How sad it must be

[Different Drummer]

[ZZenith]

1. Hear, hear!

This right here!

Boggles the mind, dunnit?

[Different Drummer]

2. I gave up trying to understand them a long time ago.

It's pointless.

[ZZenith]

3. Sun Tzu had some things to say on the subject...

How can you truly know your enemy if you feel no compassion for them? When you get to do battle with your enemy in the days this book was written, it usually meant pushing a piece of steel or bronze into the body of your enemy only an arms length away. To do this you had to be merciless, you had to expunge all emotion and see your enemy as less than human, even deserving to be treated such. Not something you think an intelligence or emotional being would want to do. However we witness this around the world on a daily basis. Currently we can kill thousands at great distance, we can watch the destruction of many on a television screen as if we were watching a B grade movie. This is the ultimate in killing in an emotionless and merciless manner. The opposite of this is find some compassion, to act to solve your differences while you still perceive them as a human being similar to yourself. To find what is common and work to integrate this commonalities to the benefit of both groups. We can watch lions tear into a zebra or a jackal into an antelope with fearsome ferocity and yet also see them display the most tender and loving care on their young. Is it then not clear that the lion shares no compassion with its prey yet is capable of such emotion with its young. Are we no better than a lion or a jackal? The lion and jackal only think of today, they have no concept of tomorrow or a better world to live in. We can and should. Sun Tzu, a veteran of many battles thought so.

There are three stages of a war. The planning, fighting and outcome. In the fighting stage, we are told the men must be “roused to anger”. You cannot kill people if you see them as your friends or just like you. No you must be angry with them or see them as less then you or deserving of what you are about to do to them. This mindset does not apply to stage one or three. In the planning and outcome, surely compassion for the soldiers and non combatants must be included somewhere. If we look at some of the bloodiest conflicts there is one outstanding aspect missing and another that overflows all else. Compassion and hatred.

In chapter ten he says, Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death. So he believed and promoted compassion with the lowly soldiers and in chapter three he says “in the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them”. Notice he said recapture, not rebuild. While this can be seen as cold calculation, it also hints of compassion. As Nelson Mandela said, when I make my enemy my friend, he is no longer my enemy. If we, through compassion make our enemies loyal friends, then have we not eliminated our enemies forever. Lions and jackals are not related, we humans are. We all bleed red.

But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. This sentence in chapter twelve is evidence that Sun Tzu believed in compassion. No doubt he was not motivated solely by compassion. In the second chapter he says, Therefore in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots have been taken, those should be rewarded who took the first. Our own flags should be substituted for those of the enemy, and the chariots mingled and used in conjunction with ours. The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept. To add your enemies arms to your own makes sense. It is clearly outlined that there are two parts of a war to consider, the damage to goods and the cost to the nation. However there is also the human cost and it seems this was an important to Sun Tzu as was the cost to the nations treasury. In essence you can not consider one without the other. There is no point in totally destroying your enemy and his land, the costs can be unimaginable. Better to conquer and assimilate. The Romans, Xerxes and Alexander the Great are classic examples of this being a winning strategy. By absorbing your enemy and his strengths you become stronger, destroy them and you are more likely to have an empty victory. So if we can determine how we can benefit from having our enemy as a friend and benefit our enemy as a friend and not as a shattered entity, then the outcome as it benefits both will he a lasting one.




https://suntzudo.weebly.com/sun-tzu-and-compassion.html

[niyad]

4. Sad indeed. And incredibly destructive.

[liberalla]

5. Ain't that the truth! Drump as a beacon of truth and honesty???

Wait, I gotta grab a barf bag...

[Different Drummer]

6. Good idea.