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Re: Sun Tzu

>Chris Emery <Chris.Emery at ecoutlook_com> said:
>Subject: Sun Tzu
>Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 10:26:52 -0500
>
>ECOutlook.com just gave us all a copy of Sun Tzu's _The Art Of War_
>
>Some days, words cannot describe how cool it is here.
>
>--
>Chris Emery

     Sun-tzu and similar books can be used for learning business strategy.  
In the 1970's there was a very popular book called _A Book of Five Rings_ 
(1974 by Overlook Press) by Miyamoto Musashi (Japanese, 1584-1598).  The 
principles can be abstracted and applied to non-war situations.  A less well 
known book from 1982 went even further into our past by comparing business 
to our primitive roots in _The Way of the Hunter-Warrior_ by Julian M. 
Snyder.

     Sun-tzu is more thorough and often advocates avoiding war.  When I 
tried to look up Drew's quote in the Barnes and Noble edition of 1994, 
translated by Ralph D. Sawyer on page 131 I found an example of not going to 
war: Sawyer says "The army must not be rashly thrown into an engagement, 
thrust into a war, or unneccessarily mobilized."  He quotes Sun-tzu: "Anger 
can revert to happiness, annoyance can revert to joy, but a vanquished state 
cannot be revived, the dead cannot be brought back to life."  Drew did 
capture the spirit of Sun-tzu: *deception* is a very useful tool for 
defending oneself.

     For the western world's best book on strategy try _On War_ by Carl von 
Clausewitz and pay the extra money for the indexed edition.  It is less 
abstract and more to the point on actual battle, but the principles can 
still be applied to business after you graduate from Sun-tzu.

     I want to emphasize that the probable reason that you (Chris E) were 
given a book on war strategy by a business is so that you can apply the 
principles to being successful in business.  I am personnally against war 
and am not trying to glorify war by discussing or reading books about it.

     I watch war movies because I think it is important that everyone know 
how truly disgusting war is so that they will not promote war.  The U.S. 
would have been far better off to stop war after the Civil War.  The 
Spanish-American War, World War One, World War Two, the Korean War, the 
Vietnam War, and the many police-actions since Vietnam have all done more 
harm than good to America.  These wars caused the U.S. to get too involved 
in other countries, interfering with their normal development.

     The dead cannot be brought back to life.

--Rick C
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