https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=-gJgowCSJ0A
I’m curious about how your views developed and what they are now about the issue of women in combat. Now, when we’ve opened up the military to female participation, and generally speaking, it appears that opening up avenues of participation to women has immense benefits for women, if handled correctly for children, certainly on the economic front. It doubles the pool of available talent for everyone. I know the best predictor of development in the third world is rights accorded to women, especially on the economic front. So that all looks like a good thing. But then, you know, I have my skepticism about the practical and ethical utility of placing women on the front lines, for example, in battle positions. And there’s obviously a huge disparity in physical strength and probably an innate aggression. And that could go one way or another because it isn’t completely obvious that the most aggressive soldiers are the best, even though that might seem self-evident. Now, you’ve been there. So what did you conclude about the integration of women into the armed forces? What’s good about that and what’s not good about it? Assuming there is anything not good about it. My position on this, and this is based on my experience, is that we should have the best people for the job, whatever that job may be, the people who are best equipped, who are best trained, who have the capabilities, both, you know, mental, emotional and physical. And that women on their face, simply for their gender, should not be disqualified from various jobs simply because of that. I have served alongside, obviously, many men and women, people who have been very good at their jobs because of their skills and their capabilities and others who don’t have those skills and capabilities. And so whether those jobs are serving as an infantry soldier or an artillery soldier, in a combat unit or a support unit, what I want, both as a soldier, who I want to be serving alongside, but also I think when you look at this from a policy perspective, what we should want as a country is we need the best people who are going to do, who are best equipped to do the job. Not all women are best equipped to serve in a combat unit. Not all men are best equipped to serve in a combat unit. So there should not be an arbitrary standard simply based on gender, but rather set the standard and if you meet the standard, whether you’re a man or a woman, then you want the job, go get it. I don’t believe in… Yeah, so it’s pure merit-based evaluation as far as you’re concerned. Correct. I guess that would bring up, that brings up two problems, I suppose, is one is that there are physical standards set for jobs like firefighter and policeman and obviously military practitioner, and those standards, especially in elite units, are extremely high. I mean, they’re high enough so most men can’t manage them at all and because of the difference, especially in upper body strength, women have a lot of stamina, but difference in upper body strength really differentiates men from women. If the physical standards are set high enough to exclude, say, 95% of men, they’re going to exclude virtually all women. And then the question comes up, well, should you keep the standards? And obviously some level of physical prowess is necessary, but if the standard is 100% exclusionary on the sex front, then it raises the question of whether the standard itself is sexist, let’s say, in a counterproductive manner. And so… Sure. I think the question is, what is the basis for the standard? And I know that there are some standards that have been set traditionally and in the military, this is an elite unit, so the standards must be exclusionary, so we only get the most elite people. But are those standards simply based on a concept of elite-ism, I guess, in this context, or are they set based on the conditions that soldiers serving in that particular unit will be likely to face? Are they based on the reality of the requirements of the job? And so if we’re in a situation, and there are jobs both in the military, as you mentioned, and there are service responders and others, if those standards are set on a realistic assessment of what this job will require, and it turns out that, hey, one out of 100 women who apply actually qualifies, then so be it. Whatever, if there are a greater number of men who qualify, then so be it. If we have people who get these jobs who cannot do the job, then it’s pointless, and it puts the entire unit and mission at risk in doing so. 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Genucel.com slash jordan. Well, there’s a measurement science that’s been devoted to this for a long time, and there are actually guidelines for psychologists who do assessment, let’s say, in relationship to a particular job. Some of those are enshrined in appropriate law, and the notion is, first of all, that you have to do a job analysis, which is, okay, what is it that the people who are doing this job, who are good at it, spend the bulk of their time doing? And you can measure that, although that’s not easy. For example, it’s not that easy to measure the performance of a middle manager, for example, in a corporation, because the outcomes are difficult to specify. But you can do a better or worse job of that, and if you do a good job, then you can find out what predicts prowess, and you can do that statistically. And then you define merit, right? Merit is what makes it likely that you will do very well doing whatever this job is for. That’s merit. And that can be handled properly. The problem is, as you alluded to, if you accept merit defined in that manner as the gold standard, then you’re going to have to accept the outcome, which is that there isn’t going to be radical equity at all levels of analysis in the candidate pool. And so you have to forego that. And it certainly seems, I would say, that on the left side of things now, people are almost entirely unwilling to forego that equity outcome. I mean, even Kamala Harris, who should have known better, tweeted out a few weeks ago her support for this concept of equity. And people who aren’t paying attention think that means equality of opportunity, which is not what it means at all, which is why it’s a different word. It means that if the outcomes of the selection process aren’t equal across all conceivable combinations of ethnicity and gender, sex, etc., that intersectional morass, then the system is by definition exclusionary and prejudiced. And that, well, that just kills merit, assuming that merit is not completely equally distributed. Now, one other question on the female front. So one of the things that’s disturbed my conscience with regards to women on the front lines is that there’s always the possibility that you’ll fall into the hands of the enemy. And it wasn’t very much fun for, let’s say, British and American prisoners of war in Nazi camps in World War II, although there were some Geneva Convention arrangements that were still in place. But I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a front line woman who fell into enemy hands. I mean, that’s a level of absolute bloody catastrophic hell that I think that we should be very, very cautious about exposing anyone to. And so I have a proclivity to think that women are differentially susceptible to exploitation on the captured enemy front. And I don’t know exactly, you know, given credence to what you say about making sure we have the most qualified people, you know, maybe you can ask people to face their death. I don’t know if it’s okay to ask them to face endless gang rape and then death. You know, that’s pushing the envelope. And so I don’t know what you think about that. I imagine that thoughts of that sort must have gone through your mind from time to time. Sure. It is the most… War is tragic and ugly, to say the least. And you’re facing some of the most horrific conditions, which is one of the reasons why I don’t support the draft, is because as a soldier, I don’t want to be serving alongside anybody who hasn’t made that choice to be there, who hasn’t made that choice to be willing. To make those sacrifices, not only to give up one’s life in service to our country, but to face the plethora of what could be the absolute worst case scenarios. That’s my perspective. And so whether it’s those scenarios are facing a male or a female soldier, these are some of the things that, you know, both the training of the practical implications, but obviously the mental preparation for how anything could possibly go bad is essential before sending troops into that situation. Okay, so your sense, it sounds like your sense is that, you know, if people have been fully apprised of the risks, and I think we outlined the most substantive risk on the female side, if people are fully apprised of that risk and there’s evidence that they actually understand what that means, which is no simple matter, that it’s okay to allow them to make that choice. But that’s partly why you introduced the idea that there’s no compulsion in military conscription, also partly because you don’t get the best out of people if they’re compelled, obviously.