Daily Reflection 4.09.21
Apr. 9th, 2021 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readoldthingsChapter 7 of The Art of War ends with the following words:
In my view, a major part of the problem with American politics is that no one is willing to understand this. Let's consider the Social Justice movement for a moment. I personally see this as the worst poison in American public life today, and I see its major exponents as different from Hitler and Stalin only in degree, and not in kind. I expect that difference in degree to even out if the SJWs ever gain the total power that they crave.
That said, I would be more than happy to compromise with them on any number of areas. Do you want reparations for slavery? Fine-- as long as we can also get reparations for the opioid crisis, and as long as it's not being paid for by people who didn't benefit from and had nothing to do with slavery. Do you want to mandate ethnic studies in the schools? That's okay, but not if it fails to include discussion of any European ethnic groups. Do you want identity politics? Okay, I don't, but if we're going to have it, it's got to be identity politics for all, not our current regime of "identity for me, but not for thee."
And I can think of any number of other areas where I'd be willing to compromise-- but this is never allowed. Are you descended from Irish Catholics? Pennsylvania Germans? Scots-Irish Appalachian coalminers? Italians who arrived in the early 20th century and faced lynching in the South and bigotry from the Irish-dominated Catholic Church in the North? It doesn't matter-- you're just as "white" as an old money family whose ancestors arrived at Jamestown in 1630, and just as culpable for anything that ever upset a black person.
Under such circumstances, the only possible result, and one that I predict that we'll see before the decade is out, is going to be a massive resurgence in white self-identity, white solidarity, white pride and white power. And no, I don't like this result, at all. Like the great majority of ethnic-white Americans, I would have been perfectly happy to see "whiteness" eliminated as a form of collective identity. I'm proud of who I am, who my family is and who our ancestors are, and "white" has never been a part of that. But if you don't give me any way out, what do you expect to happen? And so I fully expect that by 2030, if I'm still writing this blog or something like it, I'm not going to be talking about how to avoid being attacked by SJWs, but how to avoid being co-opted by white identitarianism.
What about our internal struggles, against our own addictions, bad habits, and unruly passions? Are there ways that we can allow them to retreat?
I think so. One great way to do this is simply not to focus on them. If you try to eliminate a habit-- watching television, say-- by getting rid of it, you're likely to fail. Instead, focus on doing something else with your time. If you usually watch TV from 7:00 until bed time, but you want to get in better shape, don't cut the TV out. Instead, find a workout to do from 7:00 to 7:30. You can watch TV after that. Eventually, you'll probably find that the amount of time you spend watching TV gets smaller and smaller, as the feeling of doing something you've chosen, rather than something that's been chosen for you, inspires you to do more of what you want. Once it's finally become irrelevant, you can eliminate it entirely.
As our translator notes, the point of all of this
Do not interfere with an army that is returning home.
When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.
Such is the art of warfare.
The points here are not to give the enemy the courage and tenacity that desperation provides. Give them an out; don't attack them when they're retreating. When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.
Such is the art of warfare.
In my view, a major part of the problem with American politics is that no one is willing to understand this. Let's consider the Social Justice movement for a moment. I personally see this as the worst poison in American public life today, and I see its major exponents as different from Hitler and Stalin only in degree, and not in kind. I expect that difference in degree to even out if the SJWs ever gain the total power that they crave.
That said, I would be more than happy to compromise with them on any number of areas. Do you want reparations for slavery? Fine-- as long as we can also get reparations for the opioid crisis, and as long as it's not being paid for by people who didn't benefit from and had nothing to do with slavery. Do you want to mandate ethnic studies in the schools? That's okay, but not if it fails to include discussion of any European ethnic groups. Do you want identity politics? Okay, I don't, but if we're going to have it, it's got to be identity politics for all, not our current regime of "identity for me, but not for thee."
And I can think of any number of other areas where I'd be willing to compromise-- but this is never allowed. Are you descended from Irish Catholics? Pennsylvania Germans? Scots-Irish Appalachian coalminers? Italians who arrived in the early 20th century and faced lynching in the South and bigotry from the Irish-dominated Catholic Church in the North? It doesn't matter-- you're just as "white" as an old money family whose ancestors arrived at Jamestown in 1630, and just as culpable for anything that ever upset a black person.
Under such circumstances, the only possible result, and one that I predict that we'll see before the decade is out, is going to be a massive resurgence in white self-identity, white solidarity, white pride and white power. And no, I don't like this result, at all. Like the great majority of ethnic-white Americans, I would have been perfectly happy to see "whiteness" eliminated as a form of collective identity. I'm proud of who I am, who my family is and who our ancestors are, and "white" has never been a part of that. But if you don't give me any way out, what do you expect to happen? And so I fully expect that by 2030, if I'm still writing this blog or something like it, I'm not going to be talking about how to avoid being attacked by SJWs, but how to avoid being co-opted by white identitarianism.
What about our internal struggles, against our own addictions, bad habits, and unruly passions? Are there ways that we can allow them to retreat?
I think so. One great way to do this is simply not to focus on them. If you try to eliminate a habit-- watching television, say-- by getting rid of it, you're likely to fail. Instead, focus on doing something else with your time. If you usually watch TV from 7:00 until bed time, but you want to get in better shape, don't cut the TV out. Instead, find a workout to do from 7:00 to 7:30. You can watch TV after that. Eventually, you'll probably find that the amount of time you spend watching TV gets smaller and smaller, as the feeling of doing something you've chosen, rather than something that's been chosen for you, inspires you to do more of what you want. Once it's finally become irrelevant, you can eliminate it entirely.
As our translator notes, the point of all of this
does not mean that the enemy is allowed to escape. The object, as Tu Mu puts it, is "to make him believe that there is a road to safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair." Tu Mu adds pleasantly: "After that, you may crush him."
