A few months ago, I wrote a piece here entitle "On the Naming of Ships". In it--and against the backdrop of the naming of an LCS for Gabrielle Giffords--I argued against the practice of the Secretary of the Navy exercising the sole authority to name ships, as the tendency has been (from Secretaries throughout history, irrespective of party affiliation) to mix in with solid, appropriate names, names that were clearly calculated for political advantage and/or to reward constituencies.
There are reports today of a new study on this issue by the Naval History and Heritage Command in response to a Congressional request. In it, NHHC has come to the quite even-handed conclusion that it is historically inaccurate and incorrect to view these politically motivated names as abuses of the system; rather, they are and have been routine elements of the system since the birth of the US Navy. Put another way, for a culture that reveres tradition, the tradition has been the practice of political influence in the process.
The study makes distinctions between what it calls "Orthodox Traditionalists" and "Pragmatic Traditionalists", and while I'm not sure I like the choice of terms (what's not pragmatic about sticking to convention?), it is clear that the Pragmatic Traditionalists have the historical leg up.
At the end of the day, we still come back to the question of propriety; is the historical norm of political influence one we wish to continue to indulge? My instincts as a political conservative tell me "leave well enough alone". But I find the notion of "the other guys do it so why shouldn't we?" to be intellectually disappointing. As Einstein used to say, "I need to have a little tink..." on this.
BZ to Bob Work for putting NHHC on this job, and to everyone involved for a highly readable and complete treatment of the subject.
Bryan McGrath
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