Because Ideas Matter...
The faculty and staff of Butler University's College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences presents
Recommended Readings
The
Chickenhawk Syndrome: War, Sacrifice, and Personal
Responsibility
by Cheyney Ryan, Rowman and Littlefield, 2009
Reviewed by Harry van der Linden
In The Chickenhawk Syndrome, author Cheyney
Ryan argues that we are living in a time of alienated wars.
The American public typically readily supports its political
leaders when they opt for war, but most Americans remain detached
from the wars fought in their name in that they are not prepared to
make personal sacrifices for their wars. The epitome of the
alienated war are the Chickenhawks who enthusiastically endorse
wars such as the recent Iraq War but fail even to consider to
volunteer to fight in them or to encourage their loved ones to do
so. Ryan claims that chickenhawks are moral hypocrites,
especially when they are elected politicians, and he proposes the
"Murtha test" for morally honorable support of a given war: if you
are not prepared to risk your own life to fight it -or encourage
your loved ones to do so - then you ought not to support the
war. For Ryan, the real purpose of the Murtha test is not to
end alienated wars as such, but to end all wars in a time when
sacrifice for the nation has ceased to be a noble personal ideal
for most citizens. This book offers a strong argument against
the ready public support of recent American interventions,
maintaining that it was morally shallow. The increasing replacement
of American soldiers by private military contractors and remote
control killing machines makes the concerns raised by Ryan all the
more urgent.
- Harry van der Linden is Department Chair and Professor of
Philosophy at Butler University.