William Dttmer defines strategy as “the means and methods required to satisfy the conditions necessary to achieving a system’s ultimate goal.”
Alright. Well that's a very long winded way of saying 'general plan' with a useless pet definition that adds nothing by some dude.
Similarly, if you are interested in strategy, you will inevitably encounter military and business strategy. That doesn’t mean you need to enlist in the military, or sprout pointy hair.
No kidding? This is promptly followed by 'Conjoined Triangles of Success' type graphics.
This insight, that strategy is iterative, is the core of John Boyd’s OODA loop. OODA is an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act.
This insight, throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, is the core of Robert Matthew Van Winkle's SCALE loop. SCALE is an acronym for Stop, Collaborate, and Listen.
„One of the most fundamental lessons I learned from my training at the Monastic Academy was that wise and loving people should have power. Power is morally neutral—used by people who lack wisdom and love, it causes tremendous harm. Used by those who are wise and loving, it can be of tremendous benefit.“
This is one of these assertions that seem to make complete sense, until you realize that there is no agreed upon definition of “wise” and “loving“, and thus we cannot even start to assess if it is wrong or right. Any assessment not starting with sorting this out will likely end up in circular reasoning („that guy is wise and loving, because he implements policies I like“, „He implements policies I like, because he is wise and loving“).
I do not intend to hate, and I do not know the author (seems respected judging by the comments), still if someone says a thing like this is the most fundamental lesson he learned, I fail to understand what he could mean. How could you learn this? It also seems a very simplistic model.
Personally, I think it's a huge issue that many people are terrified of power. That drive just goes underground and comes out likely in unhealthy ways then whether it's self-denial or self-righteousness (aka canceling) others. How to address the problem of self-delusion is through wisdom practices and caring for others.
I also trained at the same place as Tasshin (hi tasshin!)
MLK Jr. also addressed the same phenomenon:
"Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly. You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites - polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love.
It was this misinterpretation that caused Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject the Nietzschean philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love. Now, we've got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on. What has happened is that we have had it wrong and confused in our own country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience. "
I learned a lot of things there! The training I received was focused on two components, what they called Awakening and Responsibility—Awakening referring to contemplative practices and monastic structures designed to lead to classical enlightenment, and Responsibility was hands-on leadership training through helping their non-profit organization.
Learning about power was indeed one of the most valuable lessons I learned there, specifically on the responsibility side. Basically, I went from not caring about power, and subtly believing I shouldn't have it, to believing that it's worth using the power I have to do good things. Nowadays, I spend most of my time doing service projects, using my power to benefit others. My blog and this post is one of them!
My teacher had definitions of wisdom, love, and power that he shared in his teachings, which I personally found useful, but you're right, there aren't culturally agreed upon definitions of them. I find getting to know people over time gives you a sense of their character, their values, their strengths, and their weaknesses. When I meet someone I deem to be wise and loving, I want to help them, give them resources, connect them to people, and find other ways to support them.
Learn about the Münchhausen trilemma, even in mathematical logic it is not possible to formulate a proof that is neither, dogmatic, circular or regressive. For this reason I tend to refrain from making any of those objections when people talk about their personal motivations. I even think this was the best part of the blog, the other stuff was talk about cringe mind-maps with weird names like how a cult has special words for mundane stuff. I hate these galaxy brain types trying to escape their linear western way of thinking by employing the complex plane. If you want to read some meandering thought on why you should be a Machiavellian go and read "Politics as wish". A classic.
I give you the Münchhausen or Agrippa“s trilemma. But in math we start with natural numbers or sets.
Starting with „wise“ and „loving“ as primitives is a different thing.
You can even treat mathematics as syntax, that only gets meaning when applied to the world. Then your primitives get meaning by what you can technically construct with it and by what you can predict with it. That together with the no miracles argument let‘s science circumvent the trilemma in my opinion. All that’s needed is a pragmatic semantic, or better practice as a quite weak fundament.
You’ve simple renamed axioms, unprovable assumed truths, to “primitives”. The munchhausen trilemma undermines all truths (at least all truths that anybody’s every tried to prove so far), neither science nor mathematics circumvent it in any way. Any belief that they do is not a scientific or logical position, it’s a faith based position (aka a religious belief).
That was not my main point, but primitives are not axioms. They are objects talked about in axioms. I give you they are close.
My point was that
1. numbers are simpler primitives than wisdom
2. You can treat mathematics purely syntactically, as meaningless games played by rules
3. You can then give them neaning in the elaborate practice of scientific research, technical implementation and prediction, on the background of human language and practice. Mind you, we went to the moon and have mobile phones and penicillin.
4. Since this can other than science grasping something about reality only explained by a big miracle, it does not matter where you started the proof of your worldview. It’s not grounded in rationalistic first philosophy, against which the trilemma argues. It is simple, practical, ongoing and repeatable success - power over nature if you will. That is a basis outside of logic. Ignore at your own peril, but true - I cannot logically prove it so you must believe. That’s all talk and never found a useful truth, like Kant already noticed in his preface to KdrV [1]. It has not changed a bit since then.
Lastly, from what you say I understand that the trilemma „undermines all truths“. Is it itself true? And then what? Is it thus faith based? Or does it undermine itself? You see that this logico-rationalistic approach leads nowhere?
Truth in pure mathematics doesn’t really have any meaning, because you simply invent the rules, and then derive further truths from that invented basis (these rules are correctly referred to as axioms btw, not primitives). It’s your leap to somehow deriving a non-axiomatic basis for natural sciences that’s completely in error.
> Lastly, from what you say I understand that the trilemma „undermines all truths“. Is it itself true? And then what? Is it thus faith based? Or does it undermine itself?
I suggest you read the full sentence:
> The munchhausen trilemma undermines all truths (at least all truths that anybody’s every tried to prove so far)
It’s entirely possible that a logical proof may exist that survives the trilemma. However it does seem as though nobody’s ever come up with one, and it’s difficult to imagine how that could ever happen. The usefulness of the trilemma is to undermine arguments that people have elevated above their merits (like your claims about natural sciences). If you could prove anything at all, even the most simple thing, in a way that survives the trilemma, I’d love to hear it. I’m sure it would be the most interesting thing I’ve ever read.
> Truth in pure mathematics doesn’t really have any meaning, because you simply invent the rules
Yes, I was saying that you can view mathematics like that. Not everyone does though, so I question that it necessarily is as you say.
I’m further saying that science is not simply belief or faith based, because otherwise all its achievement would look like one big miracle. And that seems contrary to the claim that it would be faith based. Without first philosophy and a logico-metaphysical “foundation”, whatever that could be, to whoch the trilemma could be applied. I think the very idea of something epistemically stronger than practical success that will prove science right is a flawed idea from the outset - what will prove it right? But please try to apply the trilemma - I would be interested. I often learn surprising new things here.
If you read my reply above you will find that I said that primitives are not axioms. These are the things axioms talk about, sometimes also referred to as atoms. But you may refer to them by no matter which word you like if you make it clear. Important is only that we understand reach other, though we will likely not agree. It’s a complex topic, and this medium is not necessarily made for that.
And lastly, my point about the presentation of the trilemma still stands. I did not quote the full sentence to not make this too long, not to make a cheap point against a straw man.
The trilemma is a practical hammer that can be used against first philosophy that tries to prove how everything is from the armchair. But make it a first philosophy itself, and it becomes self defeating.
The natural sciences are, put simply, the study of the natural world via experimentation and the collection of empirical evidence. However none of the empirical evidence you might collect (or any other type of evidence for that matter), can survive the scrutiny of the trilemma. You cannot prove that a chair exists, or an apple, or a pen without relying on circular reasoning, an infinite regression of reasoning, or by inventing some axiomatic foundation. I’m not aware of any scientific knowledge that’s capable of circumventing this trilemma, as you put it.
You might think it’s sensible to believe that apples exist, and that the world you perceive around you is real, but this is strictly a faith based position, no matter how perfectly obvious it might seem to you.
Thanks for your clarification. I really enjoy your arguments.
I reply that I find the idea of from first principles proving the existence of something, e.g. an apple a weird notion. What is the justification of asking for it? That is a rationalistic-philosophic concept I can only chuckle at. What about the human information-processing tract is so special that this would help anything? I completely agree that the trilemma helps against these attempts.
I do not agree that it is a useful or meaningful practice.
I’m not setting out to prove something this way.
I’m saying: you have projects and plans that you want to be successful. Truth found by the scientific method has in general a track record of being repeatably found again, and thus will help you. Religion, philosophy, astrology ideology does not have that track record. That’s what makes science unique and points to that it has found some truths. Otherwise it’s track record would be miraculous.
I’m also saying this is as good as it gets, precisely because of the trilemma.
To try to make myself clear: I’m thinking that this practice of proving from first principles would need to be shown to do anything useful, before I‘ll look into it. I think it’s a failed idea, though I believed it long. It’s often taken for granted, but it’s highly questionable.
Article aside, love is willing the good of the other. Wisdom is excellence of knowledge, especially first causes. (Practical wisdom is excellence in practical knowledge and prudence.) Translation: power is good when exercised by competent and good willed people.
That looks like something to work with. Now the thesis becomes somewhat testable.
I would argue that power should be constructed so it does not matter what the personality of the person in power is. Clear rules and checks and balances.
And the rules should be made by the ones seen as loving and wise.
And that is what in fact is happening to some degree in democracies.
My interpretation of that bit is that seeking power does not make you a good or a bad person, just through the act alone. There is definitely an agreed upon definition of 'wise' and 'loving', look it up in any dictionary...what differs is how different people project those definitions onto other people.
The thing about power is that it seems to be a corrupting force more often than not. If I had to take a guess, more people have started out with good intentions and gone to the dark side than the other way around. I think for this reason a lot of "wise" people avoid power like the plague.
Power is just the ability to effect change — energy over time.
Growing rice is power; and considerably more people have obtained power, as defined by imposing their will on their immediate environment, in the pursuit of feeding their families than any other use of power I can think of.
I think that’s the point here:
In associating power with bad things, you’re narrowing your perception of what power is, and hence limiting your ability to accrue it towards positive ends — eg, feeding a lot of people.
I think power itself is neutral; kind, manner, and use matter.
To put it in a fantasy context:
- Gandalf in Lord of the Rings is considered wise for refusing the One Ring and seeking to destroy it;
- but there’s no doubt that Gandalf is powerful — he beats both a balrog and the Witch King in 1v1 personal combat;
- and he’s okay with accepting more power — he accepted a ring of power from the elves.
Personally, I think you can’t be virtuous unless you’re dangerous.
Social power is also somewhat logarithmic due to social structures and also things like economies of scale. The president of Monsanto has vastly more power than a single farmhand. With things like relationships, one can impact more than just the physical space around them as well.
To the point about side effects, varying degrees of power bring other things with it...admiration, jealousy, competition, responsibility, etc...and most people can't and won't perform well under such pressure.
While Gandalf is a good 'perfect' example, Frodo exemplifies the struggles of everyday people a bit better. We can see through the storyline how Frodo constantly struggles with the ring, and how close he comes to succumbing to it(Sam too!).
If we’re going for human examples, then I’d put forward Boromir as the one representing the reader. (And making your point.)
Frodo is a little simpler and a little kinder than we are; in much the same way that Gandalf is wiser — and so the ring can’t truly tempt Frodo the way it does Boromir (save your family!) or Gandalf (save the world!) or Galadriel (save your people!).
- - - - -
And you can see the problem in the real world — people like the WEF and UN bureaucrats want to “use the ring” to solve public health and global warming. Which has brought us to the edge of global war, because their lust for power has overcome any good urges and they’re partway through a modern Four Pests program that will cause mass famines — and justify seizing family farms for their own enrichment. To save the environment.
But how do you oppose that without creating opposing power structures?
Power is an ability or attribute which I agree is morally neutral. But control is associated with power and that’s where the moral component applies.
The trouble is that inexperienced or immature people with power gravitate toward control of others and lack self control. If you ever worked for a “straw boss”, you’ve seen what happens.
In settings where organizational power and obedience is paramount, organizations usually seek to grow this ability to control oneself - military officers start as nominally in command but guided by sergeants. As officers move up the ranks, training focused on leadership and control is a core part of life.
In high function professional organizations, usually leaders succeed to a point based more on the personal influential power than explicit power. People usually listen to a distinguished engineer even though they have little explicit control of anything.
"seem to make complete sense, until you realize that there is no agreed upon definition of “wise” and “loving“"
Yup, islamistic suicide bombers for example also do so out of "love" (for god) and are supposed to leave this world "smiling". Meaning people literally justify bloody terror with "love" guided by their definition of wise people.
So I am quite sceptical of that sentence:
"that wise and loving people should have power"
As it does not mean much. Also power corrupts somewhat. I got to known some people I would consider "wise and loving" - but they did not had any actual power. Who knows who they will turn into, once they actually have power.
OT: The OPs newsletter is one for the few I actually subscribe and read. I met him IRL at a conference in Atlanta. Changed my life. We spoke for about 5 minutes and his words continue to resonate. Thank you, Tasshin!
Thanks for mentioning he has a newsletter; I had no idea. I frequently refer to his article on how to use Twitter [1] and immediately got excited when I saw his blog on the front page.
