36+stratagems,+application

Application
(Return to Book archives) (Return to the 36 stratagems)

Relevance in the West and the Orient Senger notes that as ruses were mostly condemned as "the last means of the incapable when all other has failed" (Clausewitz) and un-Christian, there is no culture of applying and discovering stratagems in the west. This leads to:

-ruses that are applied normally are executed dilettantish and badly planned, -ruses applied by the more stratagem-competent far-eastern world are not discovered and countered, -while the expertise of stratagems allows somebody to plan and evaluate his ruses ethically, western ruses normally are applied un-planned and ruthlessly, -in communication with Far-Eastern instances, it frequently leads to misunderstandings as westerners do not have stratagem expertise, while all they communicate is analyzed stratagemically. Senger explains that this was particularly true for the frequent references to human rights by western politicians. Senger brings examples how Chinese politicians wittily win battles of words when confronted directly, and explains that many Chinese come to the conclusion that the west itself uses the subject as a ruse to weaken the evolving China as a future economic and global power and stage it mainly as a show for their own voters.

Senger cites a Chinese newspaper article discussing whether stratagem expertise should be imparted in children's education, that comes to the conclusion that this was not a question of "if", but of "how". ("Die Kunst der List", 2001).

He states that there are two modes of stratagem usage:

Active - to apply stratagems to reach one's own goals Passive - to analyze actions and statements of others with regard to stratagem usage.

This view, however, is not completely valid. For example, the surviving Roman and Byzantine manuals list several stratagems, many found in the list below, and political thinkers, such as Niccolò Machiavelli see ruses as perfectly good means of politics and warfare. Clausewitz actually encourages the use of stratagems when at disadvantaged position; he doesn't advocate them as silver bullets since they usually are more likely to fail than succeed and attempting them may divert resources off where they are needed (as happened with the Japanese in the Battle of Midway). Many of the stratagems listed in the 36 strategies have been carried out successfully in the West just as well.

Ethics and stratagems Ethics and stratagems are one of his major subjects; while he states that the use of ruses was not despised by Christian teachings (he cites Matthew 10,16: I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. (NIV)), he divides stratagem usage into four categories:

-Stratagem usage to inflict damage -Stratagem usage to serve a goal -Stratagem usage to make a prank -Ethically ambivalent stratagem usage. Although the ability to use stratagems competently was important, stratagem expertise was necessary to discover stratagems used by others to damage oneself.