Created September 2, 2022
Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.
The kids were playing the usual game.
It was the only game in town. That explained why they stuck with it, day after day, decade after decade. You gotta do something.
As usual, the moves were all predictable. Because they all imitated the past.
So, what are the most aggressive players doing? Well, of course, they are looking back for inspiration to WWII. Let’s see, what would Hitler do?
So, for example, the Russian player invades the perceived nearest weakest monkey. Turns out to be a rather formidable ape. Hmm, bad move. Not much immediate learning. Still no existential wakeup call WHY AM I DOING THIS?! Just muddling along as if human beings lacked creativity entirely. Repeating the same old moves that didn’t work last time.
So, for example, the Chinese player makes moves short of bloodshed to indicate interest in becoming a dominant partner with the South China Sea, the Solomon Islands, and Taiwan. Having already done the same with Hong Kong with no more than a yawn from the other players. Hmm, we probably encouraged it, hmm, bad move. Muddle muddle.
What would be a more creative best move for China, say?
Their Belt and Road initiative was their most creative recent idea and deserves more time before more aggressive moves make any sense. The ideal path would have been to adaptively continue to roll out the investment in 150 other countries, without debt load pile-ups causing a reversion into apparently duplicitous colonialism. It has not gotten too far out of whack to still save it.
Live through the growing pains of helping 150 other countries and China will have earned the respect of everyone. My Chinese friends, please don’t screw that up now by reverting into old species habits. The atavistic threatening moves are out of place in this century. The whole world has accepted the business strategy as the way to go. Essentially, we are all capitalists now. Maybe it’s time to put aside the ritual ideological mumbles. Certainly, traders all benefit more when they are not at each other’s throats.
War is good for selling weapons, bad for everything else. We don’t have to force the selling of weapons as a business strategy (although we have been doing that for a long time as Ike warned) because we can achieve the same effect by going into space. We can sell a lot of steel etc. that way, it will turn out to be a far bigger market than war!
We don’t have to fight these fights.
It is not cowardice but wisdom that cuts off the roots of war. This is the essence of Sun Tzu’s teaching. Wake up everyone and hear the bell of freedom ringing to announce the end of the old game and the beginning of the new game.
The First Earth Town Hall Meeting
None of us were really enjoying the old game, so we world leaders all came together in Cannes for a bit of fun and re-inventing the world.
Of course, you all were invited to be there, and the world’s media made it the most amazing experience for all of us. It went on for months and then became a series. Ahem, actually the highest rated series. You know all this, you were there. Wasn’t it like Woodstock?
Yes, it was a miracle. We were all talking sense. I threw the I Ching at the height of the re-invention discussions and I got Fellowship, Hexagram 13. The change line said: “When they come together, their sadness shall turn to joy.” The hexagram morphed into Brightness, of which it is said “Thus the great man, by perpetuating this brightness, illumines the four quarters of the world.” (Wilhelm Baynes)
The new game is much more fun. Going out practically every night, or having friends over, participating together in solving the problems of the world, punctuated by entertainment and fun games dreamed up by all these crazy new media, and our kids signing up to discover what else is going on out there, it’s a better game. The other game was getting SO old. Even the hardliners agreed that this new game is better – eventually. They still loved the old game but the rest of us couldn’t stand it anymore. Had to go.
The best play for China is to bring to the world the most valuable thing created by the longest-running continuous civilization on Earth: the wisdom of Confucius, the I Ching, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, and all of the other great Chinese philosophers and teachers. How to flow with others in peace. This is the very quintessence of China, its greatest gift to The Universe and to the ancestors. It must be brought back to the fore and imbue every product and service produced in China. The spirit is what everyone needs and wants the most.
Compensation for not following one’s highest dreams, and instead settling for taking the easy way out of staying within the herd and keeping your mouth shut, is what happens when repressed subconscious parts of oneself start to rebel by taking over motor control at odd moments. This can come out in aggressiveness toward others. Stirring up anger against a rival nation within one’s own people will tend to get the spirit of the people back online, but in a way that has many hidden and unhidden costs. It’s not the right way to get the spirit up. All of Chinese philosophy knows and exhorts humane and righteous conduct, moderation and modesty, and China itself must always exhibit such conduct in order to gain its rightful share of world leadership influence. Otherwise what is it all for, anyway? Isn’t China here to bring its culture and its wisdom to the whole world? How better to do that than to exemplify that wisdom in all of China’s actions?
Is that not a better movie to watch and inhabit for the rest of your lives? Is not that closer to what you hope is the way your progeny will live?
If we plunge ourselves back into world war again there is a very high chance that we will set ourselves back by at least a millennium. Whether we do or not, it will make everyone’s life on Earth a continuous living hell for a long time, a lot worse than Covid.
The choice is obvious. World leadership had better prove itself to be precisely that, a real leadership that senses the right place to go and goes there.
Let the Good people stand up and conduct themselves rightly.
Happy Labor Day Weekend!
Love to all,
Bill
