Memoirs of a fallen Sith - Duplicity
Image Credit: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1366886
Han, Reign of Gaozu year 1, Luoyang, Imperial Palace
“What of the social occupations not specified in your philosophy? What of the military and the security apparatus?”
“Is your Majesty aware of how SunTzu convinced the King of Wu to adopt his philosophy regarding military matters?”
“Why don’t you remind me?”
“King of Wu desired a demonstration of Sun Tzu’s claims. He questioned whether Sun Tzu’s theories can be actualized in reality, and thus, commanded Sun to transform his courtesans to become soldiers.”
“King of Wu ended up losing his two favored concubines with his desire for demonstration.”
“Indeed, your Majesty, but why did Sun Tzu execute the concubines?”
“Well, to complete his demonstration; to prove his competence to the king.”
“And what was the demonstration?”
“That he can turn any one into a soldier.”
“Your Majesty, such exercises are parlor tricks for any semi-competent lieutenants.”
“Then why did the king request such a menial task?”
“King of Wu’s desired a demonstration of Sun Tzu’s conviction in his own philosophy. The demonstration was his refusal to adhere to the exhortation of the King’s emissary.”
“The King of Wu wanted his general to disobey him?”
“. . . disobey? What was the message that the emissary relayed to the general, your Majesty?”
“I was told that the King of Wu commanded Sun Tzu to discontinue the demonstration, as he had proved his competence. He was to cease his execution of the king’s favored concubines.”
“Is that the drivel that is being propagated . . . the King of Wu sent an emissary, one of his ministers, with a message to consider the status of the concubines as women of the court as mitigating factor for mercy. Sun Tzu assigned one of his subordinates to escort the good minister back to his sovereign and ordered the heads of the concubines to be cut-off without hesitation.”
“It does not change the story of how Sun Tzu disobeyed his king’s wishes.”
“Do you think so low of the King of Wu that you characterize him as a fool, your Majesty?”
“I don’t understand . . .”
“We have already established that any competent lieutenant can drill men to become soldiers. King of Wu was assessing Sun’s ability as the supreme general, so what was the demonstration the king needed?”
“. . . are you suggesting that the King of Wu wanted his concubines killed?”
“He expected them to be executed for disorderly conduct during military training, yes. The king was testing Sun Tzu’s conviction regarding his bing fa. The demonstration was the execution of the concubines in willful ignorance, or rather disregard, for the societal and cultural norms. You must remember, your Majesty, this anecdote occurred during the Spring and Autumn period, and not the Warring States era. King of Wu needed a military mind that understood the reality of war, and not those trapped by the normative customs of the time. He purchased the service of Sun Tzu with the price of two concubines, a spectacular bargain.”
“How does this relate to Confucianism lacking occupational designation for soldiers?”
“Military and civil administration operate on as opposite philosophy. Civil governance relies primarily upon manipulation of symbols and perceptions; war exists in a plane that obliterates ethics, morality, customs, and traditions. Matters pertaining to civil administration has little relevance in military affairs and the converse is equally true. We do not acknowledge soldiers as an occupation in civil society because such occupation has little relevance within a civil society, much as war has no application in peace.”
“But soldiers exist!”
“Under whose perspective, your Majesty?”
“Perspective?! Are you claiming that the Imperial Guard, who escorted you into this chamber, does not exist?”
“Does not the Guard comprise of conscripted farmers, your Majesty? Aren’t they, in essence, farmers?”
“. . . by giving a primary identification of farmer, with soldiering as an addendum . . .”
“We erase the concept of soldier itself as a profession from public consciousness.”
“How would such erasure serve the Han?”
“Your Majesty has lived much of his life on battlefields. What would you consider the first principle of warfare?”
“. . . to win.”
“Yes, your Majesty, for to lose equates to death. In war, there are no rules, no morals, no customs, no traditions. War obliterates ethics, annihilates theology, and demolishes conventions. It is a sublime experience that awakens man, with enough mental fortitude and training, to enlightenment and awareness of his condition and his environment.”
“. . . that morality and ethics are easily melted.”
“Ha ha! Yes, but more than that, your Majesty. It is the unwavering understanding that life is amoral. I saw the Lu mass levy use the crossbow for the first time, exterminating the Qi bowmen and charioteers at Changshao. I observed the Wu, using Sun Tzu’s methods, destabilize the Chu society with subversion operations. I witnessed the Qin water-assault tactic at Daliang. I oversaw the failed Qin attempt at using locusts as weapons on the Ordos plain. The fundamental truth of life cannot be reduced to the pathetic mewling of common sentiments categorizing good and evil, right and wrong, just and unjust. Against this bleak reality, moral fiction must be created and propagated in a consistent narrative that convinces and comforts the ignorant.”
“Thus, the danger of even an intimation regarding war and matters of war.”
“As we’ve discussed, war and peace exist in separate planes. These two spheres must, by necessity, be separated, though in principle, they are complementary pieces of a unified philosophy in ruling a state. It would be disastrous for your empire, if ministers and bureaucrats were to attempt administration of your realm as a military camp. A civil society governed without ethics, religion, and traditions will increasingly rely upon force that will bankrupt and implode the said polity. Without moral fiction, your Majesty will be at constant war against the ambitious, the foolish, and the petulant. The primary purpose of your civil bureaucracy is to prevent the Han from becoming a perpetual battleground.”
“Your Confucianism only pertains to domestic civil administration, thus, the conspicuous absence of anything military and diplomatic management.”
“Precisely, your Majesty. Furthermore, we would not desire for your civil ministers and regional magistrates to be conversant in military affairs, lest they harbor ambitions unbecoming of their station.”
“Ha ha! Yes, we must be wary of the worm that imagines himself a dragon.”
“Indeed, your Majesty. There is nothing more unseemly than those who covet that which is beyond their station.”
“It seems that your philosophy is used to train our subjects in obedience, but is unsuited for practice by rulers.”
“As we’ve discussed, your Majesty, Confucianism is but one-half of the whole method in ruling a state. A true ruler, having mastered philosophy and method, uses them to rule; he is not ruled by them.”
“Then the ruler must be above ethics? The ruler transcends religion and tradition?”
“If there is a moral obligation for your Majesty, then it would be to provide a stable, ordered, peaceful society within which your subjects thrive. All other considerations are trivial. Without this empire lie the barbaric hordes that threaten the peace of the Han realm; within the imperial sphere are the rabble rousers and upstarts who would jeopardize stability. Both must be neutralized using the appropriate tool. As only a fool would think to use a sword to chop down a tree, so too, the bing fa is unsuited when governing a civil society.”
“Yet, to unify the disparate regional cultures within our empire, you recommended using the Xiongnu as a foreign threat. How would we present an external threat without referencing war?”
“How did this fabulous feast appear before us, your Majesty? Does your Majesty invest any mental energy contemplating the actions of his battalion of cooks, assistants, serving maids, procurers, food inspectors, poison tasters, and others involved in preparing his daily meals? Similarly, your subjects have no interest in how the realm is kept safe from marauding Xiongnu; as long as their porridge is hot, your subjects will not care.”
“And like a meal, the less such preparation and cooking activities are known, the more enjoyable the feast.”
“Yes, your Majesty. The security of a civil society is best maintained by operatives who are invisible to the public consciousness. When judgements are rendered, when criminals are identified, when rebellion and conspiracy uncovered, when the barbarians are kept at bay, the actual punishments, executions, and battles are best left inconspicuous in the public consciousness. The public merely needs to know that wrongs have been righted, and those who threaten stability have been punished. The details are irrelevant and such information may prove to be harmful for the delicate minds of your subjects.”
“What of those who are keepers of such secrets? The bureaucrats at the archives and the security divisions within the Han? Unlike the military, they can not be sent to the outer realms of the Han to be physically hidden.”
— to be continued —
Fascinating. I wonder if soldiers suffering from PTSD are actually just trying to reconcile the separate planes of raw war with insane society? Being dropped into one universe with opposite rules must be so jarring to the psyche. No wonder it's difficult for them to reintegrate with society.
@valued-customer. Although I get that there's coexistence in a 'cold war' type of state between creatures (and co-workers) I disagree that 'peace is the natural state of living things in the war called life'. There is symbiosis or peace only during times of abundance. Cold war is reached when there's a whiff of drought in the air. When there are limited resources, it's every man, animal and plant for itself. Genes are selfish.
I also don't think people are that moral until they're fed through some sort of institution (like school, for example). Toddlers aren't moral. They learn to hide their immorality as a consequence of punishment. This then becomes habit as they grow older. It's a way of surviving in the world, with others, without getting too many punches.
About dying for principles. I used to think I would die for my principles. Then, over the years, I noticed they would change from time to time. My opinions are but tiny anchors resting in the ever-shifting landscape of learning. Now, I wouldn't die for my principles because I could read something earth-shattering tomorrow and change my mind :D
That was a fascinating discussion. Thanks. Gutted that I turned up late.
PS excuse the low vote. You're past the pay date and I wanna leave a bright green marker so that I remember I've already read this one.
Many symptoms of PTSD are actually adaptive traits for survival in a situation where a man could be killed at any moment and is expected to kill at any moment. These traits does not translate well to living in an environment that is not a war-zone. Furthermore, having essentially been the impetus for destruction of functioning societies, can a man simply delude himself into complacently adhering to the arbitrary laws, morals, and customs of a society that he knows can crumble at whim? The tragedy of war is that those unwise young men sent into killing zones by cynical power-brokers can no longer live in the civilized societies, in which defense they sacrificed their potentials. Like Moses, these war veterans can only look on from afar the promised land for which they bled their life substance.
Yes, that makes perfect sense. And beautifully stated too. It's a tragedy for so many ex-soldiers. I read an estimate: in the UK there are about 7K mentally ill ex-servicemen who are homeless. The government they fought for has abandoned them. Disgusting on so many levels.
I don't wanna nitpick, but I'm gonna anyway =p
What I meant by peace isn't the lack of conflict. There is a sense of peace I have found even on the brink of death. A calm, relaxed state of mind, even when bullets are whiffing by, and blood is on the ground, even pouring out of me. This is what I meant when I said that a warrior can be at peace while in battle.
Since this battle for life is continuous, I reckon other creatures are at peace, insofar as they are capable of the sensation, while they conduct their wars. Perhaps that might clarify my point in that regard some.
PTSD has left me, much as @soo.chong163 points out, with an inability to fully immerse in society. The mind and brain deal with trauma that deprives one of that peace I spoke of with neuroticism. Even knowing that one's reactions aren't necessary doesn't affect them. They are still one's reactions.
Being aware of the specifics of the reaction is, IMHO (and experience) more important that delving into the cause, as the cause cannot be impacted, while the reactions must be dealt with. One can learn to moderate even the most insane of impulses, the adrenaline and cortisol are powerful, but the mind is more so.
Perhaps my experiences resulting in PTSD have given me my perspective on life, that it is war. I have never been a soldier, so what we formally describe as war, a conflict between states, was not the source of trauma for me. This is the case for many others also.
Thanks @valued-customer
I'm so sorry for the delay. I got totally sidelined, wrote this reply in my notebook and have only just noticed that I didn't post my reply to you!
I'm sorry to hear you have PTSD. Would you say there are any advantages to having this condition, in terms of how you can now see the world from a birds-eye perspective or in buffering your responses?
Yes, I see what you mean about that sense of peace in the face of death, kind of submitting to the inevitable? I've seen videos of prey animals as they're dying. They seem sort of peaceful at some point before death. My point was that all living beings are competitive to the point of annihilating others if there's a limited resource. If anything, in nature, there's sometimes an uneasy truce rather than peace, IMO
Thanks for filling me in on the matter.
Cheers
Anj
I can't think of any advantages to PTSD, except that my reactions may cut to the chase in circumstances that require it. They did before, so at best the slowing of my reactions as I get older may be less. Dunno. It's really impossible to say.
There is a sense of peace when you have no plans, no agenda. I guess when you're throttled by a lion, you come to terms with it when you can't do anything about it.
Peace
I was hoping there would be at least some sort of upside to PTSD for the sufferer. Hopefully you'll work your way through to some sort of peace of mind.
No plans, no agenda: I wonder what that looks/feels like.
Thanks :)
The most striking paragraph in the post, I think.
It's interesting how, in their effort to deny what war would otherwise imply about the real status of their ethics, people actually create rules, for torture, the treating of captives, rules of combat, etc. But I think one of the reasons the English lost the Revolutionary War was because the Americans didn't fight according to the gentleman's rules.
You are foretelling the next installment regarding how to break men's psyche in preparation for their service as thought police. During Pinochet's reign in Chile, the internal security apparatus specifically selected men with high degree of empathy and moral principles to occupy the offices of "enhanced interrogation."
Individuals with the aforementioned qualities, rather than sociopaths or psychopaths, produce the best results in interrogation. Because the interrogators personally abhor and morally reject the techniques of enhances interrogation, they tend to be the most efficient - ie least amount of pain inflicted for most amount of information produced.
Also, their moral and ethical tendencies create deeper sense of loyalty to the state perpetuating morally repugnant policies because the cognitive dissonance forces these men to either delude themselves with the faith in "greater good" or break psychologically. Most tend to choose the first option.
I recall once being tortured by a cop who didn't like doing it. He wasn't particularly good at it, as a result. This could have been just a poorly trained mistakenly graduated individual, but it is all I have to go on.
As to the choice between the greater good, and psychological break, I assure you the torturee has that same choice. My choice was to simply have integrity. There are other choices, always, although I expect graduates of the School of the Americas where Pinochet's torturers (and many others) have been trained may well present such dichotomies in order to guide their students into such mindsets.
Perhaps torturers are more susceptible to such guidance. I am not, in any circumstances, and particularly not under torture. I remember realizing that all men die, and I didn't want to die groveling.
I am sorry that you were subject to torture. Patrol police are not suited for interrogation because they are chosen for policing duties, which require entirely different temperament, skill-set, and mind-set. I am surprised the unprofessional attempted to bungle his way into becoming an interrogator. I hope you pursued legal action against the fool and won massive awards.
You are correct in using the term "torture" and "tortured man," since the excercise of torture first begins with sterilization of the concepts. As long as society can be convinced to perceive torture in clinical sterility, the purveyors of said torture has the ability to shape the narrative. Thus, we use words like "interrogation," "agents," "subject," "enhancement," "exercise," etc.
Have you ever worked for state internal security? You seem to have a strong mind, unshakable moral foundation, skeptical intellect, and high degree of empathy. All ideal qualification necessary for an intelligence agent, or a state security operative.
While I probably resemble a Taoist, I am not very amenable to such tasks as Sun Tzu would put them to. No one could get me to be inhumane to someone, so security work isn't my field. I stick to bending nails and smashing thumbs. My own thumbs =p
I didn't bother pursuing some form of recompense. I pitied the man, John Hanousek, because he probably suffered more from his beating of me than did I. That's how you get PTSD, after all.
There was no attempt at interrogation. I just refused to be printed, and they wanted me to comply. The judge let me go the next day, with no charges even filed. It was one of the more instructive experiences I have had with government - a complete travesty and mockery.
"This is precisely the reason that the state security apparatus requires a person of integrity like yourself to moderate and restrain the excesses of certain zealous members of the state machine. Imagine the harm to those subject to state security apparatus being lessened and mitigated because of the presence of your moral integrity. We need upstanding individuals, such as yourself, to help us reform the corruption and excesses of state security apparatus that may exist . . . etc, blah, blah, blah."
So the recruiting agent will try to sell torture as something acceptable. In many instances, young, idealistic, moral citizens will actually believe in their overblown ability to reform an evil system, when presented with above marketing gimmick. Still, from the perspective of the state, certain unsavory governing methods are necessary, and a portion of the subjects need to be sacrificed to operate the hidden levers of power.
It seems like the officer was trained exactly to be the type of intellectually obtuse visible security cog, though the failure of the recruitment system was in accepting someone with his degree of empathy. He has no business, or aptitude, in attempting interrogation. Sometimes, I think the West expects too much from their security cogs - from assessing the mentally ill to performing interrogations. The sole job of the security cogs is to fetch potential troublemakers to the state security apparatus to be processed.
Interrogation is really a wrong, or false, terminology of the purpose of the exercise. The primary purpose of interrogation is not really to obtain information, but to subvert the will of the subject. It really matters not what the information proffered by the subject is, as long as the information is something personal and private. The interrogation is purely a demonstration in exercise of power by the state against its subjects; the broken men not only has been educated regarding his proper place in the political hierarchy, but also serve as an exemplar for others of the consequence of opposing the state machine. As the old Chinese proverb states: kill the chicken to scare the monkey.
This was my experience. In this case that desire of the state was in line with the desire of the thug executing it. That's not always the case, as I reckon folks sign up for that job because they like hurting people.
I have seen this in a lot of cops, as well as petty bureaucrats. You can see the glee in their eye when they tangle you in red tape. As always, bullies cry the loudest when their victims turn out not to be defenseless, and get the upper hand.
I have avoided some of that trouble just by being forthright about how I'd deal with them personally if they gave me any crap. There's plenty of easy victims to enjoy harassing. Most of them that are just enjoying the discomfiture they inflict get you out of their life as soon as possible when you give them a reason to expect you striking back.
Edit: that's exactly why there were no charges filed in this case. After a less than pleasant evening chatting about my failure to comply with their demands, he allowed I could try to get a lawyer to advise me about whether or not I needed to be fingerprinted - at 3am.
Handed a phone and some yellow pages across a battered steel table from him and another cop, I left lawyers a couple messages, but the third call was to my wife.
After explaining the bare bones of my situation, as if to a lawyer, I then spelled his name, and told her to get a lawyer hungry for personal damages.
You should have seen the faces of the cops!
There was no more trouble. They couldn't get me out of there fast enough.
Psychopaths, those who derive pleasure from inflicting pain, and sociopaths, those who lack empathy, are extremely poor specimens to be used as interrogators because of their underlying patholgy. The purpose of the exercise is not to inflict unnecessary pain, but convincing the subject to cooperate with his tormentors. It is an exercise of conversion, if you will, of an errant heretic. Inflicting needless pain serves no purpose and may be counter-productive, as the subject can be driven to obstinacy by irrational and obtuse interrogators. Many of the best interrogators can accomplish the desired goal in some instances without inflicting pain. In any case, decent people should not question too much about torture techniques. That maintenance of worldly governments require such unsavory agencies illustrates man's capacity for inhumanity, when tempted by power.
Interesting!
You write masterfully. I was surprised to find typos in even one paragraph.
May I suggest '...on opposite philosophies', and 'Matters pertaining... have...'?
The wealth of history China retains is astounding. Thanks for sharing your insights into it.
Do I need to voice my disagreement with, in particular, this paragraph? Life itself is war. Every blade of grass steals the dew from it's neighbor, every leaf takes all the light it can. Each breath you take annihilates countless lives, poor microbes sucked into your inhospitable lungs.
War can be a state of peaceful coexistence, as you sense strolling through a tidy garden, or a wild, natural forest. It need not be total dominance where winner takes all. Life has evolved to a sort of cold war, where greedy anemones will suck down and dissolve every scrap they can reach with their venomous tentacles, but will not chase them, and so on, as each of the kine wage their own wars, leaving to others theirs.
There is no separation between civic life and war. Life is war.
Thus, it is observed that Sun Tzu's disciples ultimately lost their empires, because the philosophic separation of life and war allowed war to be conducted absent ethics and principle. Such tactics may seem to succeed, but by poisoning the well of the minds of the conductors of war, their societies wither and succumb, in time.
LIve long, prosper, and know peace.
Very poetic. Though the meaning is harsh. Reminds me of this post of mine.
There is not an adequate conceptual phrase for the concept of "yin-yang" relationship on the English language. The closest concept to it in the West is in Genesis description of woman "as being opposite" man. The concept is not that man and woman are "opposites" but as opposites and not quite complementary.
The interesting question regarding "war" and "peace" is the definitions. Is peace but absence of war, or is it something entirely different? Are war and peace like the duality relations of man-woman dynamic, where they are as opposites? There are more evaluations upon which can be reflected regarding the separation and union of war and peace. Do we make war to gain peace, or do we establish peace to prepare for a greater war?
The concept of war and military strategy has no place within civil society. Indeed the amoral nature of war does not lend itself to ethical and moral sensibilities of civilized man. Casually adopting of "art of war" has become fashionable in the modern Western financial and political circles, which is disasterous to a civil society. "War" on drugs, poverty, political incorrectness, etc. are insane concepts, as such premises transform civil society into battlefields.
Whether fictious or divinely ordained, ethics and morality allows for stable, civil society, in which men are not eating each other. Voltaire's observation about the necessity of inventing God is relevant in this discussion. However fictious, ethics and moral restraints are necessary in civil society, but such restraints are hinderances in the sphere of war where the very existence of a society and culture hangs in balance.
The most important aspect of military training is in demobilization and reintegration of killers back into civil society, where even a fraction of the soldier's activities could not be imagined by civilian population. A state may subsidize the continued existence of killers during peace time, as reintegration is difficult, and once a civilian has been transformed into killers, the state can not require any other duties from a man who has experienced the sublime nature of his amoral world.
Few people actually want to see behind the curtain- not just because it can unsettle them, but because most of what goes on back there is, well, often pretty damn boring to most people.
So true! Governing is remarkable droll. In fact, the most boring eras of human history are the most prosperous and harmonious periods. Even in the sphere of war, the most successful campaigns are those involving unimaginative sieges. Most are familiar with Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, but how many are aware of relentless and countless (but boring) sieges that won the Hundred-Years War for the Valois?
Boring is good and, well, we all know the saying about interesting times.
As far as the sieges question goes- a friend relayed a metaphor to me recently. Eastern strategists are go players, while Western ones are chess players. I think it would be fair to say that some wars are won by lightning strikes to chop off the head, but when those strikes fail- and they so often do- long, dragged out, resource and morale denying campaigns become necessary. Those relentless sieges are a classic example of these, but I think Sherman's March to the Sea can be understood the same way, and it's much flashier.