Whoa, whoa, whoa. So the idea of teaching soldiers Arabic is wrong? Do you think the "guys on the frontline" (an antiquated notion) have a better or worse chance at being shot overall if they don't know how to speak to the people whose counntry they're in?

I sympathize wholeheartedly with your objections to the war, but suggesting that every military vendor stop producing goods is, on a practical level, dangerous for our military. This is a matter for political action. Your political speech in opposition to the war overall is helpful; suggesting that we deny troops the ability to communicate with Iraqis isn't.

James Belcher
Brooklyn NYC

The guys on the frontline (may sound antiquated unless it's you down there dodging the bullets) should not need to learn Arabic because they shouldn't be there in the first place. I have no problem with the Marines going overseas to help, as they are doing now, with mudslides in Phillipines. But bombing and invading countries is out of the question. The main purpose for US troops to learn Arabic is not to help in mudslides but oil control. People have to draw the line somewhere. I am not saying being dogmatic and never ever working for the military. Personally, I can only think of very few reasons to do so and thousands not to. But that's just me.

The guys on the frontline (may sound antiquated unless it's you down there dodging the bullets) should not need to learn Arabic because they shouldn't be there in the first place.

1) "Frontline" is an antiquated notion because trench warfare and lines of troops have nothing to do with the urban warfare and IED-bestrewn mess (of our own making) we're dealing with now.
2) "They shouldn't be there in the first place." Well no shit. But they *are* there, and asking them to pay a heavier toll than necessary because they don't have the equipment and skills necessary to survive is idealistically naive at best and cruel at worst. We need a military to protect our country (again, not to fight ill-conceived wars for oil and revenge, granted), and it's not their fault if they were sent on a bullshit mission.

I am not saying being dogmatic and never ever working for the military. Personally, I can only think of very few reasons to do so and thousands not to. But that's just me.

No, it's you, me, and many others. Still, I recognize the need for a military, and for supplying them. Arabic is one of the more innocuous and ultimately healing things I can think of with which to supply them. If we had pursued the stated goal of convincing the Muslim world that we're not The Great Satan (remember that short-lived post-9/11 notion?) instead of invading a country that had nothing to do with attacking us, we would be in far better shape than we are now. Learning to speak the language of those who think we're evil is one of the better ways to support such efforts. If anything, the game should add phrases like "I'm so sorry we invaded, we'll try to help you as best we can."

I don't like the war either. However, I think on a personal level, the soldiers there have a far better chance of realizing the human impact of what's been done there, and finding ways to help instead of hurt, if they can communicate with the people there.

With over 28,000 innocent lives lost* since this war-on-lies began, I wish it had never happened, and I wish they'd pull out. But teaching soldiers to communicate, a huge step towards thinking of the civilians around them as more than just "ragheads" or potential targets, sounds better than nothing to me.

* http://www.iraqbodycount.org

There is no such thing as an ideologically neutral piece of software. Of course, teaching a language is a great thing. However, it does not make sense to see Tactical Iraqi as a game without a context. It is a game to teach Arabic to an Army that illegaly invaded Iraq. The people who worked on this project were aware of that and that is my ethical concern. Sure, you can always try to play it down by saying that communication is always good (I bet that's what they tell themselves so they can sleep by night). Of course, a posteriori, it is better for American soldiers to speak Arabic. But they shouldn't need to because they shouldn't be there in the first place.
Breaking the process into small pieces is a very old military technique for convincing accomplices that they are not doing nothing wrong. Each little piece of the process seems harmless but the whole process can be monstruous. It is always unfair to use an example from the Holocaust but it is also a clear example of how this process work: "I had no idea. I only drove the trains","I had no idea: I only built the camps".
The people who made Tactical Iraqi knew the context of their work. They knew it was going to be used by an oppresive Army. That's the point where they had a choice to be part of it or not. They made their choice. I personally think that their choice was wrong and that's why I am pissed off.

Of course the tactics of breaking it down into small pieces is exactly what you are doing by insisting on seeing the arab language as isloated to the overall ideological flawed Iraq war, when indeed that doesn't need to be the case. However as you argue there is indeed a larger context as suggested by several above. I doubt there is a larger context than human life and well-being - indeed you could argue that we shoudl not tried to remediate problems because we caused them in the first way, but I doubt overweight people would buy the argument when you deny them help or smokers when they are denied medical help - after all we can't support something as unhealty as smoking indirectly be helping them allieviate there problem.

Sorry Simon, I am not sure if I am following you right. My basic point is that this is not simply an Arab teaching tool. It is called "Tactical" after all, not "let's learn Arabic so we can all be friends". Surprisingly, the only examples that their website offers are "Meet and Greet" missions, where you can learn how to "offer somebody a gift" in Arabic. So, after all, this may be a peace and love educational tool! [end sarcasm] :)

This was not conceived as a tool to help to remediate this awful war. If that's been the case, it would not necessarily be a problem in my opinion (even though some people still could have issues even in such situation).

Sure, the game probably has positive effects, too. I definitively prefer US troops who are fluent in Arabic than those who are not. But this is after-the-fact thinking. My only ethical problem is in agreeing to develop a military tool for an invasion Army. Ethical boundaries are always sketchy but that's too good of an excuse for not taking a stand and drawing a line. And that is what really annoys me, that we all tend to relativize things. I am reacting because I believe that sometimes people have to say stop and make a drastic decision. This is not the same as being dogmatic, it simply means that invidivuals do have choices and in cases like these, can chose to just say no. Obviously the developers do not see it this way and they have all the right to do so. I am sure they have a long list of arguments to support their decision. I'd rather take the risk of judging them and be wrong than to keep seeing how this war keeps becoming invisible as if people involved did not have a chance to make a difference.

Gonzalo, it's good to hear dissenting voices about military-oriented serious games, even about games that are ostensibly intended to make soldiers more educated and culturally aware.

These issues apply to me, actually... Since last June, I've been a remote researcher / consultant for ICT (www.ict.usc.edu), the same umbrella academic group where Tactical Iraqi was developed. (I know Hannes, have chatted with him over the years at conferences and symposia, great guy.)

Believe it or not, I'm applying the Façade technology to help build prototypes that would train American soldiers to deal with interpersonal / inter-cultural situations in Iraq. The project doesn't have a military-flavored title like "Tactical Iraqi", but the overall goals are similar: educate soldiers to better deal with civilians.

As you know, military funding (e.g, DARPA) is relatively pervasive in computer science in general, helping fund many researchers, including some you know. (The project I'm consulting on is Army-funded.) Such research, like the interactive narrative research I'm working on for ICT, can be applied to many other domains. (Wasn't the Internet itself originally a military-funded project, to create a robust computer network in the event of nuclear war, that the world now reaps the benefits of? The morality of this stuff is complicated.)

As for my take on this... while I'm personally against military action like we've seen in Iraq, I'm for better-educating soldiers in general. Perhaps my participation in such projects is a form of implicit approval of the war, but it's also potentially helping improve the situation, and the results can theoretically be applied to help other battles, such as, oh, the Ludology vs. Narratology conflict.

Anyhow, I was glad to read your post, and although my comment here may infuriate or frustrate you even more, I felt compelled to speak up.

p.s. on a tangential note — I would love to see a political game commenting on the Danish cartoon situation, especially from certain political game developers living in Denmark...

Hey Andrew,

Don't worry, you were already on my list for your narratological agenda, anyhow ;)

I agree that the morality of this stuff is complicated. The US Military not only gave us the Internet, they gave us videogames, too! I do not doubt good intentions, I do not doubt that Hannes is a great guy and I know for a fact that you are.

Personally, right now, working for the US military and thinking that it could be a good thing, given its recent and not-so-recent record, I consider that naive. But of course, you are American and it makes total sense to want to contribute to your country and even improving things from within. My perspective, as a foreigner (aka the guys who get bombed) is, by both personal and continental history, to be much more reluctant and suspicious.

The US military has a pervasive role in the US society, specially within academia, something that does not happen in other countries. I remember having similar discussions with poor students who take Army scholarships. While I am not a radical pacifist or radical anti-militaristic, I always try to keep a distance from guys in green. And particularly with the US military, and more particularly given its recent record.

I would never doubt about your intentions but I still think that you made a wrong choice. As a friend, my only comment to you is that I think that most of these people cannot be trusted and I recommend you to stay away from them. The safest choice, in my view, is to step aside. There is ample proof that the guy leading them, their Commander in Chief, has other agendas that peace and, guess what, the military follow orders from the guys on top. If they had to chose between your good intentions and the guy with more medals, they usually go for the medals. But, as I said on my previous comment, that's just me speaking. And of course, I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

That being said, I told you before to stay away from narratologists and here we are! And don't even get me started with the Danes, Denmark and their cartoons :)

The previous post is mine, it was not meant to be anonymous. Some trouble with WCG. Damn Military-built Internet! ;)

Following up on Andrew's comments about DARPA funding, I wanted to point readers to Nick Montfort's recent post on Grand Text Auto, after the same BBC article. Nick also references Liz Losh's recent DAC talk about Tactical Iraqi, a paper which anyone interested in this discussion should certainly read.

Among the more pacificst folks I know, one of the "strategies" for dealing with the ethical issues DARPA and other military funding raise is to think of such research as subversive: they'll take the military funding and use the resulting research for initiatives that undermine the military. I wish I had some examples to point to for the discussion, can anyone suggest some?

That said, Gonzalo's strong position on this is one worth taking seriously. The position that any tool that requires one to accept the situation in Iraq explicitly excuses the logic that brought it about. It's not dissimilar to Slavoj Žižek's argument about the borrowed kettle, or his more recent musing on the moral relativism of the TV show 24.

As Andrew points out, for a lot of academics in the states, military funding is an inevitable part of the research career and tenure gauntlet. I think Gonzalo would argue that it's better to flip burgers than acquiesce to this logic. It's worth noting that military funding and academic research (and therefore undergraduate and graduate education, especially computer scientists and engineers) are indeed tightly bound to military and corporate interests, and researchers (all of us) are implicated in this situation.

A question Gonzalo might want to weigh in on: how do we separate the valid and legitimate research (like Hannes's on gestural communication in virtual environments) from these funding situations? Must we simply denounce the research? How far up the chain? A devil's advocate position might go like this: Gonzalo's studio Powerful Robot does work for Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network is owned by Turner, which also owns CNN. Some consider CNN to be largely responsible for creating the contemporary perspective on war -- namely that it exists as images on television rather than as an atrocity in the world. How might you respond to such an objection?

Ian: you don't need to go as far as connecting the dots between my games, Turner and CNN. I am myself a former CNN employee. While I played to be journalist, I certainly tried to speak up from within but I was working on Science and Tech and, while there are politics involved, it is not the same as "real" politics. I do remember once arguing cause he changed my title from "computers used to kill" to "computers used for defense". That being said, I quit CNN before Sept11. Friends who stayed there, told me about an infamous memo where basically journalists where ask to bow down and not question the government. Many journalists did that on big US media, and they later apologized such as The New York Times or the Washington post. Still, while working at CNN I was perfectly aware that it may not offer the most objective info on Earth and that certainly troubled me.

So, here's my own ethical rule of thumb which by no means I claim that it's better than others nor perfect but it's what I usually use to guide me on my decisions. First, trying not to dismiss anything a priori, just out of prejudice. When the US Navy contacted my company and requested a portfolio, my first reaction was not even to answer to them. After thinking about it twice, I thought that it was an unfair reaction. I sent my portfolio and decided to wait what specific request they made have. They never got in touch with me, so that was easy for me :) I would have likely turned them down but I still gave them a chance to surprise me and proposing a project that I would be willing to do.

You also know that when the Republicans wanted to hire us to make a game, I said no (and I'll keep saying no, so Cheney stop emailing me please! ;). You said yes. You had your reasons, I disagreed and told you so, as I just did with Andrew. This may sound wear to most readers, but there was discussion within my team if we should really produce the Dean game. On the short-term level, it seemed like the right thing to do. Some members of my team argued that they do not like US foreign policy, be it Democrat or Republican. Still, it was a very short discussion: we all agreed that it was the right thing to do. Had one of my developers had any issues, I would have spared him/her for working on the project. I would gladly give the benefit of the doubt to Mr Dean. It is not that easy to grant that benefit to the current US Army. It's the fool me once, fool me twice thingie.

And this is mainly the reason behind my post: developers of serious games should not take these analysis lightly. It's a far more risky business than making Super Mario 18 (and much less glamorous). I've been judged because of my games and I feel entitled to pass judgement on my peers. It's the main risk of playing with fire.

In this global world, it's always hard to know who is behind who, and what is connected to what. It's almost impossible to predict the network of consequences of your actions. When I work for a client I set my limits on the foreseable consequences. Let's say that I try to take a sincere "to the best of my knowledge". In this particular example that you chose, even though I may disagree with, say, CNN on many cases, it doesn't nearly concern me as much as working for a weapons manufacturer or a group of people with a record of burning children alive with Napalm (ok, that token example is pretty old, blame my hippie parents for that. The pics of Abu Ghraib may be a more updated example). I am a media theorist, I know that media can play a despicable role in framing conflicts, in many cases as relevant as actual aggressions, and it is hard to find news groups that are innocent of this. Btw, this is why I quit journalism. Still, I hope you agree that comparin g journalists, no matter how biased they may be (and CNN is not that bad after all :), with people pulling triggers is a bit far-fetched. My first rule is not to support people who pull triggers or do immediate harm, because it's the safest choice. There are infinite degrees of the secondary ones, the ones in fuzzy situations, which may or not contribute to world peace and may or may not produce harm. I cannot foresee if the shareholder of my clients will do good or bad: that's the cross that I have to bear, as everybody else that lives in a global economy. Sometimes I need to improvise, sometimes I need to chose the less of two evils. But I don't work for the guys pulling triggers. That's where I draw my line. And it's a pretty easy line to draw. Again, just check who they are taking orders from.

First, on the republicans, which I knew you were going to raise. I didn't make any compromise. I don't equate "republican" with "the Bush administration." We talked with the group we worked for (which, by the way, was staffed largely by former local Dean supporters) . Local politics is complex and unique everywhere, and "republican" means something very different from place to place, and it serves as a shorthand for a wide range of complex political positions. Opposing "the republicans" is like opposing Texans because GW Bush is from Texas.

Next, I certainly agree that serious games creators must contend with the ongoing ethical issues of their games.

Those who are following the Tactical Iraqi thread here and at Grand Text Auto should also check out yesterday's story on Public Radio International about the game. A word of warning: praise for having civilian teenagers tool around in this game recreationally may be a little hard to listen to, if you already have concerns about its use with soldiers. I've also posted my full DAC paper on the game online, In Country with Tactical Iraqi: Trust, Identity, and Language Learning in a Military Video Game. To be fair to those at the ICT, it's true that the research team at Tactical Iraqi was relatively forthcoming when I expressed concerns about the human subjects problems, gender biases, and secondary literacy shortcomings of the game that I identified.
In the wake of all the publicity that Tactical Iraqi has received in the last few months, I find myself with an even more serious reservation about the game, which crystallized after reading Max Boot’s article, “Navigating the ‘human terrain,’” in which Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, enthuses about visiting “the Expeditionary Warfare School, where captains study Arabic by playing a sophisticated computer game complete with animated characters.” It was then that I realized that the purpose of the game might be rhetorical not pedagogical. Despite what the researchers thought they were doing, perhaps it was primarily intended to SHOW the teaching of Arabic to policy makers and the general public not actually TEACH Arabic more effectively. Traditional classroom teaching doesn't make for a good media spectacle, but a video game might.
I've been looking at several Iraq-themed government-funded video games of late, and I fear that this manipulation of serious gaming may be part of a larger insidious trend. These public relations exercises potentially include Ambush! (another DARWARS game) and the simulation Virtual Iraq, which seem to be devoted more to creating a convincing DISPLAY that soldiers' anxieties about the risk of IED's and post-traumatic stress disorder upon returning to civilian life are being addressed rather than facilitating a LEARNING SITUATION that would actually give them tools to protect soldiers' physical and psychic health.I think this generalization could also be true of certain government-funded terrorism civil defense games that may not actually make us in the United States any safer, such as the The Anthrax Simulation from Public Health Games or The Virtual Terrorism Response Academy. In other words, are these games and simulations intended primarily to train or to show training? For those of us writing about serious games and who believe in facilitating learning with interactive multimedia, this may be a fundamental failure for DARPA to play fair on many fronts.

Well said. I totally agree with you. The point you are making here mean a lot.

Now all we need is someone who works for EA to chime in, to represent all wealthy forces of shameful game development, right? ;-)

> you are American and it makes total sense to want to contribute to your country and even improving things from within

Well, yes — I don't mind that aspect, although that's not my primary reason for participating. I'd guess many (even most) researchers that work on military funded projects do so because the research is mutually beneficial, i.e., it helps fund personal research goals that are more general than (or even different from) the military's particular goals. (Again, working on military funded projects is a bit of an anomaly for me.) Or even more extreme, as Ian suggests, some researchers may be subversive about it.

Ideally of course, the military uses such research in morally acceptable ways, as I hope my contribution would be — e.g. cultural education. Naive? Well the truth is, the interactive narrative research I'm doing is somewhat general, and I would want to be working on similar work even if it weren't military funded, and would want to make the technology available for license; the military would then be free to just license that directly. That is, there's no way to stop the military from applying multi-purpose technology in ways that are objectionable; the fact that they fund its initial creation accelerates technology coming into being, but if they didn't fund it, or I and everyone else chose to not work on it, that wouldn't ultimately stop the technology from being created (ie, eventually we'd find ways to fund it), and the military would still be able to apply it. (This isn't the case for super-specialized technologies, like weapons systems.)

> I would never doubt about your intentions but I still think that you made a wrong choice. As a friend, my only comment to you is that I think that most of these people cannot be trusted and I recommend you to stay away from them. The safest choice, in my view, is to step aside.

Fair enough, and I truly appreciate your advice and perspective. I'll give it some more thought.

"..get out of my country you butchers.."?

As they say in the USA, WTF?

I live in the UAE. I know at least 12 Iraqi people personally. Men and women. Gonzalo, where are you from?

Who are you to pass judgement? Are you monolingual? Have you ever been to the Middle East?

Winston Churchill once said something along the lines of, "Some see difficulty in opportunity, while others see opportunity in difficulty." This particular wisdom should be considered carefully.

Hey Dahi,

Just a quick foreword before I reply to your post. I am all for debating the war itself, however it is not exactly the topic that it's being discussed on this thread which is the moral responsibilty of developers of serious games.

That being said, and just for the sake of information (not just for you but to other readers too) I am from South America, live in Europe, know Iraqis (I haven't counted them though), I speak 3 languages (and fractions) and yes, I've been to the Middle East (the food is great, btw).

About the middle finger body expression, if you read carefully what I wrote, I am not arguing that all Iraqis believe that (even though there is ample proof that many do). The question of what the US should do next (how to exit a country that they messed up without leaving it in total chaos) is a fascinating topic but not the one that I think we are discussing here. But feel free to email me if you want to discuss this topic further.

I have enjoyed this conversation thread here and admit that I sympathize with both points of view. Being a peace activist myself, I had to overcome a great deal of stigma before accepting technical lead on the project. But two things in particular made this easier:

(1) When I met in person a group of soldiers that had just returned from duty in Iraq I was struck by their awareness of the mess they were in and their desperation to get out of there alive - and to them, being able to make friends not enemies was absolutely crucial for their own survival. It was this cry for help at a very personal level, not at the level of government, that touched me.

(2) The game rewards non-violence over violence - in fact, you fail the game immediately if things start to take a violent turn. I got a certain kick out of removing all weapons from this Unreal Tournament mod. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the soldiers were not too annoyed by this, instead they really got into the groove of finding out how to say things like "pleasure to meet you". I hadn't seen anything like it since I first saw a group of die-hard FPS veterans huddled around The Sims playing doll house. In my mind, coming up with an engaging alternative to violent gaming is a challenge worth tackling.

There are of course lines I will not cross when it comes to doing work that the military puts to use. And believe me, discussing where those lines lie and how we as scientists can adhere to a code of ethics is a frequent topic of grave conversation while we sip our lattes in the sun.

So, these are just some things to consider, but I don't expect being able to convince Gonzalo to abandon his ideals. In fact, I praise him for keeping them so clear-cut. However I would be saddened if they prevented him from treating the like-minded but "less idealistic" members of the serious games community as colleagues.

A journalist recently asked me: "so, you work on identifying persuasion techniques in videogames. What if your research falls into the wrong hands?" It is a valid question. Whoever develops tools will face this dilemma and have to live with it. However, I think there is a difference between "developing X that could be used for harm by A" and "helping A so they can use X". In the first case, it's A's moral responsibility the one that is at stake. In the second it is mine. Certainly, not the more clear-cut distinction but I think it is a valid one.

A point that I want to insist on -because I believe it is at the root of the different views on this subject- is the role of the military in US academics. The US military funds a lot of research and grants scholarships to many students who wouldn't have the means for an education. This is so enrooted in the US academics that most Americans take it for granted. However, it doesn't have to be like this. In fact, in many developed countries it is not like this at all. It is perfectly feasible that the government creates scholarships without blackmailing students into joining the military. I use the term blackmail because these kids do not have an option: education is very expensive in the States and flipping burgers can hardly pay for it. I don't know about drug selling but prostitution would be a better moral alternative, at least in my book. I am not being sarcastic, I am being serious (actually, this argument perfectly matches the "make love, not war" cliche). I do think that trading military training for education is a low form of blackmail. Education should be free, with no str.ings attached, especially in the richest country in the world. But well, I am off topic, since we are not discussing scholarships here, that's a different subject.

We usually talk with Ian about how hard it is for us to wear many hats on this serious games environment. On the one hand, we are critics; on the other hands we are developers. On the one hand I find a game such as America's Army a fascinating example of propaganda, worth of all my interest. On the other, I find its main purpose to be despicable. The serious games environment puts you among very interesting, unexpected company. That includes politicians, groups like Hezbollah, NGOs, armies and government agencies, game developers. As a researcher, I find all their work fascinating. As a person, things get more complicated. They may not all be my friends on a personal level (but many are indeed) but, like it or not, we are all embarked on a similar boat.

I really want to thank you Hanne for your honest comment. What I wrote was wrong, we are indeed colleagues even if we may agree or not with our actions or ideas. And I do not doubt that many scientists do seriously consider the moral implications of working for the Army (after all, it is not a secret that they haven't behaved like the Girl Scouts for the last half a century) or any other with a morally questionable record. I reacted in the post because I am sick of the moral ambiguity of this world. I am sick that many, many times Western journalists ask me about serious games and they are astonished that Hezbollah makes videogames but the idea that Western videogames can be morally problematic never crosses their head. I am sick that a military funded videogame is being only shown in the media as a mere language teaching tool, without at least questioning its possible role in the larger picture. I certainly have many more doubts than clear-cut certitudes (actually, I have very few of the latter). But what I wanted to say is that the situation is not hopeless and that many times we do have a choice. We live in a global world and it is particularly important to understand that the work decisions of Americans (or non-Americans working for the US) can have more impact than, say, the Peruvian's. The rest of the world does not get to vote on American elections but its consequences are felt globally. The rest of the world cannot decide to work or not for this or that US military project but its consequences are felt globally. And before continuing I just want to clarify for the people who don't know me that this has nothing to do with Anti-Americanism. It is just a consequence of the role of the US in our world (other countries also play important roles and if Peru was the leading country in the world, I'd be probably focusing on Peru right now). In other words, even if we agree or not, you guys have to be aware (and many of you are but many others are not) that the consequences of your actions can be amplified beyond what is usually expected. Because, as my friend Spiderman likes to say, "with great power, comes great responsibility".

Allow me to extend my middle finger to you on behalf of all my friends in the US military. Your ignorant, gross generalizations are completely misguided and out of touch with reality, if not just pseudo-intellectual BS. If you have a problem with the war, take it up with those who set the policy, not those who are forced to deal with the aftermath. Shame on you who criticize the fostering of communication, especially when that is what we need most to clean up the mess that is Iraq.

Dear Shameless...that's the part of your anonymous communication I wish to ex-pose...

No, I will NOT allow you to extend your middle finger to Gonzalo. There, in language I reject your linguistic gesture. What we are engaging in, in this discussion, is language about language about the 'end' of language, ie violence and war. When language stops, wars begin. When we stop languaging with one another, we start killing one another. Gonazlo is spot on in recognizing the chain of responsibility game developers are enmeshed in when it comes to complicity in a war he is against. He is also a critical theorist, one who works to expose ideologies in all forms of cultural expression...most specifically, in his case, computer games.

He is neither 'ignorant,' as you suggest (which contains the verb 'to ignore'...which he most certainly has not done); neither is he making gross misguided generalizations, since those are subjective accusations attached to an argumentative fallacy (generlization). The generalizations he makes, as we all do, are necessary in order to make claims. He can support all of these generalizations, I am sure...if necessary. For the sake of argument, I hope he does not. I can accept his generalizations. As for being out of touch with reality...whose definition of reality do we use? Yours? And the 'pseudo-intellectual BS' comment is pretty lame, don't you think? We all know there is a huge anti-intellectualism in the U.S., and it just shows you sit squarely in the thick of mainstream ignorance, ie., you CHOOSE 'to ignore' and you choose NOT to think. Thinking IS doing, however. It IS a form of action. Pseudo-thinking is never how I would characterize Gonzalo's work. And shaming him for criticizing the fostering of communication (which is not an accurate description of what his critique is doing) is like shaming yourself...do you not criticize the fostering of thinking?

I looked up 'pseudo-intellectual BS' in the dictionary, and it contained Cynthia Haynes' response word for word!

Thinking is not doing. Look it up in any english dictionary.

Bandying words and arguing over definitions is not doing either.

I don't think there is "a huge anti-intellectualism" in the US, but there is definately "a huge anti-stupid" in my social circles.

If the way you and Frasca talk is intellectualism, then you embody this quote: 'Intellectuals are people whose education has exceeded their intelligence'

Ill informed and moronic.

The military has been teaching languages for decades. You've just never taken it upon yourself to learn about it. One of the most respected language institutes in the world is run by the military in Montery, CA.

So, now, someone puts it on a CD and it matters. Naturally, if your logic holds, soldiers learn french to control champagne, mandarin to control tea, and german to control chocolate.

Knee jerk, morality de jur, hop on the bus thinking.