“Enough with all the dogmatism, absolutism, objectivism! Let us show the world that war is the father of all, the king of all! The descendants of the vanquished still smear themselves with blood and pray to the statues of the deified or glorified victors because of the latter’s bloody victory (war makes some gods, others men; some slaves, others free).”
~ Sauwellios
Discuss.
I believe we must engage objectivity and subjectivity in a dance of complementarity like the Tao symbol above.
At the same time we need to tread the Middle-Way between dogmatism-absolutism and the lais·sez-faire.
The above principles are applicable to wars, where wars in terms of morality is absolutely wrong but humanity has to dance with it ethically till it disappear into the horizon of absolute morality.
I am instantly tempted to apply the yin yang principle to the art of war. Soft lines and hard lines, Sun Tzu did know about them.
Earth and Heaven - flux and principle.
“Kung Fu” = “Good Work”
or so I heard.
Know thyself - but first love thyself. That is the order, otherwise one comes to know a monster, and not oneself - for one is only love and a certain degree of power to accept that.
Love is ours as the bringer of the most bewildering despair, as well as of the deepest happiness. Philosophy proper is a state of being constantly in love and beloved, an affair with the entirety of existence as it is given to us - some with, others without the nausea. From this state we write, affirm our natures, and we grow like trees, so that men can breathe.
Yes, Sun Tzu definitely applied the Yin-Yang principles which is natural or he could be well versed with the Way of the Tao.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
i.e. “Fight without fighting”
What is most critical with Philosophy-proper is the efficient use of the right tools & knowledge [philosophical and otherwise] to optimize the well being of the individual[s] and therefrom the collective.
That is a statement about philosophy, not a philosophical statement.
One needs to write aphoristically too a certain degree to access the parts of the mind that work as philosophy; the chemistry of our deepest ethics.
“Aphoristically” is OK to an extent, but there is a danger it could veered into LA LA LAND.
Paraphrasing Kant, it was like Plato flying a kite with very flimsy strings and it was blew off by gust and flew by itself ungrounded.
As I had stated the objective and the subjective must always engage and dance in complementarity along the Middle-Way.
The aphorism is rather a grounding form.
Language is essentially “Lala Land.” The aphorism is a self-aware bit of language, one might say. The philosopher has inserted his coherence in what is otherwise gibberish/
I have to
be unprepared to be
master of myself. Let the
instrument be what it will, let the
instrument be so out of tune as only
the instrument “man” can be —
(Ecce Homo)
Are Wisdom and Luck brothers, or one and the same?