Cultural

The Dynamic Society

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

Sun Tzu's strategy is designed to deal with the unpredictable nature of a dynamic environment. The most common mistake social reformers make is viewing and analyzing highly dynamic elements of society as if they were static. As we mentioned in the last post, the common goal of both the ancient feudal lords of Sun Tzu's time and modern socialist reformers is to create a static social order for the "common good" of society. Sun Tzu taught that the real world environment is too complex and dynamic for that to work.

Making the Claim: Alternative Viewpoints

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

Sun Tzu's strategy teaches that the subjective view of a situation is more important in terms of people's decisions than the objective situation. However, subjective viewpoints must be confirmed by their predictions of the future. A single viewpoint where no alternative views are allowed is a self-fullfilling prophecy. All the decisions make the subjective reality real. Only alternative viewpoints allow different, possible futures. This is why any student of strategy must seek alternative views. A single "concensus" view is nothing but blinders leading us down a single path.

The Unseen Opportunity

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

Sun Tzu's strategy teaches that opportunities are both 1) right in front of you and 2) hard to see. Why is something that is right in front of you is hard to see? Because your perspective, which is subjective and not objective, blocks your view. As human beings, we get locked into certain views of our situations, which filter out information that doesn't fit our mindset. Sun Tzu's entire system for strategic analysis was developed to overcome this problem.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Cultural