Description

For centuries and millennia in cultures throughout the world, what Jack Kerwick and Al Ridenhour refer to as the “the Warrior-Scholar” persona was extolled as an ideal of human excellence embodied by those the social order depended for its preservation and success. In contemporary times, this ideal has largely been lost. It is the authors’ contention that the Western world would be well-served by restoring the Warrior-Scholar ideal to the pride of place it once enjoyed.

In history, this ideal was equated with manhood, but early in recorded history, no less a figure than Plato argued for the inclusion of women among the guardian class in his ideal Republic. The authors do not intend to second guess Plato. Rather, they make it clear that the Warrior-Scholar ideal also offers women a goal worth pursuing. The martial dispositions of the warrior, the intellectual strengths of the scholar, and the seamless combination of these two sets of virtues are equally available to men and women alike.

Kerwick and Ridenhour supply us with a vision—a moral vision—and guidance for how in the here and now, individuals can manifest the Warrior-Scholar ideal in their lives.