Love Your Enemy

To defeat an opponent, you need to understand him - not hate him.

 

 

Committing sociology isn't about thug-hugging; to say otherwise is simplistic.  Strength and simplicity can occasionally prevail, but they can never be sustained.  That's not winning - that's delaying defeat.

 

 

The only way to achieve victory is to destroy your opponent.  Killing is but one way to do this - ultimately, a resource-wasteful one.  They tend to fight back, doncha know.  The best way to foster sustainable, conservationist wins is through conversion.

 

 

It's been true since the days of Sun-Tzu; it isn't going to change for as long as we're human.

Know Thyself: Warren Kinsella, Sun-tzu and Ender Wiggin

When it comes to modern politics, the left and right know less about each other now than ever before. That’s a huge tactical error. As Sun Tzu wrote in “The Art of War,” “If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle."

Hence, it’s important to learn how the members of an opposing political ideology think, act and strategize. It will provide some insight in advising candidates, conducting efficient campaigns – and, with hard work and good fortune, winning elections. It will also ensure that good electoral strategies and solid ground games are in place to combat different political parties and candidates.

Warren Kinsella is an artist; he's got a keen eye for detail and knows how to build emotional resonance in his audience with whatever his message is.  He's a progressive; he knows that we can do a better job of empowering people to harness their maximum potential, resulting in a stronger society.  Kinsella's also got something of an empath in him; issues aren't just wedges for propping up platforms, he gets that there are real consequences for the people impacted by them.

More than anything, though, Kinsella has branded himself as a happy warrior, someone who loves a fight and doesn't mind getting his knuckles (or his opponent's face) bloody to win.  He willingly wades in to some of the the tougher battles facing society fully knowing he's going to take some hits along the way.  Politics does tend to be a blood sport; those who survive in the political arena in the long term tend to have some fight in 'em.  Over time, as the collaborators fall off, it's the fighters that remain - which might explain the state of politics today a bit.

Which is why I find the Sun-tzu comparison interesting.  Sun-tzu's name gets bounced around a lot, as does the quote mentioned above about knowing one's enemy and never losing.  This reflects only a fraction of Sun-tzu's thinking; like Machiavelli from a different time and a different place, Sun-tzu understood that conflict is resource-wasteful (wink wink Spring election) and impacts negatively on all participants.  The wise general creates the conditions for victory before a single shot is fired - therefore, no shot is required. 

The story for which Sun-tzu is most famous is when he was called to train the concubines of the Emperor.  In that contest, the enemy to be dominated was the Emperor himself.  He didn't win by vanquishing his enemy, but by altering the power dynamic so that he ended up on top.  This didn't require breaking the established rules of engagement, but rather by using them effectively and with a deep understanding of what made the Emperor tick.

Military strategists love Sun-tzu.  They tend to be fond of Ender Wiggin, too: 

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.

Again, "destroy" is a concept that can be viewed in different ways.  To me, there are no endings - just rebirths in a never-ending cycle of slow progress.  One could be said that Paul was destroyed on the road to Damascus, but that was hardly the last anyone heard from him, was it?  The most effective use of resources isn't to eliminate an opponent, but rather to convert them.  As a man of faith, Kinsella will understand the principle of conversion, too.

While there is a rational division between the functions of the church and the function of the state, both religion and politics rely heavily on conversion as a tool for growth.  There's a tendency to start with the low-hanging fruit, at least in politics - look for those that have obvious common ground and try to woo them with charm, some policy nuggets or hearts-and-minds campaigns.  Not only is this an easier sell, but it requires less effort on the part of the seller, too.  Political alchemy (converting the staunchest of conservatives into progressives) is a tougher challenge requiring a greater dedication of self - but it is possible.

It has to start with the removal of all barriers to knowing the "enemy" in question - including self-imposed ones.

Kinsella suggests that Conservatives are good at “masking their intentions … it’s hard to pin them down; it’s hard to see who they truly are.”  This could be messaging or it could be a held belief; either way, I would suggest it's not correct.  Conservatives, like all people, aren't entirely aware of what makes them tick.  The issue is less a matter of conservatives hiding an agenda from non-conservatives as it is subconscious motivations leading staunch conservatives in a particular direction.  Just as subconscious motivations move progressives in a certain direction, too.

Which leads us back to the opening quote - it's not enough to know your enemy; you need to know yourself as well.  the tough part of this equation is accepting that you don't really get your own motivations right now, which is kinda like the approach most religions take.


The corollary of this introspective process is that when you deconstruct your own consciousness, you scale back to the same building blocks of cognition that shape everyone's world view.  From this common centre-point, it's possible to reconstruct those shared foundation stones from the ground-up and figure out how they shape the thought processes of others.  No opponent is inscrutible if you're willing to dig down deep enough to a point of commonality.


To truly understand your enemy, well enough to beat them, you need to pull back the veils of your own bias.  It's through that process you find that there really is no other and that we really do all start from the same place. 

Which is when you realize the way forward isn't the illusion of isolation, but the acceptance that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.  To achieve great things, don't waste resources, including opponents - learn how to harness them.  When the whole works together, consciously, it can move mountains.

If you don't trust people,
you make them untrustworthy.


The Master doesn't talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, "Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!”


People like Warren Kinsella who have the willingness to know the other and who understand the tools of communication are ideally positioned to be leaders in bridging this gap and expanding the progressive tent. 


They just need to have faith that it's possible.

UPDATE: "If you corner desperate men, and if you give them no way out, they'll do everything they can to kill you."

Absolutely true - which is why you want to design a backdoor that allows desperate folk to back out gracefully and then commend them for doing so in the most respectful way possible.  This way, they get a win about of doing things your way.  They might even come to enjoy the accolades for doing so and want to do so again.

UPDATIER:   Some Liberals (and some New Democrats) have adopted the worst tendency of the Harper era: Never apologize, never admit a mistake, and attack every critic.  Even when they know the critics are right.

Can't disagree with that!

Trudeau Welcomes the Challenge

Many Liberals, including senior members of Mr. Trudeau’s camp, are hoping for a hard-fought race that will offer a serious challenge to the 40-year-old MP. The winner of the race will be announced in Ottawa on April 14.

 

Imagine that - a leader and team that actively welcome challenging ideas, knowing that it's through honest and open debate that best solutions will be arrived at.  What's also encouraging is that Trudeau has no fear about putting his skin in the game (going to Alberta - love it!).  HE wants to be tested - but is this solely to prove to others what he's capable of, or partially about pushing his own personal boundaries?

 

Here's hoping this is a campaign that throws political conventions on their ears.  That would not only send opposition into a tizzy, but might just inspire Canadians as well.

초 점 : Waste, Society and Discipline

The city is spending $5 million a year picking up the garbage residents leave lying around. How can this be? I asked. Surely you’re not all such scofflaws that you’re wilfully dirtying up our city.

"Always mind your surroundings."

Philosophers like to ask what it is that separates people from animals; we have created civilization, after all, where lesser mortals have not.  Surely something fundamental sets us apart from and above the rest of the ecosystem.

Whatever it is, it's not much.  We have far more in common with our fellow animals than we would like to admit.  Genetically, there's only a 1.3% divergence between human DNA and that of our closest relative, the bonobo.  There's even less of a difference between the bonobo and the chimp, with the difference being assumed to have resulted from the growth of the Congo river.  It should come as no surprise that geography should have played a role in creating distinction between species; within our own species, geography has played a huge role in influencing cultural development.

Is there a logical connection between rough, mountainous terrain and tribalism?  Of course there is; in tough terrains, you need to be tough to survive; the triggering of survival-of-the-fittest hard-wiring also fires up territorialism, single-minded focus and a certain degree of fatalism.  Is there a connection between arid landscapes and the deification of ancestors?  There is - dry terrains mummify bodies, helping them retain life-like qualities after death.  Mummification has been understood and practiced the world over for more-or-less the same reasons.  When you're ancestors are always around, watching over your shoulder in supernatural form, you gain a new respect for your place in the continuum of history; personal motives naturally gravitate towards the notion of maintaining/expanding family legacy.  Dan Gardner wrote an article on the relevance of culture to work ethic, etc; take that a step further, you can legitimately say that geography informs culture as much as culture informs behaviour.

These are all factors that are beyond our control; we do not decide into which family in which country we are born; all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.  But even then, how many of our decisions fall under our conscious control?  We like to focus on teenagers as exemplars of short-sighted, potentially destructive behaviour embodied by the notion of sex, drugs and rock and roll.  Yet they're hardly the only ones.  Adults get into sex scandals, say things without thinking through the consequences and then try to justify or deny them after the fact, drive unsafely and do all kind of things that can be immediately and personally detrimental or, in aggregate, socially (and therefore personally) detrimental.

The European Debt Crisis is a recent example, but you can look to the Great Fire of London or the Bubonic Plague for others.  Littering would also fit into this category.  Indeed, the history of waste management is the story of urban development and the increased centralization of coordinated authority - government - to manage the collective risks of waste.  It makes sense to ban activities like throwing waste on the street if the collective risks of such behaviour include things like plague.  Sneezing without covering your mouth, sudden lane changes and not moving to the back of a bus that's quickly filling up are variations on the same theme.  While we frame issues like getting inoculations as matters of personal choice, each of these issues have consequences for everyone else.  We provide social programming like EI or public healthcare for the same reason; you can put all the emphasis on individual responsibility as you want, but the fact remains that when people don't act with society in mind, the consequences get faced by the group, not just the individual.

Of course, in sparse populations, these collective risks are minimal.  If a couple of farmers have a pistols-at-dawn duel, there's less chance of a stray bullet hitting someone else.  If a nomadic people dump their waste out their front doors, those doors will move; the risks of contagion are reduced.  So it is that our ape cousins and other species are less concerned about their waste; they produce far less and are less likely to sleep where they dump.  Their genetic programming (of which we have so much in common) doesn't account for things like planning waste disposal or being mindful of the two-step consequence of actions like public littering or passing on viruses by sneezing without covering.

People litter for the same reason that any species litters - the overwhelming drives of our genetic programming is to not waste energy on activities that aren't of personal benefit.  Call it the genetics of laziness; not something we develop, but something we overcome.  Litter has no relevance as a concept until the waste we produce grows to a certain quantity.  Humans have been urban for a scant spec of time; our genetic programming still lags behind the needs of communal living.  Cleaning up after ourselves isn't instinctive, as any parent can tell you - it's learned behaviour.  The same holds true of not engaging in risky behaviour that could bring discomfort (or dishonour) to one's family or tribe; in the absence of an internalized awareness of social consequence, bad behaviour is more likely to flourish.  This is something as true of the human animal as it is of others.

There is a social tool that we have developed that helps us bridge the gap between biological drives and social needs - discipline.  Key to developing any craft, discipline is the ability to ignore discomfort, distraction or a lack of clarity on end product and work through a task regardless.  Discipline allows us to push beyond what we are inclined to do and explore what we are capable of, including considering eventual consequences. 

Of course, humans aren't the only animals capable of discipline. Dogs, birds, elephants, etc. can be trained to wait or perform tasks if the right carrots and sticks are employed. What perhaps makes us unique is the ability to discipline ourselves, internally, without need of external motivation.  Whereas trained animals perceive a path - a leads to b - at our best, people are able to perceive the bigger picture and be aware of content, context and consequence of actions yet to be performed.  Miyamoto Musashi, author of one of the world's favourite books on strategy, described the features of mindfulness thusly:

1. Do not think dishonestly.

2. The Way is in training.

3. Become acquainted with every art.

4. Know the Way of all professions.

5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.

6. Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.

7. Perceive those things which cannot be seen.

8. Pay attention even to trifles.

9. Do nothing which is no use.

Musashi dedicated his whole life to being the greatest warrior in Japan.  Accepting no limitations as acceptable, Musashi broke down one personal barrier after another.  By the end of his journey, Musashi had realized like so many others that the greatest enemy he would face wasn't another swordsman or even an army, but his own ignorance. 

When we become mindful of content, context and consequence, we gain insight into the actions of others as well as the broader ramifications of our own actions.  With this insight, we start to act in a more pro-social, strategic way. 

If there is one thing that separates us from them, it would be consciousness.

CFN - The Politics of Science

We might call it political science, but politics is really about the art of war.

Of course, politics isn’t about seeking compromise solutions that reflect the collective will of an electorate; it’s about winning majorities to implement partisan agendas. Between elections, Parties will strategically pursue issues in ways they feel enhance their support to the detriment of opponents. They will nurture allies that favour their causes, employ propaganda and wage “hearts and minds” campaigns. More like warfare then scientific debate, politics seeks to undermine confidence in adversaries through personal attacks and narrow public focus to just the issues that resonate with their themes. Understanding is entirely secondary. That’s why political operatives are so keen to define “the ballot question”; it’s less about what people care about and more about what issues give the best political traction.

The upcoming US election provides a case in point. Does it matter that Obama went to a church with a radical pastor, or is he really a Christian at all? Does Mitt Romney despise poor people and did he tie his dog to his car roof? If you undermine the character and credibility of the man, you cast doubt on anything he has to say, whether it’s factual or not. The corollary to undermining your opponent and targeting niche issues is promoting the concept that you have the definitive answers. Is the election about the economy, or income inequality? Only Obama can achieve income equality. Only Romney can fix the US economy. What about the viability of the US education system, the new Digital Government strategy, the challenges of energy security or threats from foreign countries? All are relevant to the electorate, but the Dems and GOP want you focused strictly on the issues that fit within their message frames. To issues beyond those frames, Parties will tell you “so what?” and direct you back to what they think you should know.

Canada’s current master of political positioning is Prime Minister Stephen Harper. From targeting subsidized political funding to suggesting coalitions were illegal to promoting a “tough on crime” agenda, Harper has carefully crafted every tactic to benefit his Party. Harper successfully defined his Liberal opponents as untrustworthy. The Harper Conservatives have also systematically removed information that could be detrimental to their cause from the public discourse; the media has had limited access, the Census has been gutted, government officials who challenge Conservative messaging have been silenced, Tory MPs who dare to voice independent opinions are quickly brought back in line. Opposition Members have seen their access to information significantly reduced; even Harper’s appointed Parliamentary Budget Officer is being denied the data he needs to do his job and been derided for seeking it. The Conservative government has actively lied to the public and disparaged anyone who challenged their political framing.

Atlas Never Wavered

First, not everyone is prepared to lead in risky environments.

Second, as leaders who are assessing risks, we need to have skin in the game; otherwise we are only pretending to lead.

Third, character matters just as much as any knowledge or skills acquired from training and education.

Whenever I hear someone decry the idea of "The Public Good" as some sort of totalitarian subterfuge, I ask them why giving back and self-moderation somehow implies a loss of freedom.  The answer, invariably, is that they don't want anyone telling them what they can and can't do - which, of course, kinda misses the "self" part, but I digress.

Let's play along for a minute.  What happens when everyone has complete independence to do whatever they want to?  They come into conflict.  Our costly and inadequate justice system is all about people trying to protect their own interests, with a third party arbitrating (not a very independent solution, but maybe that's just me).    Or, by looking after their own immediate interests, the group - because that's what society is - creates tragedy-of-the-commons scenarios ranging from pushing-matches to get on and off subway trains to the denuding of natural resources without consideration for tomorrow's needs.

How do you avoid zero-sum conflict or unsustainable practices?  It's simple - by thinking ahead.  When you plan - when you're strategic - you invariably include other people's interests into your calculus.  Everyone knows Sun-tzu's maxim about knowing yourself and knowing your enemy. 

Another one of Sun-tzu's key lessons is about discipline, or self-control.  There's also the one about creating resource-efficient, win-win scenarios where possible to avoid the loss that invariably occurs through conflict.

In other words, be mindful of the consequences of your actions.  Taken from a slightly different angle - do unto others what you would have them to unto you.

True independence comes not from hiding from the reality that we're all in this together, but internalizing that concept and acting from a place of consciousness.

In other words, altruism is nothing more than selfishness that plans ahead.

And true leadership isn't about control, but empowerment.

Shine a Light on China

China’s economy remains less than half the size of the United States’. Yet Europeans believe that China is the world’s leading economic power. Few other people make this mistake. What explains this perception–anxiety about the future?

A good question that perhaps goes deeper than we give it credit for.  While both Europe and China have emerged from feudal origins, there has been a distinct difference in socio-cultural approaches.  As both have pursued dominance throughout history, the West's attitude has been to "make the world England" (with a few notable exceptions), inward-out.  God gave the world to Adam and Eve to do with as they please (though he did kick 'em off of his lawn).  Perhaps the best example of this, apart from the exportation of British culture along with the British Empire, is the ongoing export of Christianity through colonization. Given the intent of this policy, it's no wonder there is fear about the rise of Islam.

The East, on the other hand, has pursued the concept of "All Under Heaven" - perceiving the space that is and then expanding to fill it.  If you look at Eastern religions, there's a stronger connection to the past and to the whole, resulting in a completely different comprehension of time and mankind's place in the world than has developed in the West.

Western anxiety over China is ultimately like being afraid of the dark - we always fear what we don't understand.

The traditional solutions of destroying or assimilating the unknown were never very efficient and have only become harder to implement as military, populace and social complexity have escalated.  To really beat your enemy, you need to understand them.  When you know yourself and know your enemy, victory is guaranteed. Of course, when you truly understand your enemy, understand them well enough to defeat them, that's when you also love them.   

 Instead of destroying the beloved, we try to strategically comprehend and exploit the differences between us - which, done correctly, results in mutual gain.  There's nothing more strategic than altruism.

The end result is specialized collaboration; which, ultimately, is the trajectory of social evolution.