthfully.


Better? Really? For whom? Intelligent? Really? Compared to what?


Better, yes, for the soldier, who doesn't become the nail that sticks up & needs hammering down.

Intelligent, yes, compared to his/her comrades who a) have turned off their brains or who b) seriously think a multiple-choice personality test has anything to do with combat readiness.

Please. The test's stated purpose is to identify soldiers who need to be brought into compliance, or as they put it, 'spiritual fitness'.
crikkett
 
Posts: 2206
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2007 12:03 pm
Blog: View Blog (5)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby crikkett » Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:45 pm

nathan28 wrote:crickett means, if I understand him and what some friends have told me, that you do whatever the fuck your superiors tell you, especially in basic training, without pausing to reflect, question, etc., because it's one of the only ways to stay intact psychologically, especially if you are a critical thinker. You just suspend judgment--you can always reclaim it. We're not talking about Mai Lai here, we're talking about stupid power trips and systemic bullying. I'm not going to say that I "understand", but I once had a supervisor who was best treated in this manner--do whatever it is you need to get them off your back so you can lay low, I think, is what crickett means.

That's pretty far away from the OP, but to bring it back, the idea is to "compartmentalize." You can be an atheist around a bunch of believers, but you have to respect the terms of the non-aggression pact, which may mean filling out the multiple choice test as though you believed in a higher power.


You got it, nathan28.
;)
crikkett
 
Posts: 2206
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2007 12:03 pm
Blog: View Blog (5)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby crikkett » Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:49 pm

brainpanhandler wrote:Actually, I got that. I just wouldn't call it intelligent. Id' call it expedient and maybe even a bit cowardly.


That's easy for you to say.
crikkett
 
Posts: 2206
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2007 12:03 pm
Blog: View Blog (5)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby crikkett » Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:01 pm

wintler2 wrote:
nathan28 wrote:..
crickett means, if I understand him and what some friends have told me, that you do whatever the fuck your superiors tell you, especially in basic training, without pausing to reflect, question, etc., because it's one of the only ways to stay intact psychologically, especially if you are a critical thinker. You just suspend judgment--you can always reclaim it. We're not talking about Mai Lai here, we're talking about stupid power trips and systemic bullying. I'm not going to say that I "understand", but I once had a supervisor who was best treated in this manner--do whatever it is you need to get them off your back so you can lay low, I think, is what crickett means.
..


Thats a great rationalisation with many applications: i can suspend my moral sense to go cheat on my partner/defraud my employer/kill my neighbour, cos i can always reclaim it later. Can you write me a note to the jury explaining this?


Those who join the military hand over a lot of personal rights in doing so. You live (and die?) with the people you work with, and your superiors have absolute control over your life (and death) in the present and the future: not only can your current life be made a living hell on the whim of some idiot who was randomly assigned to have this power over you, but their experience with you and impression of you is recorded in a personnel record that will follow you throughout your career and affect duty assignments, promotions, introductions. All that translates to job prospects once out of the service.

Those who join the military don't know what they're getting into, and if any of these 'ruthless killers' who 'deserve all the suffering they get' because they 'sold their soul' to 'perpetuate empire' realize what's going on, or have a change of heart, it's almost impossible to get out whole and undamaged before the end of their contract.

What would you have these pathetic souls do, wintler2, fight the entire fucking army, or STFU and get out alive?
crikkett
 
Posts: 2206
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2007 12:03 pm
Blog: View Blog (5)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby brainpanhandler » Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:08 pm

crikket wrote:Better, yes, for the soldier, who doesn't become the nail that sticks up & needs hammering down.


I suppose within the context of a rigid hierarchy like the military this might make some sense, however, as general principle it is an expediency and somewhat morally deplorable. There is an actual issue of some gravity at stake here. Namely, can the military make "spiritual" (code for christianity) belief a prerequisite for "fitness" to serve? Does this violate the constitution? Now frankly, if the military wanted to inculcate a little love thy neighbor jesus style into the boys, I'd be all for it, constitution be damned. (not really). But that's not what this is about.

In the long run was it "better" for the vanguard of the civil rights movement to "stick up" despite the certainty of being hammered down? Acting according to your conscience is almost always the "better" thing to do.

Intelligent, yes, compared to his/her comrades who a) have turned off their brains


So, intelligent compared to people who have decided not to be intelligent? Got it.

Intelligent, yes, compared to his/her comrades who b) seriously think a multiple-choice personality test has anything to do with combat readiness.


I don't think there's any indication that the soldiers that are protesting the "spiritual" portion of the test believe that a multiple-choice personality test has anything to do with combat readiness.

I mean really, I thought we have three categories we were comparing here: 1) Those that answer the questions according to what they believe the military wants to hear (the intelligent ones), 2) those that protest being evaluated based on their spirituality or lack thereof, and 3) those that just naively answer as truthfully as possible.

You contend that 1 is more intelligent than 3. Fine. What about 2? Or to get back to my original question, compared to what?
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
User avatar
brainpanhandler
 
Posts: 5121
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2006 9:38 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby brainpanhandler » Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:50 pm

nathan28 wrote:Hence, my contention that they aren't in the military b/c they're cowards or idiots


I don't want to get hung up on semantics but I don't think I said they were and to be fair I don't think you are necessarily saying I did, but others might misconstrue you as saying I did.


"Expediency" can be very close to "necessity".


I have a certain amount of sympathy. I was born with a great many advantages that I did nothing to merit.

Of course, for every working class kid who was making an economic decision, and for everyone, like that one mil-blogger who said something like "I'm pretty much forced to deal with the ethical quandary that getting into a firefight is an incredible rush but it also means I'm disgusted with myself b/c I enjoy killing people"


Forced? No. It was a decision. Maybe one born out of necessity of a sort, but a free decision nonetheless. I'll not have any sympathy for a serial murderer. period.

there's a forty-year-old balding man who will spew disgusting pabulum about "Red White and Blue" "service" etc., etc.


I'm not sure this is the juxtaposition I would choose.
Last edited by brainpanhandler on Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
User avatar
brainpanhandler
 
Posts: 5121
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2006 9:38 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby brainpanhandler » Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:53 pm

Joe Hillshoist wrote:One problem with upward mobility, especially for people trying to move out of poverty is their susceptibility to right wing tropes.


It's counterintuitive, but yah, that seems to be the case. And frankly susceptibility to right wing tropes is a trait that signifies, what? Intelligence?
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
User avatar
brainpanhandler
 
Posts: 5121
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2006 9:38 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sun Jan 23, 2011 6:01 pm

brainpanhandler wrote:
Joe Hillshoist wrote:One problem with upward mobility, especially for people trying to move out of poverty is their susceptibility to right wing tropes.


It's counterintuitive, but yah, that seems to be the case. And frankly susceptibility to right wing tropes is a trait that signifies, what? Intelligence?


It signifies that a particular meme is being activated I reckon. One to do with gathering territory and securing it. I don't think that has to do with intelligence per se, but you know, whats intelligence?
Joe Hillshoist
 
Posts: 10616
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2006 10:45 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test

Postby Simulist » Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:16 pm

Joe Hillshoist wrote:
brainpanhandler wrote:
Joe Hillshoist wrote:One problem with upward mobility, especially for people trying to move out of poverty is their susceptibility to right wing tropes.


It's counterintuitive, but yah, that seems to be the case. And frankly susceptibility to right wing tropes is a trait that signifies, what? Intelligence?


It signifies that a particular meme is being activated I reckon. One to do with gathering territory and securing it. I don't think that has to do with intelligence per se, but you know, whats intelligence?

It may not be easy to say what intelligence is, but it's often pretty easy to see what it isn't.
"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
    — Alan Watts
User avatar
Simulist
 
Posts: 4713
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:13 pm
Location: Here, and now.
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 149 guests