7 April 2020 - #MAGAAnalysis - #Coronavirus #FriendsAndEnemies Part 2 If you haven't read it yet, Part 1 below is a long, slow, 85-tweet journey into your own individual, and your family and community strengths and weaknesses in the face of our current biological attack.
2) In today's work, building on these strengths, and aware of these weaknesses we reach back 1,000s of years to contemplate what I call The Ancient Four Laws of Friendship and Enmity. My guess is that they come from India, about 2,500 BC.
3) How were they discovered? We can guess that all ancient and emerging states, aggressively conquering or defending against invaders and marauders, all of them had to come to terms with these Laws. Sun Tzu tells us that war is a grave affair of the state, holding life and death.
4) One thing we know from India for sure is that they had a literal map of friends and enemies. They drew a circle representing themselves, and placed the states sharing a boundary, a border with them outside. These were all natural enemies.
5) Then, drawing all the states that were on the other side of those direct boundary nations, they drew a next concentric ring of natural friends. A border invites dispute. Sharing a border indicates enmity. But, on the other side of the enemy state, another border does the same.
6) We see in this image how competition creates enmity, and how the enemy of my enemy is my natural friend. I suspect that this was the first of the laws to be discovered. If you look closely at these stone tiles, you can see a schematic of the Ancient Map.
7) We can derive the next law that I speculate was discovered by labeling the outward flowing rings. The inner circle is Self, and we progress outward from there like so: 1) Self 2) Natural Enemies 3) Natural Friends 4) Enemies 5) Friends And etcetera...
8) I placed the term "natural" in front of rings 2 & 3 for emphasis. To my understanding, there is almost nothing here about values or virtues, shared beliefs or the bond of true alliance or angered vendetta at all. Rather, it is merely a natural condition, impossible to prevent.
9) The term "natural" will come again below. Let's turn to the first Law, the friend of my friend is my friend. In our schematic, we can see that rings 3 & 5 are the place we find these friends. The sole reason for this is that rings 2 & 4 are the location of our shared enemies.
10) In modern times we have something that gets called "realpolitik." It roots to precisely this sort of ancient thinking. In realpolitik we never believe in the kind words or pleasant behaviors we witness today. Rather, we look to something called "interests," instead.
11) We might reduce the philosophy of realpolitik to this single rule: Trust Interests. Distrust Word and Behaviors. We might add the corollary: You May Lie With Behaviors. That is a very important thing to note. People often smile while they stab you before you can notice.
12) In our everyday world, the natural way to build trust is to observe words and behaviors, what may be called, the Say/Do Factor. The more people actually do what they said they would, the more trustworthy. This is an outstanding rule. Yet, the ancients went deeper.
13) With their intense focus on natural, or what they might have called "actual" interests, they could ferret out the facade of words and behaviors when out of alignment with fundamental interests. We may expand our factor, therefore, like so: the Say/Do/Interests Factor.
14) Only when what is said and done truly aligns with identifiable actual interests can the words and actions be fully understood. This provides us with a path to truth, the truth of human motivation, of states and kings and nations in their motivations.
15) Before we turn to the Laws themselves, consider. Hidden within these Laws are principles. There is a structure to truth as humans come to understand it. We see an effect, an outcome, and we guess at what caused it. The more our guesses are correct, the stronger our knowledge.
16) This is basically the very definition of knowledge itself. Having studied outcomes, and guessed their causes, you come to see that cause appear and predict the outcome you've tied to it. It is these predictions that function as knowledge, as what we believe.
17) And that brings us to an enhanced definition of friends and enemies. Friends are those whose natural interests align with their words and actions, and are beneficial to our own interests. Enemies are the opposite. I know it's a cold definition, no warmth of human bond at all.
18) It also has no heat of hatred within its definition of enmity. There's no need to get all hot and bothered, your enemy's interest is just contrary to, in conflict with your own. Yet, no matter how cooly we define such things, the extraordinary heat of emotion returns anyway.
19) Humans can't help it. We love friends and hate enemies. Don't deny it. Don't pretend. You can never think coolly if, in the heat of emotion, you can't recognize that emotion has overtaken your entire mind and intellect. Besides, the hot emotions are not bad. They're natural.
20) A psycho-biologist could map out all the physiological and psychological effects that are triggered by love and hate. But, we need no science or scientist to observe the power and force of these great emotions. And, we all know how bad our thinking is when under their heat.
21) What is needed is a bridge between the two modes. Cool thought and hot emotion must be, in some way, connected. Perhaps we need a switch where we allow ourselves our hot emotions until their heat reduces, and then engage our cool thinking purposefully, disciplined.
22) That is why I LOVE these Four Ancient Laws. Noting my love for my friend, the Laws remind me to cooly consider my friend's interests to ensure that they too are aligned with my own, and then to cooly monitor his Say/Do Factor informed thereby.
23) So also with my enemies. The heat of my anger, rage and hatred often blinds me to that lovely Venn Diagram where, amidst all our conflicting interests, the intersection of shared, mutual benefits may exist. In this image, A & B are my interests and my enemy's.
24) As we now turn to each of the Laws in order, we'll employ two applications for each. The first will be personal. The second will be international, in today's real world, where the U.S. is the center circle of the Map of Friends and Enemies.
25) First Law: The Friend of my Friend is my Friend While not the most difficult law to put into practice, this law applied to personal life is tough no less. It informs two different categories of friends. * Strong vs Weak Friends * Open Minded vs Closed Minded Friends
26) A strong friend is able to bear risks, and even to make sacrifices on my behalf, as I, also being a strong friend, can make on his. A weak friend cannot. Weak friends - aka Fair Weather Friends - are ONLY friends as long as obvious interests drive the connection.
27) Weak friends are the basis of the famous epithet: with friends like that, who needs enemies? The Say/Do Factor of a weak friend is 100% predictable by way of his interests alone. Whereas a strong friend finds his own interests by first considering yours.
28) When it comes to the lines of the concentric rings on the map of personal friends and enemies, as opposed to location on a physical map of territories, the lines are drawn by trust and distrust. Who does your friend trust, who not? Most of all, how is new trust built?
29) When introducing one friend to another, we must inform each friend of the strength or weakness of the other being introduced. And, when demanding new trust be employed, we ourselves must be very strong. A closed minded friend cannot follow much guidance here.
30) Let's go specific as we turn international. Using the ancient map, both Korea and Vietnam are our natural friends. This raises another critical parameter, perception of relative strength. As China actually borders each of these nations, they naturally fear China's strength.
31) The Chinese know this, as they operate far more naturally by these Ancient Laws than we do. So, they know how to impose their frightful will on their Northern and Southern neighbors, ensuring that they fear China far more than they fear us.
32) Don't get me wrong. I support every step that @POTUS took toward North Korea. But, it was easily predictable that China would NEVER allow North Korea to denuclearize. And Vietnam? There is no question in my mind that China dictated the infection of our sailors.
33) It's a very interesting case. Knowing of the existence of the Coronavirus and its hellacious threat by early March when he allowed the shore leave, how could the captain of the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier have made that choice? Perhaps he wasn't thinking of the Ancient Laws.
34) Nations like China, rooted in the ancient past as they are, know no limits to the terror they'll employ in dominating a natural enemy. The powers that be in Vietnam know that the US will do nothing to retaliate, will likely not even believe they were operating under orders.
35) Understand, I have no special knowledge, only the strength of my analysis. And for all that, I am 100% certain that China easily tasked the Vietnamese with the simple mission to infect the sailors on shore leave. This is the least costly, most effective attack possible.
36) We must understand that the entire prosecution of war has now been altered. When a virus has been properly engineered it is mightier against a less populous nation than any other weapon. And, look how much mightier a virus was than any possible torpedo or missile.
37) Follow out the logic one additional step. Should China wish to, it could essentially wipe out the population of Vietnam with one virus after another. And, should the Vietnamese powers balk at China's commands, a new form of hell will be unleashed. Who would you fear?
38) Second Law: The Enemy of my Friend is my Enemy This law is far easier to implement. It does require loyalty and strength of friendship. But it does not require an open mind. Not at all.
39) We know that humans are far easier to motivate by threat than by opportunity. A new friend I introduce to you is merely an opportunity. Not only am I facing threat when I tell you about my enemy, so are you. My enemy will absolutely be your enemy too, and will come after you.
40) Still, there is, if not an open mind requirement, something of an intelligence requirement. A weak friend, knowing my enemy is attacking me, cannot picture any direct threat right now to himself. Thus, motivating him to join me against my enemy is a challenge.
41) The key is to patiently educate your weak friend about the nature of the threat. Once the threat has actually penetrated his mind, he then will warm to your mission, unless he's really not a friend at all. Here's an example. Your buddy's kids go to the same school as yours.
42) A teacher has taken a special dislike to one of your children, and fearing no repercussion, is harassing your child ruthlessly. The other children in the class are following suit, and your child faces a real situation. You attempt to recruit your weak friend to help you.
43) Like North Korea or Vietnam fearing China, your weak friend does not have the courage or strength of character to join you in addressing the situation. Schools are powerful things, and school masters are true masters. They are scary.
44) NATO, the most powerful military alliance on earth, is founded upon the sole principle that Russia - formerly the USSR - is the enemy of my friends. All of us being enemies of Russia, together, forces us into all being friends.
45) Of course, the alliance has hellacious weaknesses, most especially due to the USSR having been defeated, and who in tarnation knows how to deal with Russia? It isn't easy. Also, political correctness has overtaken the entire EU and you can't separate NATO from the EU.
46) So, as the EU transforms its member nations through forced migrations, NATO has accepted Turkey into its ranks, without actually certifying that Turkey is an enemy of Russia. Do you see? Political correctness wipes out the Ancient Laws. This is predictably bad thinking.
47) What @realDonaldTrump ha done with NATO is demanded that its actions match its words, and align with the shared interests that are the basis of the alliance itself. He is calling out weak friends as such, and putting them on notice. Trump punishes weak friends.
WORK INTERLUDE: We have two laws yet to go, but my work life beckons. Soon as I can, likely tomorrow morning, I'll return and complete the remaining laws, and wrap up this part of our lesson. Thank you for reading! There will likely be a final Part 3 as well in coming days.
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