Thread by @Stonekettle

Common Response:

Mandatory Service would "force people to travel away from [home] and would allow them to meet/see people from other areas."

With the implied assumption that being forced to travel and meet others would make for better people.

1/

https://twitter.com/KarenK44344/status/1062858862305243136

As part of my service I traveled to other countries and met other people. For example, I invaded Iraq and helped kill Iraqis.

Did that make me a better person? More understanding of other cultures? More tolerant of diversity? More accepting of others?

2/

My dad was sent to Korea -- during the Korean War.

As a result, he hated and feared Asian people ("Orientals" he would say if he was being polite, "Gooks" if he wasn't) for the rest of his life.

Did travel to distant lands and exposure to others make him better?

3/

Now, I live in The South. White people and PoC live together here, but weirdly separate. Maybe it's not true everywhere else in the South, but here it's as if White and Black inhabit different planes of reality, passing each other without notice or acknowledgement.

4/

Here, the Confederate flags still flies. Here racism is still a daily fact of life.

Exposure to each other seems to have no measurable effect.

5/

I once spent a delightful hour talking to science fiction writer Joe Haldeman and his wife. Haldeman is famous for writing a classic work called "The Forever War" based in part on his experience as a combat wounded veteran of Vietnam.

Something he said stuck with me...

6/

Joe said "Nothing in my wartime experience made me more conservative."

And yet, for many of his contemporaries, it was the opposite. Their experience in the rice paddies and the jungle made them more like my dad.

7/

My son: military brat, grew up all over the world, exposed to many people, many places, many cultures. Kind and smart and tolerant and married a woman who was also a military kid and who shares his worldview. I believe they are who they are because of their experience.

8/

I would suggest to you that the basic underlying assumption, i.e. broader life experience makes for better people, is likely true in a general sense,

HOWEVER

it's the KIND of experience which determines the outcome (again, generally speaking).

9/

THUS: It's not enough to just throw people out of their comfort zone into forced interaction with other different people and cultures.

If the OBJECTIVE is to create citizens with greater empathy and understanding, then the process must be directed. Led. Mentored. GUIDED.

10/

You can't just say "mandatory national service." You have to have concrete objectives, a clear understanding of the objectives, a methodology for achieving the objectives, and a way to measure your effectiveness.

Otherwise you're likely to get disaster.

11/

This was the point of my comments today.

You want to make people better. Define better. Define the methodology for achieving better. Define how you'll measure it.

Without that clear understanding, then an undertaking of such complexity is doomed from the start.

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