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"In antiquity, those that excelled in warfare first made themselves unconquerable." The position of strength is the leitmotif of this chapter. This theme has strong parallels with the discussion of evil in Dion Fortune's Cosmic Doctrine, especially this paragraph:
Fading empires that are about to be vanquished love to engage in overreach, demonstrating the opposite approach to the formulas for success listed above by Sun Tzu and Dion Fortune. The US is a prime example of a failing strategy. A less obvious one is China. US and Chinese leaders are ambitious, but both empires are past the pull date of their glory days. When it was a manufacturing powerhouse, the US managed to get a leg up after World War II because of petroleum luck and the enthusiasm of its people. The Chinese attained their chokehold on the current world economy by ruthlessly exploiting the environment via the merciless exploitation of the Chinese people, a strategy that culminated in a fissured national spirit and a fractionated landscape. The Chinese Communist Party seeks to install its failed communism in the hearts of minds of every human being on the planet, by force if necessary. But China is a paper tiger with an increasingly cartoonishly evil image in a slow moving demographic collapse. They have severe energy and food dependency issues, and the albatross of a severely degraded environment. Neither of the above empires are strong in the way Genghis Khan's was in its day. Both countries are leaky dams that would do better to stop the posturing and drama and just mind their own business, removing the beams in their eyes before attending to their neighbor's motes.
The "In this house, we believe..." sign is an advertisement often found on the front lawns of houses in elite wokester suburbia. I last encountered one when I was on foot in Naperville, Illinois walking to the auto repair shop. The sign is designed for foot pedestrians like me to see it -- it's too small to read if you are whizzing by in a car. I have only ever seen it in luxe suburban neighborhoods with mature trees, personal basketball hoops for the solitary male child in the house, and professionally laid concrete surrounded by $25 a pot perennials bought from Home Depot. The sign irritates me because it is the epitome of wokester hypocrisy. The neighborhood that the sign occupies is miles and miles away from the black lives that supposedly matter. In my lower middle class neighborhood, a black person isn't a rare sight because they're the immediate neighbors. In the sign's neighborhood, the only black people present and accounted for are the ones delivering a package from a truck or checking the electrical meter. If injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, then the people with the sign in their yard are Public Enemy Number One. Nevertheless, they are to be pitied. For one, they are mentally ill. They are not sitting pretty: their houses are overlarge and inefficient, their communities are dog-eat-dog, every family for itself. They are one salary class job loss away from total disaster and humiliation. Their yards are useless, often covered by monocultured lawn and swimming pools. When trouble inevitably arrives, they have no strength with which to overcome it.
Patience
"One who cannot be victorious assumes a defensive position". Most of us find ourselves in a defensive position these days; I certainly do. It has been helpful to identify my enemy as the salary class I once wished to take my place within. They are not my only enemy, of course. All of us have enemies in the form of dwindling petroleum resources. The government has proven over the last year and a half especially that it is not our friend.
The Kids are Not All Right
Sun Tzu said that "Wrestling victories for which All under Heaven proclaim your excellence is not the pinnacle of excellence." Just because many normies (for the moment) believe that occupying a big suburban house with 2.5 kids and a pool with a virtue-signaling sign is the height of living does not mean that such a lifestyle is worth emulating. Normie suburban houses are nestled in terrible infrastructure and badly built. Their "safe" spaces are dangerous as anyone who has ever played as a child near a suburban street can attest: there is the constant danger of being run over by cars, and once the children are sequestered "safely" indoors and online, there is the imminent threat of psychological dysfunction as they disappear into the polluted astral realms of games and social media. There is an entire generation being raised to live in fear, molly-coddled and trained from birth to believe that there are salary class office jobs waiting for them once they complete their indoctrination in the form of college. My enemy is a village that has no idea how to raise a child. I call that a house of cards waiting for a strong breeze.
Instead of fighting them, the smart thing to do is to pay them no mind and to build our own strength so we can overcome them easily once natural forces have taken their toll. That's why I run a group on a platform I hate (Facebook) so that I can amass the people who are willing to go around Covid fearmongering to support local businesses and establishments that don't play into the Covid narrative. Instead of fighting the local public schools, I feel sane parents must find ways around them such as home-schooling. We avoid that which opposes us and when we are able, we use their bad example as a thrust-block.
"When you resist evil you lock up good. You lock up the force of good which holds the evil inert.
This serves no useful purpose, unless you have a superabundance of good which shall stand upon the platform thus formed and leap up from it to greater heights. Therefore it is not enough to meet hate with love - evil with good. This is the course of the ignorant and the reason why exoteric religion has made so little impression in the world. You must hate with hate sufficiently to cause a locking up of the force. You must hate the hate and, having rendered evil inert by opposition, the love can take its stand upon the firm platform and use it as a thrust-block. Therefore you only oppose evil when you wish to do constructive work - when you wish to make something new. You never oppose the evil when you wish to destroy.
You make a vacuum around it. You prevent opposition from touching it. Then, being unopposed, it is free to follow the law of its own nature, which is, to join the motion of the Ring-Chaos."
Fading empires that are about to be vanquished love to engage in overreach, demonstrating the opposite approach to the formulas for success listed above by Sun Tzu and Dion Fortune. The US is a prime example of a failing strategy. A less obvious one is China. US and Chinese leaders are ambitious, but both empires are past the pull date of their glory days. When it was a manufacturing powerhouse, the US managed to get a leg up after World War II because of petroleum luck and the enthusiasm of its people. The Chinese attained their chokehold on the current world economy by ruthlessly exploiting the environment via the merciless exploitation of the Chinese people, a strategy that culminated in a fissured national spirit and a fractionated landscape. The Chinese Communist Party seeks to install its failed communism in the hearts of minds of every human being on the planet, by force if necessary. But China is a paper tiger with an increasingly cartoonishly evil image in a slow moving demographic collapse. They have severe energy and food dependency issues, and the albatross of a severely degraded environment. Neither of the above empires are strong in the way Genghis Khan's was in its day. Both countries are leaky dams that would do better to stop the posturing and drama and just mind their own business, removing the beams in their eyes before attending to their neighbor's motes.
Keeping Up With The Joneses
The "In this house, we believe..." sign is an advertisement often found on the front lawns of houses in elite wokester suburbia. I last encountered one when I was on foot in Naperville, Illinois walking to the auto repair shop. The sign is designed for foot pedestrians like me to see it -- it's too small to read if you are whizzing by in a car. I have only ever seen it in luxe suburban neighborhoods with mature trees, personal basketball hoops for the solitary male child in the house, and professionally laid concrete surrounded by $25 a pot perennials bought from Home Depot. The sign irritates me because it is the epitome of wokester hypocrisy. The neighborhood that the sign occupies is miles and miles away from the black lives that supposedly matter. In my lower middle class neighborhood, a black person isn't a rare sight because they're the immediate neighbors. In the sign's neighborhood, the only black people present and accounted for are the ones delivering a package from a truck or checking the electrical meter. If injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, then the people with the sign in their yard are Public Enemy Number One. Nevertheless, they are to be pitied. For one, they are mentally ill. They are not sitting pretty: their houses are overlarge and inefficient, their communities are dog-eat-dog, every family for itself. They are one salary class job loss away from total disaster and humiliation. Their yards are useless, often covered by monocultured lawn and swimming pools. When trouble inevitably arrives, they have no strength with which to overcome it.
Patience
"One who cannot be victorious assumes a defensive position". Most of us find ourselves in a defensive position these days; I certainly do. It has been helpful to identify my enemy as the salary class I once wished to take my place within. They are not my only enemy, of course. All of us have enemies in the form of dwindling petroleum resources. The government has proven over the last year and a half especially that it is not our friend.
For those living in less than ideal circumstances, such as adults who live with their parents like my husband and I did for many, many years, the best defense is psychological strength. Conformity and its accompanying urges are the enemy. When living with my parents, I felt buffeted by messages of my own inferiority for doing so despite the fact I appreciated being there and knew I would always treasure the time I got to spend with them, which proved to be true.
Even now, I can feel the pressure to own my own washing machine every time I schlep linens and clothes to the laundromat. If I lived in a neighborhood without laundromats every few blocks, I would feel this pressure much more acutely as it would be obvious that conformity in the form of owning a washing machine is "easier" than the machine-less alternative. Not having one's own washing machine kind of sucks but it is better for the planet. In remembering that small bonus, I have learned to use my washing machine free status as a thrust block.
Living with one's parents is actually a great defensive position for both parent and adult child. There are solid reasons why most religions had extended families living under one roof as a common household arrangement. One could seek advice from both one's elders and God/the gods at the same time if everyone lived in one house. I miss living with my parents and will not mind if I am forced to do so again. Plus they have a washing machine...
The Kids are Not All Right
Sun Tzu said that "Wrestling victories for which All under Heaven proclaim your excellence is not the pinnacle of excellence." Just because many normies (for the moment) believe that occupying a big suburban house with 2.5 kids and a pool with a virtue-signaling sign is the height of living does not mean that such a lifestyle is worth emulating. Normie suburban houses are nestled in terrible infrastructure and badly built. Their "safe" spaces are dangerous as anyone who has ever played as a child near a suburban street can attest: there is the constant danger of being run over by cars, and once the children are sequestered "safely" indoors and online, there is the imminent threat of psychological dysfunction as they disappear into the polluted astral realms of games and social media. There is an entire generation being raised to live in fear, molly-coddled and trained from birth to believe that there are salary class office jobs waiting for them once they complete their indoctrination in the form of college. My enemy is a village that has no idea how to raise a child. I call that a house of cards waiting for a strong breeze.
Instead of fighting them, the smart thing to do is to pay them no mind and to build our own strength so we can overcome them easily once natural forces have taken their toll. That's why I run a group on a platform I hate (Facebook) so that I can amass the people who are willing to go around Covid fearmongering to support local businesses and establishments that don't play into the Covid narrative. Instead of fighting the local public schools, I feel sane parents must find ways around them such as home-schooling. We avoid that which opposes us and when we are able, we use their bad example as a thrust-block.
