J.L. Austin, still in his 20s, was teaching philosophy at Oxford when World War II interrupted. What armies should do with philosophers is an interesting question. The British Army, then fearing invasion, sent Austin through training as an intelligence officer and then posted him to the section that monitored Germany, the German army and specific army units.
M.W. Rowe, who has a new biography of Austin, said:
A young intelligence officer’s first task on jointing a headquarters section was to ‘read his way into the war.’ This meant assimilating reports and minutes of meetings, and also reading the foreign press — German magazines and newspapers came largely via the diplomatic bag from Switzerland — in case it carried any unintentionally informative photographs or articles.
Austin seems to have read 14 hours a day for weeks before he was allowed to touch anything of significance.
The passage strikes me as a good metaphor for how each person orients himself or herself to the world.
Intelligence people look for changes. If an enemy unit — say a unit made up of a couple of armored divisions under Erwin Rommel — is about to ship from Europe to North Africa, the routines of those divisions and the people who lead them will change in some way.
But you have to know the routine to see the change. Unless you know the what’s routine, you have no way of knowing what kinds of things count as a significant departure from the routine.
Rowe argues that it’s likely that Austin was the junior officer at headquarters who saw the Afrika Korps coming. (He makes a case for the possibility, rather than the fact.)
But it seems to me that every young student is in a similar position. Until you learn something of the world, its history, its patterns of thinking, you are not in position to distinguish what’s significant.
I think a good education allows you to “read your way” into the world.
• M.W. Rowe, J.L. Austin: Philosopher & D-Day Intelligence Officer; Oxford University Press, 2023, p. 176.
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