How did they accomplish the rarest of military feats?

How did they accomplish the rarest of military feats?

The people, who made up Israel and considered for centuries to be non fighters, were surrounded on three sides and facing a far superior enemy 'accomplished the rarest of military feats', they shattered the enemy forces 'within a given time and with an absence of blunder'.

Fighting that began in May of 1948 ended in January 1949 when an armistice was signed. The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) realized that they had 'won a state but not the peace'.

The major surprise was the performance of the 'espresso' generation; given this name because they were considered to have discarded the traditional Jewish ideals while lazing about drinking espresso in the local cafes. It was this generation that, when challenged and well led, performed this 'rarest of military feats'.

From what I have read there is a small (35%) absolute difference in the intellectual potential between extremes in normal humans. When we examine specific individuals we can detect a gigantic difference (1000%?) in accomplishment. When we compare Winston Churchill with the others we see this difference and when we compare the Israeli nation in this situation with other nations we see this difference.

The difference is illuminated not only when comparing one person with another or one nation with another but it is startling in the difference in accomplishment of humans in matters of technology versus matters of 'reasoning together'.

We live in two very different worlds; a world of technical and technological order and clarity, and a world of personal and social disorder and confusion. We are increasingly able to solve problems in one domain and increasingly endangered by our inability to solve problems in the other.

Science solves puzzles. The logic of the paradigm insulates the professional group from problems that are unsolvable by that paradigm. One reason that science progresses so rapidly and with such assurance is because the logic of that paradigm allows the practitioners to work on problems that only their lack of ingenuity will keep them from solving.

Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes 'what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?' Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as 'good' and 'right'.

There is a striking difference between the logic of technical problems and that of dialectical problems. The principles, methods and standards for dealing with technical problems and problems of 'real life' are as different as night and day. Real life problems cannot be solved using deductive and inductive reasoning.

In summary:

Humans differ greatly in achievement even though potential as measured by intellectual capacity is small.

Humans perform grandly in matters of technology but are wimps in performance in matters communication and reasoning together.

I find this to be a puzzlement? Do you have any answers?

Quotes from Practicing History by Barbara Tuchman

quote:

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Humans differ greatly in achievement even though potential as measured by intellectual capacity is small.

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The competent tend to regard their success as luck. The lucky tend to regard their success as a product of competence.

quote:

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Humans perform grandly in matters of technology but are wimps in performance in matters communication and reasoning together.

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Technology is pretty much cut-and-dried. Demonstrable. Mechanistic. Repeatable. Consistent. Relatively few variables.

Communication/reason is very fuzzy by comparison. Highly dependent on context. Full of feints and parries, twists and turns, subtlety and nuance. A larger number of variables. Not nearly as repeatable or consistent, often a matter of opinion.

Enough variation in that to explain why humans can be pretty savvy at one and pretty sloppy at the other. I think this is probably a logical/predictable outgrowth/consequence of evolution itself -- the mind is generally geared to solve relatively concrete problems, where "concrete" refers to relatively obvious cause/effect, acting on information provided to the brain through the senses. And that's only valuable, evolutionarily speaking, insofar as it confers a survival/reproductive advantage. It doesn't take a huge amount of computing power to get a survival edge -- insects aren't that bright, but they do just fine navigating their way through the environment. All the other stuff that humans get so attached to, as interesting as it is, is mostly sideshow as far as evolution is concerned. Ultimately, it either survives long enough to reproduce or it doesn't.

That's my take, anyway. For whatever it's worth. Judging from the import/value of most of what I say, it's free and worth every penny of it.

NicOTime


I am convinced that our civilization cannot endure for another 200 years if the citizens of the world do not quickly become significantly more intellectually sophisticated. Our great capacity for creating technology is not matched by our ability to create a moral understanding which will permit us to control our technology. Our species is at the end of its rope if we do not drastically change.

Coberst:

I suspect you're right. We may be more resilient in the long haul than I'm giving us credit for. But we also may not appreciate just how fragile our position actually is.

If nothing else, we're victims of the curse, "May you live in interesting times." And life in all its myriad forms is, if nothing else, one of the most incredibly interesting and entertaining things I could possibly imagine.

Try admitting that the U.S. provided intelligence and military support and satellite imagery that helped.

I believe that when people are in stressfull situations that's when they really start thinking. Humanbeings individually and naked with no tools are a weak species, but together with our hands we can manipulate our surroundings for our survival. But at the moment its as if the human race has been put on constant survival mode with a very left brain approach. I think its time to chill out and think more with our right side.