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Attack & Defense
If someone punches you in the gut, what do you do? You automatically move to protect against them doing that again. Same thing for if someone slaps you in the face - your hands fly up of their own accord to prevent that source of pain from being duplicated. What if you get mugged? The next time you walk down a dark street, you will be much more aware of the potential danger
From this simple natural reflex, we can extrapolate an intriguing point of strategy: Only attack that which you want to strengthen. For the natural reaction of all things that are attacked is to defend. To defend is to concentrate strength in a particular configuraration in order to resist the painful change of one’s current state.
Terrorism, therefore, does not threaten civilization but actually makes it stronger, by forcing it to pull together its defenses to protect its core values. (Unless it is dealt a death blow, but this only means that the rate of change exceeds the ability for the current state to maintain recognizability) Meanwhile though, things that are not seen to be essential core values (ie, erosion of core values) become diminished as emotional, intellectual and physical resources are modulated into a defensive position, transforming existing configurations into something that is perceived as being stronger, as being more able to withstand attack.
So the natural thing to do to engage an enemy is to attack him in such a way as to provoke his defenses intentionally. Attack him so that he becomes hardened where you want him to become hardened, ossified around the points where his flexibility is most important. Make his hands fly up to protect his face so that he cannot see you tripping him.
Hm, I should go get myself a copy of the Art of War, it sounds like…
September 21st, 2006 at 11:54 am
I agree that terrorism strengthens, rather than weakens, civilization, and that the militant element of primitivism is extending civilization’s lifespan (and in so doing, exacerbating the crisis), but for a very different reason. This is what I argued in “On Violence.” To illustrate how this works, I’m going to go on what seems like a tangent….
Bush has done an excellent job of saving civilization. I mean that earnestly. With peak oil probably about now, Bush’s invasion of Iraq has given the oil market several years it might not have otherwise had in it. The price of oil has fluctuated and we’re seeing supply problems, but investors can’t disentangle if it’s a systemic problem like peak oil, or the “risk premium” because of the chaos in Iraq. It muddies the waters, and keeps investors from seeing that oil has systemically become a losing deal. This keeps them investing a little bit longer, as many of them presume this is a short-term problem to ride out. By the same token, Bush’s incompetence in Iraq translated into personal blame when Katrina hit New Orleans. Rather than see the writing on the wall with the kind of shortfalls Homer-Dixon writes about in The Ingenuity Gap, or see the difference between Galveston, 1900 and New Orleans, 2005 in terms of Tainter’s diminishing marginal returns curve on complexity (Collapse of Complex Societies) and see that complexity has become a losing deal, Bush’s incompetence muddied the waters. Was the response to Katrina because the system has become too complex and our ability to solve problems is diminished accordingly, or is it simply that Bush is incompetent? We’ve gravitated towards the latter, and that keeps us investing in complexity a little bit longer–sticking it out till 2008, when we can put in a competent president and all will be well.
But of course, it won’t be. The problems are systemic, and these tactics merely buy more time. They make collapse longer in coming, and in so doing, make it that much worse when it does come. The plan is likely to buy time for a new deus ex machina to save us (and of course, if one does, that too merely delays collapse–perhaps for a century or more, but still only a delay, and when that delay expires, human extinction will be fairly certain because of it).
As I discuss in the article linked above, even under the most effective terrorist scenario, the infrastructural impact can never outweigh the impact it has on us, the “investors” in complexity. It muddies the waters. It makes complexity seem like a good deal with a momentary setback. Collapse is always that tipping point where we realize that complexity has become a losing deal. When the waters are muddied like this–whether by Bush invading Iraq, or an eco-terrorist blowing up a dam, we push that tipping point farther into the future, and give civilization a little more time–a little more time to wipe out 200 species every day, a little more time to release enough CO2 to melt the glaciers and destroy whole ecosystems, a little more time to appropriate a little more of the planet for ourselves (we already take up 40% of it), a little more time for our population to rise exponentially, a little more time for our economy to grow. When that time runs out, as it eventually has to, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” So eco-terrorism is a self-defeating strategy. It makes civilization last longer, and that means it allows for greater devastation now, which will line up an even more horrific collapse to come.
September 21st, 2006 at 2:13 pm
It’s a classic warfare move. You attack over here, the defender strengthens his defense over here. Then you hit him over there, where you actually wanted to hit him, where he’s weak. The battle is often not to the strong, but the swift.
The Art of War can be found online pretty easily.
September 21st, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Also try looking at the Greene’s 33 Strategies of War, same basic content (much of it derived from Sun Tzu) and a much more amusing read.
September 21st, 2006 at 5:54 pm
“A man is born gentle and weak. At his death he is hard and stiff. Green plants are tender and filled with sap. At their death they are withered and dry.
Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.
Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle. A tree that is unbending is easily broken.
The hard and strong will fall. The soft and weak will overcome.”
Lao Tzu
September 21st, 2006 at 5:56 pm
btw check out systema
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:42 pm
[…] But at the same time, in my own usage of the term, you only critique something which you would like to make better. If you want to destroy a work of art, then you smash it on the floor or rip a whole through the canvas. You don’t sit the artist down and tell them in what ways their work failed and how they could improve it. In other words, I see the purpose of critique as being improvement rather than refutation. You attack in order to trigger a defense and cause something to strengthen itself (otherwise you would simply deal a destructive death blow and be done with it). […]
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:56 pm
[…] But at the same time, in my own usage of the term, you only critique something which you would like to make better. If you want to destroy a work of art, then you smash it on the floor or rip a whole through the canvas. You don’t sit the artist down and tell them in what ways their work failed and how they could improve it. In other words, I see the purpose of critique as being improvement rather than refutation. You attack in order to trigger a defense and cause something to strengthen itself (otherwise you would simply deal a destructive death blow and be done with it). […]
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:16 pm
so, Tim, what exaclty are yuo using this stuff for?
September 24th, 2006 at 1:36 am
http://jlhart7.blogspot.com/2006/09/gandhis-gonna-kick-my-ass-for-this.html
Some good links to other people’s stuff here too