Friday, August 20, 2021
Counterforce to Machiavelli
In previous item I wished someone would write a counterbalance to Machiavelli's advice for rulers. How should we survive the various forms of torture that rulers impose on us?
This question and answer on Quora does the job pretty well.
Q: Why do the Chinese widely consider Zhuge Liang to be the greatest strategist in Chinese history even though his side never won conclusively on the battlefield?
A:
Because for Chinese, the side which survives the longest is the victor by default, even if it did not ever win on the battlefield. This is probably the biggest single difference between western and Chinese strategic military thinking. All of the writings of Sun Tzu and Mao Zedong (On Prolonged War) are based on this simple fact. If one side is militarily weak, and it is fighting a militarily much more powerful enemy, the only path to victory is by lasting longer than the opponent. When George Washington was fighting the British in the War of Independence, and the Vietnamese were fighting the Americans, and more recently, the Taliban fought the Americans, it is this simple fact which offers the only path to victory.This obviously applies to ordinary people facing a well-armed and demonic ruler. In fact it's basically the same as my experience-based strategy for surviving when trapped in a cell with a psychopath. Outlast him. Don't excite him. Hope he loses interest in the battle and moves on. In other words, follow Booker T. EXPERIENCE SURVIVES. THEORY KILLS.
Labels: #WholeOfSociety, Jail mode
¶ 11:14 PM
