Deep Politics Forum

Three Articles on Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test




This article is the first, by Jason Leopold, Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test Comes Under Fire.


The second is Martin Seligman's Response to Truthout's Jason Leopold's Report on Army "Spiritual Fitness" Test - a response by Martin Seligman, who emailed me, requesting that I publish it. He also emailed it to Jason Leopold and posted it to a positive psychology listserve I've been a member of for approximately ten years (some of my work with positive psychology appears on my website www.positivepsychology.net
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The third is my commentary Positive Psychology-- Throwing out the Baby With The Bathwater and the embedded video of the segment of the Keith Olbermann show which reported on this story .


Reprinted from Truthout.org
[URL="http://www.truth-out.org/armys-fitness-test-designed-psychologist-who-inspired-cias-torture-program-under-fire66577"]
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Quote:An experimental, Army mental-health, fitness initiative designed by the same psychologist whose work heavily influenced the psychological aspects of the Bush administration's torture program is under fire by civil rights groups and hundreds of active-duty soldiers. They say it unconstitutionally requires enlistees to believe in God or a "higher power" in order to be deemed "spiritually fit" to serve in the Army.

Shades of the First Earth Battalion methinks? But on a historical level, this would equate to the Knights Templars, and since those in power do seem to be prosecuting a new age Holy War, a new Crusade, then I suppose this is a natural consequence of the warrior monk.