[Buddha-l] Students as potential spooks?

[Richard Hayes]

Dear denizens,

At my university there is an entity known as the National Security Studies Program. Its purpose is to recruit students for a career in various "intelligence" operations in the US government. NSSP is especially eager to recruit students in religious studies. (I somehow doubt that specialists in Indian Buddhism are at the top of their wish list, but ¿Quién sabe? A Mādhyamaka logic-twister might make a perfect Minister of Disinformation.)

I'm getting old and find myself increasingly baffled by and alienated from current academic culture (as, come to think of it, I have been my whole life, so maybe age is not a factor after all). Idealist that I am, I still think of students in philosophy and religious studies as the next generation of scholars, teachers, dissidents, anarchists and gadflies, and it breaks my heart to think of them instead as the next generation of spies. Of course, I am aware the texts on effective governance in ancient India recommended Buddhist monks as ideal spies, because everyone trusts monks and they hear a lot from ordinary people, but I think I had always assumed (or at least hoped) those texts were being ironic for comic effect. 

Please tell me I'm not alone in seeing the recruitment of students into spookwork as yet another sign that America has totally lost its moral compass and has drifted into treacherous and hazardous waters. 

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
(name of university classified information)