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Daily Reflection 3.12.21
Mar. 12th, 2021 09:05 amToday, a very important couple of verses from Sun Tzu:
In actual conflict, the commonest thing in the world is for armies to "fight the last war." This is why the United States military is equipped to kick the crap out of Nazi Germany, but has spent 20 years failing to defeat a tiny force of Aghan tribesmen.
More generally, there is a concept in the social sciences called path dependence. The entry at brittanica.com is good enough for our purposes:
One of the better known examples of path dependence is the QWERTY keyboard. I've heard different versions of the reason for the QWERTY keyboard layout. One has it that jamming was a problem with the first typewriters, and so the QWERTY layout was developed in order to deliberately slow down typists. Another has it that QWERTY was chosen because a traveling salesman can spell the word "TYPEWRITER" using just the type row of keys. In any case, QWERTY is not the most efficient keyboard layout, but it persists because we're used to it.
Many things are like this.
So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.
Water shapes is course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.
Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning ,may be called a heaven-born captain.
Water shapes is course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.
Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning ,may be called a heaven-born captain.
In actual conflict, the commonest thing in the world is for armies to "fight the last war." This is why the United States military is equipped to kick the crap out of Nazi Germany, but has spent 20 years failing to defeat a tiny force of Aghan tribesmen.
More generally, there is a concept in the social sciences called path dependence. The entry at brittanica.com is good enough for our purposes:
Path dependence, the tendency of institutions or technologies to become committed to develop in certain ways as a result of their structural properties or their beliefs and values.
Many things are like this.
What Sun Tzu is telling us is to avoid path dependency by not getting locked into a particular way of doing things. Instead, he gives us a general principle: avoid what is strong and attack what is weak. That principle can then be applied to multiple situations.
In the Great Work of the conquest of our own souls as in warfare, we will succeed if we hold fast to principles but remain as flexible as possible in regard to situations.
