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Daily Reflection 3.17.21
Mar. 17th, 2021 07:38 pmHappy St. Patrick's Day!
Sun Tzu tells us that
A moment ago, the following came to me.
John Michael Greer's blog post this week is about the now largely forgotten traditional American mode of invention. I've seen polls which show that "inventiveness" is a quality that people around the world associate with Americans, and justifiably so. These days, we aren't so inventive. What happened?
In JMG's telling, the American tradition largely consisted of lone weirdos or small groups of individuals, tinkering on their own without much in the way of oversight, regulation, or funding. From this, a whole lot of cranks, crackpots and nuttery emerged-- and, along with the nuttery, telephones, airplanes, space travel, and the whole panoply of American technological achievements.
These days the universities, the government, and the big corporations, backed up by their sycophants in the media, have a lockdown on science, medicine, and technology, and tend to treat crackpots very unkindly. JMG suggests that we would do well to return to our traditional crackpottery; I agree with him.
It occurs to me that this idea is a kind of application of Sun Tzu's principles. The big institutions which govern our society act as enemy armies, blocking the way to creation and innovation. Fortunately, we have the advantage of being dispersed and few in number; in order to create new things, we simply have to do so, and to avoid official channels to exchange with one another.
But is that really feasible?
Yes indeed.
I've recently gotten into homebrewing and found it to be a very enjoyable hobby. As recently as 1977, it's not something I could have done. At that time, homebrewing was still illegal in America. At that time also there was next to nothing in the way of American craft beer. Sierra Nevada existed; Sam Adams did not. American beer meant Budweiser, Miller, or Coors. The microbreweries that dot every town of more than a few thousand people were still decades away.
And look what's happened since then. Now everyone with a few hundred dollars to spare can brew beer in their basement-- and, what's more, a uniquely American tradition of beer making has emerged (or re-emerged), every bit as good as anything you'd find in countries with unbroken traditions of brewing dating back centuries.
Consider also the revolution in publishing that we're currently living through. When I was a kid, I read Orson Scott Card's guide to fiction publishing, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Written in 1990, it contained detailed instructions for submitting a manuscript to one of the three or four big name publishers-- the only real way to publish a work of fiction at that time. Between then and now-- and roughly simultaneously with the revolution in brewing, I might note-- everything has changed. Countless small publishers, print-on-demand operations and expanded self-publishing has completely revolutionized the publishing world. If you want to write a book that someone will read, you don't need to beg Tor or Orbit. You can just write your book and publish it.
Bureaucracies, corporations, gatekeepers of all kinds stand between us and our goals-- externally, but internally too. The art of maneuver as Sun Tzu has it is the practice of circumventing all these obstacles that stand in our path, whether it's a government agency, a corporate monopoly, or a belief in our own inadequacy. The rule is: Do it anyway!
Sun Tzu tells us that
Thus, to take a long and circuitous route, after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting after him, to contrive to reach the goal before him, shows the knowledge of the artifice of deviation.
I've spent much of the day trying to figure out what I could say on this subject that isn't something I've said already. A moment ago, the following came to me.
John Michael Greer's blog post this week is about the now largely forgotten traditional American mode of invention. I've seen polls which show that "inventiveness" is a quality that people around the world associate with Americans, and justifiably so. These days, we aren't so inventive. What happened?
In JMG's telling, the American tradition largely consisted of lone weirdos or small groups of individuals, tinkering on their own without much in the way of oversight, regulation, or funding. From this, a whole lot of cranks, crackpots and nuttery emerged-- and, along with the nuttery, telephones, airplanes, space travel, and the whole panoply of American technological achievements.
These days the universities, the government, and the big corporations, backed up by their sycophants in the media, have a lockdown on science, medicine, and technology, and tend to treat crackpots very unkindly. JMG suggests that we would do well to return to our traditional crackpottery; I agree with him.
It occurs to me that this idea is a kind of application of Sun Tzu's principles. The big institutions which govern our society act as enemy armies, blocking the way to creation and innovation. Fortunately, we have the advantage of being dispersed and few in number; in order to create new things, we simply have to do so, and to avoid official channels to exchange with one another.
But is that really feasible?
Yes indeed.
I've recently gotten into homebrewing and found it to be a very enjoyable hobby. As recently as 1977, it's not something I could have done. At that time, homebrewing was still illegal in America. At that time also there was next to nothing in the way of American craft beer. Sierra Nevada existed; Sam Adams did not. American beer meant Budweiser, Miller, or Coors. The microbreweries that dot every town of more than a few thousand people were still decades away.
And look what's happened since then. Now everyone with a few hundred dollars to spare can brew beer in their basement-- and, what's more, a uniquely American tradition of beer making has emerged (or re-emerged), every bit as good as anything you'd find in countries with unbroken traditions of brewing dating back centuries.
Consider also the revolution in publishing that we're currently living through. When I was a kid, I read Orson Scott Card's guide to fiction publishing, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Written in 1990, it contained detailed instructions for submitting a manuscript to one of the three or four big name publishers-- the only real way to publish a work of fiction at that time. Between then and now-- and roughly simultaneously with the revolution in brewing, I might note-- everything has changed. Countless small publishers, print-on-demand operations and expanded self-publishing has completely revolutionized the publishing world. If you want to write a book that someone will read, you don't need to beg Tor or Orbit. You can just write your book and publish it.
Bureaucracies, corporations, gatekeepers of all kinds stand between us and our goals-- externally, but internally too. The art of maneuver as Sun Tzu has it is the practice of circumventing all these obstacles that stand in our path, whether it's a government agency, a corporate monopoly, or a belief in our own inadequacy. The rule is: Do it anyway!
