The 33 Strategies of War by Joost Elffers Robert Greene

Author:Joost Elffers Robert Greene [Robert Greene, Joost Elffers]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780143112785
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-01-29T18:22:21+00:00

—Julius Caesar (100–44 B.C.)

KEYS TO WARFARE

The conflict and struggle we go through today are astounding—far greater than those faced by our ancestors. In war the passages of armies are marked with arrows on maps. If we had to map the battles of our own daily lives, we would draw thousands of those arrows, a constant traffic of moves and maneuvers—not to speak of the arrows actually hitting us, the people trying to persuade us of one thing or another, to move us in a particular direction, to bend us to their will, their product, their cause.

Because so many people are constantly shifting for power, our social world becomes blanketed in barely disguised aggression. In this situation it requires time and patience to be indirect; in the daily rush to move and influence people, the subtle approach is too difficult and time-consuming, so people tend to take the direct route to what they want. To convince us of the correctness of their ideas, they use argument and rhetoric, growing ever louder and more emotional. They push and pull with words, actions, and orders. Even those more passive players who use the tools of manipulation and guilt are quite direct, not in the least subtle, in the paths they choose; witness a few of their maneuvers and they are rather easy to figure out.

When, in the course of studying a long series of military campaigns, I first came to perceive the superiority of the indirect over the direct approach, I was looking merely for light upon strategy. With deepened reflection, however, I began to realize that the indirect approach had a much wider application—that it was a law of life in all spheres: a truth of philosophy. Its fulfillment was seen to be the key to practical achievement in dealing with any problem where the human factor predominates, and a conflict of wills tends to spring from an underlying concern for all interests. In all such cases, the direct assault of new ideas provokes a stubborn resistance, thus intensifying the difficulty of producing a change of outlook. Conversion is achieved more easily and rapidly by unsuspected infiltration of a different idea or by an argument that turns the flank of instinctive opposition. The indirect approach is as fundamental to the realm of politics as to the realm of sex. In commerce, the suggestion that there is a bargain to be secured is far more important than any direct appeal to buy. And in any sphere, it is proverbial that the surest way of gaining a superior’s acceptance of a new idea is to weaken resistance before attempting to overcome it; and the effect is best attained by drawing the other party out of his defences.

STRATEGY, B. H. LIDDELL HART, 1954

The result of all of this is twofold: we have all become more defensive, resistant to change. To maintain some peace and stability in our lives, we build our castle walls ever higher and thicker. Even so, the increasingly direct brutality of daily life is impossible to avoid.

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