Reply #42: Funny, I just had an experience related to this a week ago.

[eomer]

I recently received a fund raising call from the University of Texas (I'm an alumnus). The student on the phone helpfully explained that the College of Liberal Arts had a new grant from the Department of Defense for a program to train in languages and culture of the Middle East. The DoD would then use these graduates for its work in the region.

The student caller was a female philosophy major, very nice, and was only doing what they directed her to do in her part-time job, so I tried to be nice in my response. But, rather than a donation (and I normally would have been inclined to give at least a small amount), what she got was a lengthy discussion essentially about how war (and therefore the DoD) wasn't the answer unless you were a bigwig at a multi-national corporation.

Previous to this call I already had an idea that corporatism was infesting universities. But I hadn't really thought about the potential for programs even in a college of liberal arts. Also, I was saddened by the thought of a philosophy major having to do this work on behalf of the military industrial complex in order to make it through college.