Donhauser's Lords of Discipline

I view the current storytelling movement as an outgrowth of postmodernism. Postmodernism is characterized by critique, irony/ionic humor, mockery, parody, playfulness, disorientation, things that are symbolically rich and meaningful, multiple perspectives, conflict, the discontinuity of traditions, contradiction, ambiguity, paradox, metaphors, a strong aesthetic dimension, diversity and multiplicity, fragmentation, as well as questioning pre-established rules, values, expectations, right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, and underlying faith in reason and science.

Postmodernism means seeing organizations as texts, narratives, discourse, stories.

Postmodernism also means fusing modern techniques with traditional concerns. We can never get away from traditional oral narrative culture because we think in story; that’s how our brains are wired.

postmodern writing involves a blurring of boundaries. The most popular permutation of this is blurring the boundary between the reader or viewer and the fiction — for example, a TV show that acknowledges that it is not real.

postmodern writing involves a blurring of boundaries.

At this point, many different people can have several different theories of what they saw and what it all means. The great part is no one can be wrong either because it was designed to be fluid. People all over the country are talking about their theories today at work, school, and Facebook but there is no right answer. The main thing is everyone at the end were together and going to a happy place. Simply cool! That’s a powerful example of postmodernism. No right answer, just enjoy the experience, and all are happy at the end.

So what is postmodernism? One way of explaining it is this… A rejection of the idea that there is a certain truth and that there are multiple ways to understand pretty much anything.

Whereas modernism was primarily concerned with principles such as identity, unity, authority, and certainty, postmodernism is often associated with difference, plurality, textuality, and skepticism.

in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial.

In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually

Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.

The authentic postmodern response is to suggest that we consider ‘both/and ‘ possibilities rather than ‘either/or’.

During this process extensive debates may occur among those who come to far different conclusions but eventually one school of thought wins out and this school is is now considered to be the  exclusive holder of the sole  ‘truth’.  This truth is passed on from generation to generation and (just as happens in science) it is increasingly saddled with subordinate ‘truths’ that help protect it from confrontations with contradictory ideas and evidence.

When the school admits its first black student, McLean is confidentially charged with making sure that the newcomer's initiation does not get too violent. Yet that is exactly what happens, and McLean becomes alarmed when it seems like someone is out to kill his new charge

Born Donald Patrick Conroy, he was the eldest of seven children (five boys and two girls) born to Marine Colonel Donald Conroy, of Chicago

Being a man of honor and a senior cadet leaves him no choice but to take on the task. Will discovers problems much deeper than he ever expected. Don't avoid this masterful novel thinking that it's a military book; it is much more than that. Honor, honesty, integrity, justice and the struggle for these ideals are the heart of Conroy's novel. He uses the milieu of a Southern military academy in 1966 to drive home themes perfectly suited to such a setting. The military academy is the canvas, not the painting.

There are also rumors of a powerful and clandestine group of Institute students and alumni called The Ten. While nothing has come forward to prove their existence, the possibility of such a group casts a cloud over the Corps of Cadets.

Although Conroy drew on his experiences as a cadet at The Citadel, as well as stories from similar military schools such as Norwich University and the Virginia Military Institute, during the 1960s to create the setting for the story, he has explicitly stated that the novel's plot and principal characters are a product of his imagination.

Will McLean, the narrator and protagonist of Pat Conroy's The Lords of Discipline, is a young man struggling to balance the paradoxical realities of freedom and discipline, individuality and group loyalty, personal honor and responsibility to others. A student at Carolina Military Institute (modeled in part on the Citadel, Conroy's alma mater), Will is, by his own definition, a "rebel," a skeptic who first questions and later seeks to eradicate the cruel, inhuman harassment and abuse of first-year students that is intentionally designed to be "the toughest plebe system in the world." McLean is not at all a rebel, however, when he first enrolls in the Institute; on the contrary, he is eager to follow in the footsteps of his father, a graduate of the school and a marine captain decorated for heroism during World War II.

In succeeding weeks, throughout the phase of initiation called "The Taming," upperclassmen, especially a secret group of vigilantes known as The Ten, use every means available to force any cadet deemed unworthy or undesirable to withdraw from school

to a young career military officer

credits for his love of language.

His father was a violent and abusive m

After college, he became a high school English teacher and spent a summer traveling through Europe with friends

He eventually took a job teaching sheltered and barely literate African American children on Daufuskie Island off the South Carolina coast.

John Milton, in his Tractate on Education, described a complete education one that prepares the individual to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously, all offices both public and private, of peace and war.1 This is the essence of a Citadel education. Since its inception in 1842, The Citadel has sought to prepare its graduates intellectually, physically and morally to be principled leaders and productive citizens in all walks of life.