Sun Tzu: Waging War

"When employing [an army] in battle, a victory that is long in coming will dampen their ardor. If you attack cities, their strength will be exhausted. If you expose the army to a prolonged campaign, the state's resources will be inadequate.

"When the weapons have grown dull and spirits depressed, when our strength has been expended and resources consumed, then the feudal lords will take advantage of our exhaustion to arise. Even though you have wise generals, they will not be able to achieve a good result.

"Thus in military campaigns I have heard of awkward speed but have never seen any skill in lengthy campaigns. No country has ever profited from protracted warfare. Those who do not thoroughly comprehend the dangers inherent in employing the army are incapable of truly knowing the potential advantages of military actions."

--Sun Tzu

from Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Ralph D. Sawyer, (Trans.) and Mei-chun Sawyer. Barnes & Noble Books, by arrangment with Westview Press, 1994 (pp. 173, paragraphs 2-4). I recommend it!

Part of the Terra-cotta Army of Xi'an. Picture by Maros at Wikipedia.

Plantation Architecture, part I

I have cynical feelings about restoring Plantation Mansions. Most of them are depressing indeed: in want of funds, with period wallpaper books open to show what they want donations for, and  a dusty mayonnaise jar for you to put those donations in.

Most of these homes are mouldering faster than John Brown's body. In Louisiana along the (Mississippi) River Road, you can see them gradually cut out from under by river water, industrial development, weather, mold, cockroaches, mice, and human neglect. Most of them have elegant proportions that speak past the shabbiness and decay. They represent a type of architecture which will never return.

European Tradition
If this was Europe, we would prize the chateaus where elegance once reigned at high human cost. Europeans don't raze their architecture just because there were dungeons in the basement full of torture implements, or even though rich young lordlings raped servant girls in the pantry or peed on the marquetry table legs in marble halls. During the French Revolution, they chopped off the heads of the Lords in the palace and those who tried to sell luxury goods to those Very Royal. This scared the hell out of the rest of Europe, but not enough to change central government.  Napoleon showed up, and the Royal Pageant went on. So did war--but it was not a war to free the oppressed. It was a war of Kings against an Emperor. Like his forbears in French leadership, Napoleon sought to control all of Europe with a ruling class, not to abolish central rule.

Our Idea
But in this country, we ended slavery through means not strictly class-driven. It was a regional break, and yes an economic break, but not by class: all classes went to war against slave states or to preserve their 'peculiar institution'. Today I'm not delving deeply into the long but true history of how the slave class had to suffer too long, and never got an even break afterward--that's for another time. But this is where some cynicism lies when it comes to preserving Plantation Architecture.

The American ideal of equality for all, plus a disdain for losing, makes a full-out federal preservation protection of plantation items seem ludicrous. Why would the United States of America revere the homes of its lost oppressor class? Yet those who don't grow up in the South never quite figure out that shabby plantation homes recollect war depredations (Sherman's torch) or reparations (carpetbaggers). Each failing site signifies that an entire economic class was decimated, that they were taxed and driven out of business, that they gave their all (gallantly) and lost. So in the South, preservation of the "highest achievement" is complicated by the fact that their best wasn't good enough. It was too long on grandeur, too short on foundries. Too cruel to sustain, but it propped elegance. A shabby Southern plantation denotes high ambivalence due to unresolved injury and the memory of historical outrage. Pick the injury and the outrage depending on who you are.

Therefore, any restoration of plantation architecture seemingly speaks to a lack of ambivalence: that the North should have left the South alone, and onward to that slavery somehow was acceptable. Onlookers who wish the Confederate flag to disappear distrust the motives of plantation preservation. .In this country, such preservation is a political statement. But I think the statement could  and should be be more complex.

Yes, these plantation homes describe the high living of careless  and cruel rich white people. Maybe some were "good to their slaves". They turned the cruelty over to subcontractors: foremen, patrollers, estate agents, so they could accord themselves this luxury of kind treatment on the face-to-face or escape altogether. And we do this now whenever we buy goods produced by slave labor elsewhere. These homes have the capability of throwing present sins into our faces, too. The ambivalence may be about a present international economy as well.

These homes also describe, just as the Egyptian pyramids do, or Versailles, or any Gothic chapel, the workmanship and artisan craft of the working class. Plantation sites don't just describe a place where whipping posts were used--but a place where black artisans designed and built sugar refineries, timber mills, environmentally suitable homes, levees that held back swamps, defensive avenues of fire, forest fire abatement, and strong buildings for storage and their own, far-lesser habitations. Most of these artisans are not recorded in history, just as the masons of palaces and cathedrals and pyramids are not. Most of them were never remunerated and hardly recognized.

And Just Maybe . . .
Maybe historical preservation can bring out that an enslaved people contributed mightily to American historical infrastructure. That without the unnamed architects of the sugar refinery, the unnamed engineers of the levees, and the faithful work undertaken, we would not be who we are and what we are today.  I think when we preserve mansions and slave quarters, we should preserve technological works as well--less glamorous, far more important. Then we could see that despite every attempt to stifle personality, capital aggregation, and justifiable pride in the slave, their contributions remain. Our very map would be different along the Eastern seaboard and the Southern coastline were it not for these unnamed souls.

We could find a way to honor slaves at these sites as well as deplore their situation. We could advance our understanding of history and the human spirit--gifted and superior, even in slavery. Something past Gone With the Wind, King Tut, European Lords and Medieval Popes. Something that reconciles this historical ambivalence by refusing to bury any part of it. Something that gives shape to current national aspirations.

Still, though I believe this could be achieved, I remain cynical. I wonder, when the last plantation house in the South collapses, will we be done fixing the scars by then? On the other hand, I remember that forgetting history is like being blind to a warning. We have long been blind to the achievements of the unknown laborer, whether we espouse their cause en masse or not. So I do not know the answer.

Tomorrow, a plantation architecture that should be preserved . . . . or at least I think so . . . .

from The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn's shortest and probably most read book on prison camps is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In it Ivan spends the day working to survive, only. If he was jailed for a crime, he's no criminal now. If he was a political dissident, all that is gone too. Ivan Denisovich does not have anyone to send him packages from outside, the things that would enable him to keep from starving or to enjoy small pleasures. He therefore works, a constant opportunist, trying to find ways to earn a piece of sausage or a pinch of tobacco.

The First Circle
Another book Solzhenitsyn wrote about prison camps is entitled The First Circle. The title is meant to recall Dante's first circle of hell--not very far down in hell, and yet no access to heaven or even freedom to roam the earth. The prison here is for intellectuals still of use to an extremely-paranoid Stalin. The prisoners are kept in line by the threat of a worse prison--a far more dangerous gulag in Siberia, for instance. To stay in the First Circle, they must work on Stalin's projects. This particular team is involved in cryptography, that uses math (Euler functions)  to help crack codes.

But one or more of the prisoners in this "country club prison" decide they will no longer aid the regime that has imprisoned them. The book is highly autobiographical, so you get a good view of themes Solzhenitsyn will be considering in his massive Gulag Archipelago series.

I always loved a particular quote in this book. This is an exchange between Pyotr and Nerzhin. If Nerzhin was not actively dissident before, has become so now. He is going to lose everything for the sake of principles, and he knows it.

'Pyotr Tromfimovich, do you know how to make shoes?"

"What did you say?"

'I asked; Will you teach me how to make shoes?"

"Pardon? I don't understand."

"Pyotr Trofimovich, you're living in a shell. I, after all, will finish my sentence and go off to the remote taiga, to permananent exile. I don't know how to work with my hands, so how will I live? It's full of bears. Out there we won't need the Euler functions for three more geological eras."

"What are you talking about, Nerzhin! As a cryptographer, if the work is successful, you'll be freed ahead of your sentence, the conviction will be removed from your record, and you will be given an apartment in Moscow."

"They'll remove the conviction from my record!" Nerzhin cried angrily, his eyes narrowing. "Where did you get the idea I want that little gift? 'You've worked well, we'll free you, forgive you. ' No, Pyotr Trofimovich!" And with his forefinger he stabbe at the varnished surface of the littel table. "You're beginning at the wrong end. Let them admit first that it's not right to put people in prison for their way of thinking, and then we will decide whether we will forgive them."

I have learned various things from this quote. One, that it is necessary to have techne/practical knowledge, the ability to make things, as well as intellectual attainments, in order to be truly free to decide. I think I worry about the U.S. sometimes because I fear we are losing especially practical knowledge: skilled trades. Yet, if I return to Ivan Denisovich, I can see that skilled trade is not enough either. Ivan Denisovich's world is small. He can't grasp anything beyond the immediate, or see that his incarceration is only part of a wider world.

Illya Repin
To illustrate something of the hazards of camps, I bring you an oil painting from Tsarist Russia, by Illya Repin: They Did Not Expect Him (1884-1888). Repin painted the return of a man from the Tsar's gulag. The picture will expand if you click on it. It is considered one of his best works and is an image I turn to over and over as well.

I don't mean to give a depressing message, but one about self-reliance, self-help, freedom v. despotism, and expanding horizons. I think many authors write about prison camps as a microcosm of the world of daily routine.

We need to look up every once in awhile. We need to look down every so often. And sometimes, we need to look beyond.

Anyway, this is what I thought about today.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679 ) from Leviathan (1651)

Image via Wikipedia

Thomas Hobbes explains the reasons for nations, governments, and war, and even police departments (which did not show up for another two hundred years) in Leviathan, Part I: Of Man. Chapter 13: Of the Natural Condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity, and Misery, pp. 73-74. You can read it in full in Google books, in his own language and spelling. (It's not hard, but it's not a beach read, either.) It won't cut and paste, worse luck. I am going to type parts of it in modernized form.

It is so relevant.

In the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition: secondly, diffidence: thirdly, glory. 

The first, maketh men invade for gain: the second, for safety: and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, chilcren, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons, or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.

WARRE
In the next paragraph, Hobbes notes that WAR is a period of both violence and potential violence. One can live in a state of war even when they are not being robbed, invaded, killed, or beaten--if they know it could happen any minute. His example is weather. It doesn't have to be raining twenty-four hours to be a rainy day. It's a matter of environment, and what one must do to survive it (carry an umbrella, go out only in armed company, stay under the awning or inside the fort. THEN he writes (I have divided the paragraph):

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. 

Anarchy
This is Hobbes' famous "war of all against all" or anarchy. It is Road Warrior the movie (no old people or young ones, only predators and prey), only ten times worse; infighting and genocide between the Serbs and Croats and why gangs spring up in part. A strong man with good luck can live long enough to do--what? Steal and sneak and kill to gain what's needed in life, or to keep the bone he's got.

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; 

and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Government
Hobbes goes on to say that Kings (read: warlords, band Chieftains, or hey, our own government)  have these same qualities: a military for gain, or for defense, or stuck in pride and invasive for that reason.  But what a government does is displace this anarchic war of "All against All" to the limits of territory. Thus farmers may "till the soil" and builders may "build cities". Trade may take place under the protection of the state (flagships, caravans, trains, etc). The "movement of large things" might be Treasuries or even a load of lumber, impossible when people are hanging onto every part of it to make it booty or spoils of war.

Safety
It's not that Hobbes didn't lock his door or hide his money. However, once he did that, he could sleep at night, and wake up to study and write his famous work. Band chieftans and kings also held their own territory with domestic troops--if for no other reason than to execute murderers and gather tax money. But without a King or Chieftan or Police Force, in Hobbes words, there is no justice. Nor is their injustice. Because anything goes. Any strong person or lucky person can do whatever they want, and everybody else either has to kill him or suck it up.

Police
Our police force did not give us life, or air, or buy our food. They are the facilitators of our own ability to "know the face of the earth" or at least our part of it; to "plan our time" and expect that the plan will be fulfilled; to enjoy arts, letters, society and contribute to them in our own way..

Right now, many cities are giving up their police forces--contracting city services to the county sheriff as a cost-saving measure. In so doing, they may very well be contributing through economic choice to a more streamlined effort in county-wide protection. They have also given up their first reason to be a government, the only reason they are a government. Therefore, they are not really a government at all.

If you can, read some of Hobbes. The link and pages are above.
Last comment: isn't it funny that Hobbes also links politics to having an economy? I'm telling you, political economy is the way to know government the best. There will be another post on an economist this week.

In the meantime, appreciate your police force! They make it happen for you.

Hagakure: Moving Inward and Outward

A certain person said the following.

There are two kinds of dispositions, inward and outward, and a person lacking in one or the other is worthless. It is, for example, like the blade of a sword, which one should sharpen well and then put in its scabbard . . .

If a person has his sword out all the time, he is habitually swinging a naked blade, people will not approach him and he will have no allies.

If a sword is always sheathed, it will become rusty, the blade will dull, and people will think as much of its owner.

---

When you are listening to the stories of accomplished men and the like, you should listen with deep sincerity, even if it's something about which you already know. If in listening to the same thing ten or twenty times it happens that you come to an unexpected understanding, that moment will be very special. Within the tedious talk of old folks are their meritorious deeds.

Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, by Yamamoto Tsunetome. Trans. William Scott Wilson.  Kodansha Press, pp. 91-92 and 94.

The first quote seems to have so many applications. The second one is a good reminder that classics can be interpreted over and over again to yield a new solution. At least, that's how this Scholar reads it. Any takers on new or alternate readings?

Hagakure: Constant Refinement

It is not good to settle into a set of opinions. It is a mistake to put forth effort and obtain some understanding and then stop at that. At first putting forth great effort to be sure that you have grasped the basics, then practicing so that they may come to fruition is something that will never stop for your whole lifetime. Do not rely on following the degree of understanding that you have discovered, but simply thnk, "This is not enough."

One should search throughout his whole life how best to follow the Way. And he should study, setting his mind to work without putting things off. Within this is the Way.

---

When meeting calamities or difficult situations, it is not enough to say that one is not at all flustered. When meeting difficult situations, one should dash forward bravely and with joy. It is the crossing of a single barrier and is like the saying "The more the water, the higher the boat."

Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai. Yamamoto Tsunetomo. Trans. William Scott Wilson. Kodansha Press, p. 37 and then page 51.

I have to think through this second one in particular. It sounds on the one hand foolhardy, and on the other hand like a kind of prayer or attitude adjustment. Anyone have a reaction to this?

The print is by Hokusai, Tametomo against the smallpox. As part of the cure, people looked at depictions of heroes, summoning the strength to get well.

Hagakure: The Omnipresent Now and Worldly Affairs

From Hagakure of Yamamoto Tsunetomo:

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is the succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.

Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as if he thought it were somewhere else. No one seems to have noticed this fact.  But grasping this firmly, one must pile experience on experience. And once one has come to this understanding, he will be a different person from that point on, though he may not always bear it in mind.

When one understands this settling into single-mindedness well, his affairs will thin out. Loyalty is also contained within this single-mindedness.

It seems to me that almost every sentence in this passage is worthy of a separate meditation. Does anyone want to try one and see where it leads them . . . I'll go first in comments . . .


Art Work and Credits:
Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, p. 74. Trans. William Scott Wilson. Kodansha Press. Available.
ToshidoYoshi,  "Cherry Blossoms" (1970). A ukiyo-e or wood block print, frequently presenting "the floating world" but has other genres.
Toshikato Mizuno, "Samurai with Long Bow" (c. 1900). A kuchi-e or frontispiece to a magazine.

The Hagakure: Defeat at One's Own Hands

A certain swordsman in his declining years said the following:

In one's life, there are levels in the pursuit of study. In the lowest level, a person studies but nothing comes of it, and he feels that both he and others are unskillful.  At this point he is worthless. In the middle level he is still useless but is aware of his own insufficiencies and can also see the insufficiencies of others.  In a higher level he has pride concerning his own ability, rejoices in praise from others, and laments the lack of ability in his fellows.  This man has worth. In the highest level a man has the look of knowing nothing.

These are the levels in general. But there is one transcending level, and this is the most excellent of all. This person is aware of the endlessness of entering deeply into a certain Way and never thinks of himself as having finished. He truly knows his own insufficiencies and never in his whole life thinks he has succeeded.  He has no thoughts of pride but with self-abasement knows the Way to the end. It is said that Master Yagyu once remarked, "I do not know the way to defeat others, but the way to defeat myself."

Throughout your life advance daily, becoming more skillful than yesterday, more skillful than today. This is never-ending.

Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. William Scott Wilson, Trans. Kodansha Press. pp. 32-33.

The Hagakure

The Hagakure is a martial arts text. I just started reading this classic, in edited form. The name means "In the shadows of leaves."

Those of you that stop by regularly know I am not a martial artist, but rather more in line with the Way of the Scholar. (Or at least I try.) However, in this day of exploded media, one must pick and choose. Studying Confucianism as the Way of ancient Scholarship is not as interesting as studying the habits of mind necessary for a samurai warrior. This book contains numerous clues--and not just for warriors.

The translator took about 300 of its pieces of knowledge out of about 1300, so that we can have what he thought was the essence of the text plus some further excerpts he thought interesting. The book is not a philosophy, he explains, but rather meditations on how to live a warrior code.

The Hagakure was written after the most warlike period, at a time when administration was beginning to be prized in daily life and war was a little less important. Therefore, its pages have some nostalgia in them, reflections on how warriorship and service apply in a more secure society. The application of discipline and manners. The willingness to die for one's leader or one's cause, to sacrifice everything.  What I have read so far concentrates on the refinement of the person, to make him fit for duty in its strongest sense. But it is not a lecture--far from it. It's elusive, living in the shadows of leaves. Here is one quote:

When I was young, I kept a "Diary of Regret" and tried to record my mistakes day by day, but there was never a day I did not have twenty or thirty entries. As there was no end to it, I gave up. Even today, when I think about the day's affairs after going to bed, there is never a day when I do not make some blunder in speaking or some activity. living without mistakes is truly impossible. But this is something that people who live by cleverness have no inclination to think about. (p. 61)

Here is a little humor (the ardent youth and the self-castigating insomniac), and that brings perspective on performance. The main point I see is that he reviews his day and his behavior. Every morning he rises up to begin another day, with the perspective that he will try again for a human perfection--flawed, but as correct as possible. That speaks to me.

Here is another great quote, about giri*. Everyone coming out of a reflective Memorial Day will get this one.

Lord Naoshige once said, "There is nothing felt quite so deeply as giri. There are times when someone like a cousin dies and it is not a matter of shedding tears. But we may hear of someone who lived fifty or a hundred years ago, of whom we know nothing and who has no family ties with us whatsoever, and yet from a sense of giri shed tears."

This answers a question of mine, for sure. Anyway, I am enjoying the book very much. It is also a book where "taking a dip" can be as interesting as reading it from front to back. Of course as a scholar I am reading it front to back.

I recommend this text to anyone.

Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. Translated by William Scott Wilson. Kodansha Press.
--
*Giri: a debt of gratitude, duty, justice, obligation, a sense of honor.


For those of you who wonder about absent giri today--the May muster will be tomorrow. This was a tough weekend for law enforcement so I need an extra day to be sure my muster is correct.

For the rest of the day, I am sure I will make mistakes--but instead of writing them down I think I will do my best to behave correctly in each minute, not letting past mistakes interfere with present correctness.

Have a great day, everyone! Here is a print by Hiroshige from his Views of Kyoto series. Farmers, not warriors.

Balance and Progression

'Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, the superior mind exists in torture."

--Benedetto Croce (1866-1952, Italian philosopher)

.
.
"Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: give me leave to do my utmost."

--Isak Dinesin, (1885-1962, Danish author, Babette's Feast)

.

Short good sentences, not my own devising. But I carry them around. They speak better than I do.

Epictetus (55 A.D.-135 A.D.) and his usefulness

Epictetus is a famed Stoic scholar. He was born lame and a slave. His name means 'acquired'. It is suggested in spotty historical accounts that he had an uncaring master when young, a freedman close to Nero. In the second house of his slavery, he was taught philosophy. He went on to teach it, and teach it well.

The Encheiridion of Epictetus means "to hand" or handbook. It's eighteen pages of class notes from one of his notable students, 53 entries. In his philosophy, Epictetus thinks you should deal with triumph and defeat the same way, which is, to recognize that those things are outside of you. Only how you feel, decide, and act is your decision. That remains the truth of every matter.

In other words, the world can honor you, leave you alone, or hate you, and what really matters is the quality of your decision. Did you act with virtue, or did you act for the externals? Here are a few quotes:

1. Some things are up to us and some things are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, our impulses, desires, aversions--in short, whatever is our own doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whavever is not our own doing. . . . . If you think that only what is yours is yours, and that what is not your own is, justa as it is, not your own, then no one will ever coerce you, no one will hinder you, . . . . and no one will harm you, because you will not be harmed at all.

8. "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well."

53. He quotes Euripides: "Whoever has complied well with necessity / Is counted wise by us, and understands divine affairs."

Vice Admiral Stockdale, Medal of Honor Recipient, Prisoner of War
James Stockdale was a Navy flier captured by the Vietcong and held as a prisoner of war. He was also a student of philosophy. His understanding of stoicism, especially The Handbook of Epictetus, enabled him to teach the other prisoners of war how to survive the worst prisons in Hanoi--torture, unfit food, little medicine, quarters sometimes too cramped to allow a man to extend his arm, and constant questioning,

He calls stoicism "a premium mind game"--something that provides all the answers to do your duty (whatever that might be) under adverse conditions. By putting it this way, Stockdale implies it is not necessarily good for everything--and I think it does not always allow for making change happen in the external world. But in a prisoner of war camp, it would be fatal to show your triumph over finding a scrap of food or maintaining silence under punishment. It would be equally fatal to wallow in self-defeat.

When Stockdale went into prisoner camp, every prisoner he met said, "Don't talk to me. I have been a traitor." He organized these men teetering in despair into a network. They stood together. Even when one or another was confined to solitary, the network helped. It took him back in and bolstered him.

VADM James Stockdale on Stoicism, especially Epictetus, and being a Prisoner-of-War of the North Vietnamese. (pdf1) and (pdf2). These two are slightly repetitive, but each is worth a read.

All Woo-Woo Aside, She Went in and Got it Done

When I was taking my class in Kant, I was completely overwhelmed. You could not get behind. You had to read every day. I could not take in a single word. Kant is completely covered in the 1800's version of GoreTex.

Our teacher knew it was difficult. Apparently Kant spent No Time polishing his magnum opus. It was an 1800's version of cut-and-paste. It jumped around, following an outline, but without good transitions or the intermediary reviews that help the reader assimilate. Just the facts, ma'am. If you can call it facts.

In this class of twelve, ten were guys. The other woman in the room was a dancer, beer-brewer, model and free spirit. I kept thinking we females made a poor showing in the room. Gradually though, I learned this was wrong. The guys were following the ancient model of 'silence will not reveal ignorance'.

We asked questions. The crazy woman asked a lot of questions. Truthfully? If it hadn't been for her, none of the other eleven would have learned a damned thing. She was carrying us all because she was not ashamed to ask. The class time, especially in the first weeks, was a dialogue between one abstract philosophy and an airhead.

Some of her questions were beside the point. But even realizing that was a victory. It meant I was 'getting it' after all. I was so enormously grateful to her that we became friendly.

Gradually I trained into the reading. I would go to a coffee house bringing: one pencil, one pen. A five-dollar bill. The book. If I brought anything else, it was a distraction. I would buy a cup of coffee and sit at the empty table in the corner. I ruined that book by underlining everything significant in pencil (the whole thing had pencil in it). I would write my questions on a cocktail napkin with the pen. Stoke on the coffee. I went from a half-a-page at one sitting before meltdown to eighty pages at a clip. The napkin became my bookmark.

But it was still like flying over a strange terrain. The points of understanding were like landing at a bush airfield. Gradually, my intellectual airplane made more stops, more points of contact. But I still needed the crazy woman. Not quite as much, but still a lot.

The class opened up a little. Some of the guys asked questions. I felt more confident about asking mine.

So one day we ladies were walking out of class together. She was comparing Kant to the study of some aspect of astrology. Something about Aquarian impulses, I think. I have studied astrology, and I didn't know what she was talking about.

"I just don't believe astrology any more," I told her. "Philosophy has knocked all the woo-woo right out of me."

Behind us on the stairs, our quiet, always-brownly dressed professor started to laugh out loud. We continued into the sunshine. I took his next class next semester on Hegel. Learning Kant was like taking some kind of super brain-vitamin.  Hegel was a snap.

I owe so much of this to a dancer, model, beer-brewer, woo-woo woman who was completely unafraid of engagement.

A Sea not Vast Enough

"There was a time when the seas seemed endless and the sky vast enough to swallow any of the mistakes and errors of man. The world used to be big and man could afford to be small. Now the world is small and man must be big."                  

--Elliot Richardson

You would think maybe a minister or philosopher said these words. Instead he was a lawyer and a bureaucrat, a politician and an ambassador. All those occupations we jokingly don't trust.

According to Wikipedia, Elliot Richardson was known as a 'notable administrator.' He served in World War II, clerked for two different judges, went into politics and then into the federal agencies. He served the Nixon administration as an UnderSecretary of State, a Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, a Secretary of Defense, and then as Attorney General. During his tenure as Attorney General, Nixon ordered him to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson had already promised during his confirmation hearings that he would not do so. Rather than break his promise, he resigned.

His other accomplishments include much work on the UN's "Law of the Sea", the international law of maritime affairs, including sea piracy, trade lanes, and the extent of borders for offshore oil drilling.

It's good to think there are 'founding fathers' all along our history--people that believe in principles, and who are wary of making mistakes.  Besides that, I like the quote.

Urban Reconstruction

Bucket under sink. Plumber will arrive. Advil still works.

So I wouldn't call it a crisis, exactly.
Just can't stand behind the quality of my thoughts today-- 

The Tao of Victory by Sun Tzu

One who knows when he can fight, and when he cannot fight,
will be victorious.

One who recognizes how to employ large and small numbers
will be victorious.

One whose upper and lower ranks have the same desires
will be victorious.

One who, fully prepared, awaits the unprepared
will be victorious.

One whose general is capable and
not interfered with by the ruler
will be victorious.

These five are the Way to know victory.
 ---- ---- ----
Thus it is said that one who knows the enemy and knows himself
will not be endangered in a hundred engagements.

One who does not know the enemy but knows himself
will sometimes be victorious and sometimes meet with defeat.

One who knows neither the enemy nor himself
will invariably be defeated in every engagement.

from The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.
6th Century B.C.
the end of Chapter 3: Planning Offensives
Trans. Ralph D. Sawyer.

Illustration below: French planning map for Breisach (anonymous, 1743)
Garwood & Voigt Books and Fine Prints/ War of Austrian Succession--

Opportunity Lost--Sixth Century B.C.!

Imagine your life�s work is pioneering in the field of philosophy. You are one of the first authors on record to decide that man has a soul or spirit and to discuss its separate and universal nature. You identify that there are four important elements (fire as well as earth, air, water), not just three, a theory that will affect everything from astrology to agriculture to medicine until about 1400 and beyond.

You offer your one manuscript up to the gods. Or specifically, your manuscript languishes in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus but your reputation lives on, you are misquoted and misrepresented, and when your manuscript is recovered, it�s in small pieces due to floods, fires, and rain damage.

Good thing Heraclitus was a Stoic. Well, of course he was dead, too, so maybe it really didn�t bother him.

There�s a huge argument over whether this pre-Socratic philosopher wrote a treatise or a bunch of sayings. Somewhere in obscure corners of the Academy, philosophers labor over the scraps and the quotes from other sources, trying to put them in order and interpolate the thrust of his arguments. For now, with only fragments, I figure sayings are all we get. And they are the kind of thing that make you go huh.

�The way of writing is both straight and crooked.� Fragment 59

�The road up and the road down are the same road.� Fragment 60

Even the most profound people screw up. Heraclitus insulted a colleague, another pre-Socratic scholar. It's funny, but a big mistake. It's all the worse because it's his last word, the last fragment (129):

�Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, trained himself to the highest degree of all mankind in the art of investigation, and having selected these writings, constructed a wisdom of his own�a lot of learning, [for] a disreputable piece of craftsmanship."

Ahh, the Pythagorean Theorem, just to review:

He laughs best who laughs--first.

Heraclitus lived in Ephesus, now part of Turkey, from 535 to 475 B.C. The temple was rediscovered by archeologists in 1869.

References: Heraclitus, Fragments, Text and Translation with a Commentary by T.M. Robinson, U Toronto, 1987. Also, Heraclitus entry in Who's Who in the Classical World, Ed. Simon Hornblower and Tony Sawforth, Oxford UP, 2000. And Pythagoras and the Temple of Artemis' sad history, both at Wikipedia, illustrations by Wikipedia and onemathematicalcat.org

Aristotle Says You Know More Than You Think

Aristotle wrote the Nicomachean Ethics. I don't remember why they're Nicomachean.
I used to sit on the back bumper of my truck to read philosophy. If I went anyplace comfortable, I'd end up taking a snooze. Gradually though, I became trained into the thinking and it became a snap. Like every other skill, it takes practice. So I was reasonably cocky when I got to Kant. (Whoa.) Talk about overwhelmed.

This Scholar's Choice?
The part I turn to over and over again in the Ethics is the "kinds of knowledge". Everybody knows a ton of things, but they're not on the same level--how to tie a shoe, how to execute a warrant so all exits/entries are safe, what is seen and unseen . . . Aristotle calls the different kinds of knowledge "states of the soul."

There are a number of blogs on my roll and elsewhere that deal with better skills, better mindset, a deepening awareness and a wider view. So this seems relevant to their conversation. I simplified about six or twelve pages in my old text. These are All Paraphrases unless in quotes. Use of the Greek term frees you a little from previous usages of the word "intelligent" or "crafty" or even  "idiotic".

6.2 Scientific thought: episteme--
Episteme is concerned with what is demonstrable, things we know by necessity. It is reasoning--induction and deduction. Episteme is ultimately based upon the unknowable. Think about your geometry class. The first thing you learned is the difference between an axiom and a theorem. You learned a few axioms (unprovable) that were necessary for every theorem and geometry proof you did for the rest of the year.

6.3 Craft knowledge: Techne
Techne is reasoning used in production, reason used toward the craft of making things. How to sharpen a spear, cook a dinner, set a broken arm, bind a book. It is also poetry, which is a "made thing", a production rather than an action. Sometimes craft is Not about perfection. Think about Greek statues, the development of "true to life" sculpture. Then think about caricature--a deliberate, often pleasing attempt to be Not perfect.

6.4  Intelligence, sometimes translated as Prudence: Phronesis
Phronesis is concerned with living well. "We call people intelligent [in a certain field] whenever they calculate well to promote some excellent end [in that field], in a place where there is no craft." In other words, phronesis is about strategizing an action rather than a production, and that action is supposed to get you to a better place.

The Scope of Phronesis is wider than that of Episteme or Techne: it is concerned with "living well" and therefore it is about prudent behavior (such as proper manners) which tend to extend across fields of endeavour. These are Teachable things. They get passed down and across in society. I think the implication here is not moral in the sense of spiritual things. And yet it seems moral, for instance, to treat people well. Aristotle goes back and forth over this, and I think in the end that Prudence is a powerful component of the word. To do well what is expedient. To consider the community good, in Aristotle's classifications, is considered more intelligent, than considering one's personal good by itself.

Little footnote: the "idiot" in Greek is "the person who thinks only of himself". (Bet you know a bunch of them.) This means an idiot is not necessarily "stupid" but "self-centered."

6.5  Understanding: Nous
The grasp of first principles. It comes before the other three, and is concerned with the way we know the "unreasoned out"--the "understanding" or realization of the axioms necessary to scientific thought, technical craft, and intelligence. It is the basis of the first three.

6.6 Wisdom: Sophia
Wisdom is not concerned with action or with craft. It is a combination of episteme (induction/deduction) and nous (understanding). Aristotle says it is NOT Intelligence or even Political Science (the rules of governing men) because Man is not the most important thing. It is a thinking about Universal Principles such as goodness or honor that extend past man. It is the use of Reason to divine what these universal principles are and how they relate.

Comprehension: a little hairsplitting by Aristotle.
Once you make distinctions, you find you have to cover all the bases:
Comprehension is the rapid understanding of other arguments, which may or may not be true. Here Aristotle's translator uses the word "considerate" for comprehension, and he doesn't mean "mannerly" but "taking things under consideration". Comprehension is the ability to "get" what other people are saying. It is different from intelligence, because what you "get" from another might not be true or proven. Yet it is different from nous/understanding, because it will be derived from another person's true/false episteme/intelligence rather than a first principle.

For an example
Take an ambulance run, where the EMS passes information to the ER staff: quick, based on episteme (science-rapid deduction/induction) and phronesis/expedient knowledge (intelligence, protocols, strategies). The ER staff is going to comprehend the EMS report, verify all of it with better tools and hopefully more time, and accept or reject the preliminary findings by a second set of episteme. In the meantime they are all practicing craft (techne)--driving, entubating, ACLS, then surgery or aftercare, to produce both Health and, a stable city-state.

Beyond this, both the E.R. and the EMS are guided by a Universal Principle that doing Good is most important (Sophia/Wisdom), and a societal Intelligence/Phronesis that human life should be preserved. The system is frequently gamed by idiots who think of nothing but themselves (or their drug habit)--but we say they have false principles and less Phronesis/intelligence.

One last virtue in Aristotle that seems relevant to my friends in blog-land:
Sophrosune, or Temperance: The virtue of self-control, or restraint in action, thought, governance, and even production.

Okay, that's your philosophy lesson for the month and maybe even the year from Ann T. Hathaway.
I hope you found this a light but useful tour. Just think how much you know and in how many categories!!

Reference: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Terence Irwin, Hackett Publishing.