A CULTURAL GENEALOGY OF STRATEGIC RATIONALITY

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Liberal Studies

By

Gino R LaPaglia, M.S.

Washington, DC April 10, 2018 Copyright 2018 by Gino R LaPaglia All Rights Reserved

ii A CULTURAL GENEALOGY OF STRATEGIC RATIONALITY

Gino R. LaPaglia, M.S.

Thesis Advisor: Francis Ambrosio, Ph.D

ABSTRACT

I construct in this thesis a cultural genealogy to trace in Western civilization a consistent set of values that underlie a worldview that I call Strategic Intelligence

(SI). I argue that the plethora of cultural data indicates the presence both of an underlying strategic rationality and a metaphorological paradigm that functions at a level that is more expansive than the terminological and conceptual. I conclude that the values of SI have been transmitted in cultural sources for thousands of years, in multiple cultures. Invested with the highest forms of authority, the continuous transmission of the values of SI in two distinct civilizations

(European, Chinese) over the trajectory of their unique cultural evolution provides evidence for the authority, legitimacy and potency of this ancient framework of meaning as fundamental to culture. (Keywords: Strategic Intelligence, Strategic

Rationality, Philosophy of Strategy, Philosophical Anthropology, Hermeneutic

Philosophy, Axiology, Metaphorical Analysis, Cultural Studies, Mētic)

iii The research and writing of this thesis is dedicated to everyone who helped along the way. Foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to the two professors who most influenced the course of my doctoral studies, my advisor Dr. Frank Ambrosio, and Dr. Jo Ann Moran Cruz. Dr. Moran Cruz helped me connect with the Western cultural heritage, and Dr. Ambrosio focused my attention on what is fundamental in culture. I am also very grateful to Dr. Carol Benedict and Dr. James Millward for their generous time and thoughtful insights—without them I would not have been able to finish this cross- cultural study. All served as master navigators who successfully saw me through the Odyssean journey that became this thesis.

This marathon could not have been completed without the unwavering support of my loving family, James, Nino, Poppy Ann, and my writing companions Morpheus and Leo. I am blessed to have them in my life.

Many thanks, Gino LaPaglia

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 8 METHODOLOGY AND ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK ...... 20 STRATEGIC RATIONALITY IN CULTURE ...... 35 CHAPTER SUMMARIES ...... 52

CHAPTER II STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE IN GRECO-ROMAN CULTURE ...... 54

HESIOD’S THEOGONY...... 58 HOMER’S ODYSSEY ...... 65

CHAPTER III THE HUNT AS GAME ...... 79 CHAPTER IV HOLY STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE ...... 104

HOLY SI IN THE JUDAIC LEGACY ...... 105 HOLY SI IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION (CLASSICAL - MEDIEVAL) ...... 113

CHAPTER V SECULAR STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE ...... 131

LATE ANTIQUITY - MEDIEVAL ...... 131 RENAISSANCE: SI IN SPANISH PICARESQUE ...... 152 RENAISSANCE: SI IN ITALIAN RENAISSANCE DRAMA ...... 162

CHAPTER VI CHINESE STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE ...... 174

TOWARDS A GLOBAL SI ...... 175 THEORY OF THE THICK AND BLACK (HÒUHĒIXUÉ 厚⿊学) ...... 203

CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION ...... 214 APPENDIX A ...... 218

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 219

v LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1. PHYLOGENESIS OF STRATEGIC RATIONALITY IN CULTURE ...... 1 FIGURE 2. NGRAM ANALYSIS OF ‘STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE’ ...... 2 FIGURE 3. NGRAM ANALYSIS OF ‘STRATEGIC CULTURE’ ...... 3 FIGURE 4. MARS AND VENUS CAUGHT IN VULCAN’S TRAP ...... 54 FIGURE 5. THE PUNISHMENT OF PROMETHEUS ...... 64 FIGURE 6. HÒUHĒI IN THE PRC INTELLECTUAL ECOSYSTEM ...... 190 FIGURE 7. PERCENTAGE CHANGE/INCREASE PER DOMAIN ...... 191

vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

FIGURE 1. PHYLOGENESIS OF STRATEGIC RATIONALITY IN CULTURE

The Cultural Genealogy of Strategic Intelligence Heroic + Cunning Gino LaPaglia Game of Thrones Pope Francis: holy cunning: House

φρων

“a spiritual shrewdness which enables us to ό The Sword of Cards ootopia δολόμητις Z

Jungle Book δολ recognize danger and to avoid it” 2014 and The Stone Simplicius Simplicissimus Italian Renaissance Fr. Baltasar Gracián St. Foy of Orleáns Gli αιόλαβουλον i Vives saints: Ingannat Theodulf Luis Gregory of Nyssa

Juan solaria durum facta

αιόλα Trickster

gola La Lena

σοφία dra Machiavelli Bishop Heriger Bernard of Clairvoux

Man Guicciardini Reynart John Cassian

πρώτη

the πολυτρόπως de Tormes Jerome the fishhook of divinity Pícaro Fox El Buscón Origen consilium Lazarillo Gregory Nazianzus Rogues πόρε Spain Ambrose Guzmán de Alfarache ueen Medb Irenaeus δολίης Q Cross is a mousetrap muscipula diaboliJohn of Damascus

Momus Merlin Golden Age Golden Nugae Ransom

Trifles victor

solaria durum facta

Theory

salubre mendacium John Chrysostom

John of Salisbury

Iskandari- Christus Ridicula Abu Zaid Walter Map Clement providentia Peter & Paul Boethius Jesus Fath al- Consolation

calliditas πολυμηχανος David Golden Ass Solomon Jehu

Abu Al Satyricon Livy: Lesser Rape of Sabine

Elisha ωκυνόυς

Women Aeneid Clever prophets Ehud Venus Samuel Gideon Jael

Plato Republic βουλάσ Ovid Joshua Tamar Plato Hippias Horace Esther fallacia alia aliam trudit Hebrew Warriors

ars Rachel

δος Trojan Horse Jochebed

ῦ Antiope Judith dolus Helen Rahab

ψε el Leda Ja Xenophon Philotectes Aesop ον Dinah ῖ Rape of

Oppian Fox Hebrew Midwives

Europa

Danae Ganymede γεννα Hera Metis κερδαλέοι Rapes of Zeus

Devious Patriarchs Serpent sollertia

eus Z Metis PrometheusOdysseusPenelopeAutolycusSisyphusAthenaMestraMomusArtemisNausicaaSeth Loki Joseph Abram Jacob Moses

1 The terms strategic intelligence and strategic culture are relatively new paradigms for analysis in international relations theory, political and military science, business management, and executive leadership. Figures 2 and 3 feature a Google Ngram analysis of these terms and show the increasing prevalence and importance of these terms in English. The spike of interest in the late 1970’s in the concept of SI may be related to Jack Snyder’s 1977 Rand report “The

Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Options,” which provided an early definition for strategic culture as the “sum total of ideals, conditional emotional responses, and patterns of habitual behaviour that members of the national strategic community have acquired through instruction or imitation and share with each other with regard to…strategy”. 1

FIGURE 2. NGRAM ANALYSIS OF ‘STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE’

The Journal of Strategic Intelligence, an on-line periodical that began publishing in 2016 by the National Intelligence University (NIU), one of a handful of universities that train students for a masters degree in SI, defines strategic intelligence as a field which offers “a comprehensive

1 Jack L. Snyder, The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Nuclear Options, R-2154-AF (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1977). See also Alastair I. Johnston, “Thinking about Strategic Culture” International Security, 19, 4 (Spring 1995), 32-64 http://www.fb03.uni-frankfurt.de/45431264/Johnston-1995- Thinking-about-Strategic-Culture.pdf (accessed 27 April, 2017)

2 understanding of current or emerging regional and transnational issues broadly that will significantly impact national security or interests.”2 The Strategic Culture Foundation, an on-line journal that began publishing in 2005, claims on its website to provide “a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs”; that platform includes global analysis in the domains of the political, economic, social and security.3

FIGURE 3. NGRAM ANALYSIS OF ‘STRATEGIC CULTURE’

In the business world, SI is synonymous with competitive and business intelligence, and is closely related to strategic management and strategic planning. The Bureau of Industry and

Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce has a Strategic Intelligence Division, whose mission is to provide “all-source information regarding foreign end-users of U.S.-controlled items to BIS and interagency partners to determine potential diversion risks when making

2 National Intelligence University, “Journal of Strategic Intelligence,” http://ni-u.edu/wp/csir/journal-of- stategic-intelligence/ (accessed 26 April 2017).

3 Strategic Culture Foundation, “Online Journal,” http://www.strategic-culture.org/articles/about.html (accessed 26 April 2017).

3 licensing decisions.”4 In 1986, some SI practitioners formed the Strategic and Competitive

Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) group, a 501(3)(c) nonprofit professional society comprised of business experts across industry, academia, and government with 53 chapters for “professionals engaged in strategic, integrated and competitive intelligence and related organizational decision influencing disciplines.” The expressed goal of SCIP is to “be the premier advocate for the skilled use of intelligence to enhance business decision-making and organizational performance to create competitive advantage.”5 The Association for Strategic Planning, founded in 1999, is a non-profit professional society whose mission is to help business, non-profit and government organizations “succeed through improved strategic Thinking, Planning and Action.”6

At some point in their professional training, most practitioners of SI in the United States, especially those in the national security domain, are exposed to the writings of the late

Enlightenment (18th-early 19th-century) Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz (1780

- 1831), whose adage “war is the continuation of politics by other means,” and whose emphasis on ends, ways, and means provides the principles for forming strategies that result in success.

With the rise of China, academic programs are increasingly requiring their students to read

4 US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, “Strategic Intelligence Division,” https:// www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oea/sid (accessed 26 April 2017).

5 Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals, “Mission Statement,” http://www.scip.org/? page=missionstatement, (accessed 26 April 2017).

6 Association for Strategic Planning, “About Us,” https://www.strategyassociation.org/? page=aboutus_overview, (accessed 27 Feb, 2018).

4 Sūnzi’s famous text Art of War as a manifestation of SI and culture that contrasts considerably with Clausewitz’.7

There is a growing anxiety on the part of some theorists of strategic thought about the intellectual foundations, philosophical legitimacy, and justification of the strategic. One theorist of strategic management noted that “strategy is an experiential arena where philosophy matters, and strategy research is beginning to recognize this connection.”8 Since the turn of the 21st- century a robust debate has ensued in some circles about the appropriate philosophical foundation of the strategic, and of competitive advantage. In the discussion, theorists have debated Bayesian induction, abductive inference, instrumentalist pragmatism, positivism, varieties of realism, and constructivism.9 A similar sentiment appears to have arisen by professional intelligence practitioners in the United States government: in 2005 the Office of the

Director of National Intelligence convened a conference that, amongst other items, explored the

“intellectual foundations” of strategic intelligence.10

7 Sūnzi 孫⼦, Art of War 兵法. A view disputed by David A. Graff, “Brain over Brawn: Shared Beliefs and Presumptions in Chinese and Western ‘Strategemata,’” Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident, No. 38, La Guerre en Perspective: Histoire et Culture Militaire en Chine/War in Perspective: History and Military Culture in China (2014), 47-64.

8 Thomas C. Powell, “The Philosophy of Strategy,” Strategic Management Journal, 23, 2002: 873-880: 879.

9 Kai-Man Kwan and Eric W. K. Tsang, “Realism and Constructivism in Strategy Research: A Critical Realist Response to Mir and Watson,” Strategic Management Journal, No. 12 (22), 2001: 1163-1168; Raza Mir and Andrew Watson, “Critical Realism and Constructivism in Strategy Research: Toward a Synthesis,” Strategic Management Journal, No. 12 (22), 2001: 1169-1173; Thomas C. Powell, “Competitive Advantage: Logical and Philosophical Considerations,” Strategic Management Journal, No. 9 (22), 2001: 875-888; Rodolphe Durand, “Competitive Advantages Exist: A Critique of Powell,” Strategic Management Journal, No. 9 (23), 2002: 867-872; Richard J. Arend, “Revisiting the Logical and Research Considerations of Competitive Advantage,” Strategic Management Journal, No. 3 (24), 2003: 279-284; Thomas C. Powell, “Strategy Without Ontology,” Strategic Management Journal, No. 3 (24), 2003: 285-291.

10 “Toward a Theory of Intelligence: Workshop Report,” Gregory F. Treverton, Seth G. Jones, Steven Boraz, Phillip Lipscy, Rand Corporation, 2006. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/conf_proceedings/ 2006/RAND_CF219.pdf (accessed 27 February 2018).

5 This study hopes to balance the significance of the strategic in military affairs by professing a theory of strategic thought that is fundamental to human values and culture itself.

The primary observation here is that strategy is always conditioned by culture, and therefore cultural analysis is the best way of understanding this phenomenon. My goals in this study are twofold: the practical objective is to introduce to contemporary practitioners of strategy the rich legacy of strategic thought embedded in culture, and the theoretical goal is to excavate strategic rationality as one of the most basic structural dynamics. The strategic arises out of the necessity of life itself, from human embodied experience and the awareness of finitude.

It is my contention that the nascent field of SI has been impoverished because SI practitioners and trainers have not taken advantage of the extensive corpora of texts that have been produced by the masters of SI for over two and half millennia. The irony is that practitioners of strategic culture have ignored the fact that exemplary SI texts have been delivered in cultural media such as myth, epic, philosophical treatise, political theory, and literature. This is most likely due to three factors. First, these arcane texts are now only delivered in Humanities and Liberal Arts venues, and within the paradigms and under the influence of the disciplinary biases of departmental specialists. For example, these texts often serve as the means of teaching ancient languages for classicists, historiography for historians, and are made to function as the materials for understanding the religious, intellectual and philosophical features of a bygone age. Second, there is a general diminishment in the valuation by contemporary society for humanities and liberal arts because, as opposed to STEM (Science, Technology,

Engineering, Mathematics) fields, they are seen as irrelevant to the practical needs of finding a job, and the requirements of the high level of specialization needed for the modern information

6 economy. Third, the strategic insights of these texts are misunderstood and seen as alien to today’s issues because they exist in a language and culture that is experienced as foreign in time, place, language, and cultural orientation.

Like many studies before it, this study lines up with many others in the field of philosophy that take as their central concern an examination and rectification of cultural foundations. Since the time of Socrates and Plato, this has been performed in the field of philosophy as an attempt to provide a cultural vector check, or to reestablish cultural equilibrium after dominant cultural values had been undermined by evolving reality. This has occurred repeatedly in Western civilization, as one may observe in the more well-known examples, such as St. Thomas Aquinas’ (1225 – 1274 CE) synthesis of Aristotelianism with medieval Judeo-

Christian culture, Immanuel Kant’s (1724 – 1804 CE) introduction of transcendental deontological moral philosophy as a means of providing meaning after holy tradition (as defined by Roman Catholic Christianity) became culturally untenable, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844 –

1900 CE) subsequent rejection of Kantian morality in light of the new values of Darwinian naturalism.

Half a century into the Information Age, Western reality is an experience of dizzying disorder, a cultural nausea constituted of post-modernism, the fracturing of society due to extreme cultural and political warfare, the erosion of sociopolitical institutions and civil virtues, the loss of a civic sphere (à la Jürgen Habermas), and rampant fake news (à la President Donald

Trump). Any cultural synthesis produced by a philosophy of culture, it is felt, must begin again by evaluating dominant cultural values in light of the primacy of conflict, misinformation, deception, and injustice as the foundation of culture. The sheer amount of evidence shows the

7 degree to which the strategic functions as a metaphorological paradigm which gives form to both reality and engenders human meaning. I hope to show that the cultural legacy has equipped us to deal with rapid change and insecurity, and that these ancient sources are a veritable treasure trove of SI. SI was born in the crucible of the conflict between order and disorder, justice and injustice, stability and change, the haves and the have-nots. I argue that the worldview of SI consists of a coherent set of values which have been continuously transmitted in culture for more than 2,500 years, and that these values are incredibly relevant to the present because they offer strategic advantage to the SI practitioner.

Literature Review

This thesis is a response to two ground-breaking studies that highlighted the existence of mētic intelligence as a form of universal human rationality: Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre

Vernant’s Les Ruses d’Intelligence: La Métis des Grecs, and Lisa Raphals’ cross-cultural comparative study, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece.11 In this literature review, I critique the Structuralist assumptions in these works after reviewing their contribution, and then contextualize my study of mētic intelligence, what I call SI, by posing different questions, and by explaining the strategic through an analytic framework that focuses on metaphor, values and human meaning.

Detienne and Vernant’s study of the Greek concept mētis constitutes part of a research program that rectifies modern understanding of rationality by excavating classical forms of thought that they believe had been made invisible by those who preferred rationalism, a

11 Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, trans. Janet Lloyd (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1978); Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).

8 culturally-validated form of knowledge which became dominant in Western culture. As opposed to highly speculative and philosophical knowledge, the authors define mētis as a complex but very coherent body of mental attitudes and intellectual behaviors which combine éclat, wisdom, cunning, forethought, subtlety, deception, resourcefulness, vigilance, opportunism, craftiness, and experience. The authors interpret mētis to be a far-ranging cognitive schema that informs many areas of Greek culture, including language, mythic narratives, the interactions of deities, and rituals. Mētis abuts the Greek concept of phrōnesis (practical wisdom/prudence), but it is not synonymous with it, especially since Aristotle (384–322 BCE) bequeathed to phrōnesis in the

Nichomachean Ethics a highly moral(istic) attribute that links it to the good. Imagined as distinct from and opposed to the realm of speculative reason, the authors make a claim for the universality of mētis precisely because its existence in language proves that it is a basic cognitive structure.

Detienne and Vernant’s claim for the universality of mētis as a cognitive structure represented in language formed the context for Lisa Raphals’ project that investigated the possibility of a mētic intelligence operative in traditional Chinese civilization. Raphals deftly interpreted a broad range of Chinese fictive and non-fictive texts and genres drawn from the

Warring States (475–221 BCE) to the Míng dynasty (1368–1644 CE), surmising that “mētic intelligence is a universal mode of intelligence.”12 However, by integrating insights from philosopher Martha Nussbaum, Raphals surprisingly found that there are two distinct types of mētis, and that this evidence further qualifies Detienne and Vernant’s argument about the centrality of mētic intelligence in human affairs.

12 Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 229.

9 As previous scholars have pointed out, Detienne, Vernant and Raphals’ intellectual contributions have advanced classical philology by integrating philological rigor with novel theoretical interpretive frameworks.13 In his review of her monograph, the renowned scholar of

Chinese Philosophy Chad Hansen lavished praise on Raphal’s mastery of primary and secondary sources that deal with two classical civilizations: “Raphals’ total project is a tour-de-force of classical erudition. Probably few reviewers are competent to evaluate the whole package, drawing as it does on philosophy and literature, Zhōu and Míng sources, and Greek and Chinese language. She also draws on a wide range of secondary analyses in all of these fields.The breadth of her training and project make comprehensive critical comment difficult. Few can rival such broad expertise in Chinese and Greek, in classical philosophy and Míng novels.”14 To paraphrase

Hansen, something about Raphal’s approach is not quite right, but “the central theme of the study strikes” Hansen “as sound.” And although there are unanswered “questions,” “Raphals account of philological method is progressive and goes in the right direction.”15

Hansen’s timid critique is understandable for two reasons. First, a perusal of Raphals’ text brings to light an underlying narrative and set of value propositions that are not immediately recognizable. Second, as Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out, intellectuals are often unable to identify the values which are operative underneath their own biases and beliefs.16 In the case of

Detienne, Vernant and Raphals’ studies, I do not question the existence of mētic intelligence: the

13 Robert Pogue Harrison, “Review: The Ambiguities of Philology Reviewed Works: Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society by Jean-Pierre Vernant, Marcel Detienne, Janet Lloyd; Les Maîtres de Vérité dans la Grèce Archaique by Marcel Detienne," Diacritics 16, 2 (Summer, 1986), 14-20.

14 Chad Hansen, “Review of Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece by Lisa Raphals," China Review International, 1, 2 (Fall 1994), University of Hawai’i Press, 219-228.

15 Ibid., 227-228.

16 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans., Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen, (Hackett: Indianapolis/Cambridge: 1998), 1

10 evidence provided shows that it is compelling. I do question, however, the Structuralist analytic paradigm utilized by the authors to make sense of the cultural data because of the biases and assumptions that the analytic paradigm asks the questioner to accept, and for the types of questions that it cannot answer.

Although the word ‘structuralism’ is not explicit in either, a careful reading of both books exposes Structuralist biases to light. Structuralism is an analytic framework that functions on the assumption that truth can be made intelligible by exposing to view systems and structures. These structures are imagined to be universal because they exist primarily in human cognition—they are universal because all humans possess them. Although the structures are invisible, they can be deduced because of their representation in symbolic sign systems such as language. Therefore,

Structuralist approaches in Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics and Literary Studies usually seek to identify the existence of underlying structures, rules and grammars. By locating the universal in deep structures, rules and grammars, structuralist analysis primarily relies on the scientific and mathematical metaphor of binary oppositions.

My critique of their work lies not with the existence of mētic intelligence per se, but rather with the concurrent set of assumptions one is asked to assent to in recognizing the validity of binary contrasts, and with the conclusion that the existence of the mētic-strategic functions primarily in an epistemological-cognitive apparatus. As the following paragraph from Detienne and Vernant demonstrates, understanding mētic intelligence comes with another set of propositions:

In studies of the Greeks pursued by scholars who claim to be their heirs, there has been a prolonged silence on the subject of the intelligence of cunning. The fundamental reasons for this have been two-fold. The first is perhaps that, from a

11 Christian point of view, it was inevitable that the gulf separating men from animals should be increasingly emphasized and that human reason should appear even more clearly separated from animal behavior than it was for the ancient Greeks. The second and even more powerful reason is surely that the concept of Platonic Truth, which has overshadowed a whole area of intelligence with its own kinds of understanding, has never really ceased to haunt Western metaphysical thought.17

Detienne and Vernant create a few interesting oppositions: the opposition of real history with the imagined history propagated by a dominant tradition invested in Platonic Truth, between those who ground knowledge in the metaphysical vs. the phenomenal, and between

Christianity and the ancient Greeks. In reviewing Les Ruses, the literary scholar Robert Pogue

Harrison highlighted another contrast, that between philology and philosophy:

The message is clear enough: liberal philology calls for a revision of perspective which frees philology from the prejudices that keep it under the sway of that idealist image of the Greeks created by Greek philosophy. Vernant and Detienne push this polemic with philosophy and philo-philosophy to a surprising extreme. The last paragraph of Cunning Intelligence, concluding the authors’ hermeneutic endeavor, presents the book as an implicit critique of the metaphysical philosophy that begins with Plato and continues to bewitch classical scholars.18

The contrasts are salient in Raphal’s narrative as well, but her structuralist oppositions unfortunately undermine her own project. The very first sentence of Raphals’ book introduces a binary logic in answering implicit questions: why is mētic intelligence important, and if it is important enough to warrant a book, why have we not heard about it before? Raphals answers this question by identifying early-on the central problematic in terms of an opposition between an epistemological tradition that valorized the universal over the practical. Like Detienne and

17 Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, trans. Janet Lloyd (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1978).

18 Robert Pogue Harrison, “Review: The Ambiguities of Philology Reviewed Works: Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society by Jean-Pierre Vernant, Marcel Detienne, Janet Lloyd; Les Maîtres de Vérité dans la Grèce Archaique by Marcel Detienne,” Diacritics 16, 2 (Summer, 1986), 14-20.

12 Vernant, she documents the history of this dominant tradition in an intellectual genealogy that includes luminaries such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, medieval Christian Neoplatonists, John

Locke, Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Jean Piaget, Howard Gardner, Claude Lévi-Strauss and

Clifford Geertz: by dominating culture with “abstraction, propositional knowledge, logocentric formulation, and “objective bases of knowledge” these philosophers made “mētic intelligence invisible.”19 She also claims that mētic intelligence was silenced by a moralist tendency since mētic intelligence is perceived as amoral or immoral. To heroically restore mētic intelligence to its rightful place, all three authors seek to undermine the philosophic tradition by means of philology, which is, I note, a tactical move made famous by Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th- century.20

Structuralist biases articulated as binary oppositions occur elsewhere as well, with absurd results. For example, to support an argument about why an examination of mētic intelligence in the language of Classical Chinese is appropriate, Raphals creates an East-West binary even as she degrades transformational grammar and the tendency for “analytical philosophy” to

“downplay serious structural differences between languages.”21 Inspired by Structuralist approaches in Linguistics, Raphals also provides appendices in which the semantic range of individual words are grouped in terms of positive and negative attributes.22 This mathematical- semantic data provides evidence to support Raphals’ conclusion that there are two antagonistic

19 Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 3.

20 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans., Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen, (Hackett: Indianapolis/Cambridge: 1998).

21 Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 5.

22 Ibid., 233-244.

13 attitudes towards mētic intelligence operative in classical Chinese culture. The skeptic wonders: do two antagonistic attitudes exist because the binary logic of the structuralist analytic framework predetermines that it should be so? What conclusion might be reached if we did away with binary logic?

Perhaps a less serious critique that one can level against Raphals’ structuralist approach in exploring mētic intelligence is that she undermines her own project by inadvertently identifying herself with the very dominant tradition that made mētic intelligence invisible. She does this both by excluding the mētic from the category of the philosophical because it is ‘non-theoretical” and under articulated, and does not have the qualities that “we” habitually do not admit into the province of philosophical discourse.”23 By mathematically mapping the semantic range of words as evidence for a universal cognitive structure, Raphals offers her assumed reader an epistemological ontology that is supposed to be universally valid because it is empirical

(measurable). Ironically, she uses the tools of the dominant tradition (abstraction, propositional knowledge, logocentric formulation, and objective bases of knowledge) to study what is proposed to be distinct and apart from the dominant tradition itself. Her study is scoped to the paradigmatic concerns of the dominant tradition itself, defining mētic intelligence “as a mode of intelligence or way of knowing that…falls into the lacuna between the kinds of knowledge we formally acknowledge and those we recognize in social practice and every day language.”24 This is sure to appeal to professional philosophers, but will probably not resonate with an audience that values a broader understanding of philosophy as critical thought that is grounded in the

23 Ibid., 232.

24 Ibid., xi .

14 necessity of day to day action. It is the type of pedantic systemization railed against by the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, a type of learned philosophy which “should be banished.”

25

To be fair, Raphals’ utilization of Structuralism is exemplary, and one can learn much from her results. She has scoped her concerns in line with the values of professional philosophers who are interested in the deep structures of cognition and universal foundations. To use the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of language games, Raphals has successfully demonstrated that Monopoly(®) and Risk(®) have different rule-structures, and that playing each game by necessity requires the knowledge of the rules of each game. But what Raphals does not, and perhaps cannot answer due to her adoption of a Structuralist framework, is a very different set of questions. The first question is simply: so what? The point of a language game is not to know the rules, but to know the rules in order to win the game: language and action are inextricably tied to forms of life. In other words, what counts is not a knowledge of knowledge

(epistemology), but rather a knowledge of being (ontology) and acting in the world—specifically about the meaning of it all. Rather than querying the cognitive structures of mētic intelligence, for those who more highly value philosophy as a tool that enables existence, a more profound question is: how does one win?

Whereas an epistemological analysis is content with linking the universal form with a particular representation, the existential inclination requires something more. With the existential in mind, supposing an opposition truly does exist between the dominant tradition and the mētic- phrônetic-strategic, critical questions arising from within the values of the existential might ask:

25 Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought, (New York: Macmillan: 1938), 17.

15 Of what value is this knowledge? And: how does this knowledge enable myself or the good?

How does mētic intelligence deliver advantage in life? These types of questions prioritize the axiological over and above the epistemological, of the analytic variables of values and meaning as opposed to merely knowing things, no matter how universal those things may be.

There are a variety of questions about using mathematic-linguistic evidence to deduce cognitive structures that need to be addressed. First, why are morphemic and semantic levels of analysis appropriate? Second, why is binary opposition the appropriate semantic taxonomy operative in a lexical ontology? Might semantic schemas other than binary opposition be more instructive to epistemological ontology? For example, advances in computational semantics have demonstrated that a semantic taxonomy that integrates hyponymy and hypernymy in WordNet is more sophisticated and simple than the binary logic utilized in Structuralism.26 Also, how do we know that linguistic data point to universal cognitive structures rather than something else, like sets of human values crystallized in culture? And lastly, might not deep cognitive structures also be deduced from other levels of analysis, such as metonymy, metaphor, image and figure of speech? What might these resources teach us about our shared human experience?

The second question that mathematic-linguistic Structuralism struggles to answer is: what accounts for a change in mental structures? It is now common knowledge that word level semantics vary by individual, by region and diachronically. How does one account for the appearance of new structures and the evolution of deduced cognitive structures over time? Take the word ‘cleave,’ for example. The structuralist assumes that the word ‘cleave’ must be related to some type of deep cognitive structure. ‘Cleave to’ and ‘cleave from' indicate different

26 Princeton University "About WordNet." WordNet. Princeton University. 2010. .

16 directionality: does this fact point to two different cognitive structures? Or is this difference resolved by transformational grammar? Does ‘cleave’s’ relation to the concept of cloven (as in a cloven hoof) indicate a third deep structure? In the case of Classical Chinese, as anyone who has struggled with interpreting the meaning of a character by using Matthew’s Classical Chinese dictionary knows, there exist an extremely large quantity of characters that have evolved to signify the opposite of what they meant originally. Consider the character 對 duì, for example. It signifies a “correspondence to” as in “that’s right,” and “that which is opposed to,” as in 對⾯ duìmiàn. How does linguistic representation link to deep structures in light of history and evolution via etymological provenance? What kind of grammar is necessary to account for variability over time? These are important questions for Raphals to answer, especially when she makes claims such as “English has no equivalent for what the Greeks called mētis.”27 Might

English have the deep structure of mētic intelligence even though Anglophone speakers use different and multiple signifiers for it? Might an experience of so-called mētic intelligence operate outside of the sphere of the linguistic?

Lastly, and most importantly, Structuralism cannot, or does not care to, address questions about human meaning. The questions about mētic intelligence that I explore are: knowing that mētic intelligence exists, what claims does it make for human flourishing? In other words, if getting to “Go” in the game of Monopoly(®) is understood as achieving a meaningful life, to what degree is mētic intelligence potent?

27 Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), xii.

17 Seeking answers to these types of questions requires a very different interpretative framework. Although Detienne, Vernant and Raphals followed in the path of Friedrich Nietzsche by using philology to disrupt the philosophical dominant, they were apparently not aware that

Nietzsche did so as a means to his end of pointing to a level of analysis even more fundamental than belief, that of human valuation (axiology).28 In both his Genealogy of Morality (hereafter

Genealogy) and Antichrist, Nietzsche showed that by focusing on the concept of transvaluation of values (umwertung aller werte), the human capacity of valuation was more fundamental than the Enlightenment concept of disembodied rationality. What counts is not what you know: what counts is that what you value contributes to what you believe is worth knowing, and how to succeed in knowing it. Just like the manner in which Socrates exposed the values underneath culturally validated beliefs and opinions in the Republic, in addition to undermining the smug security of his contemporaries, Nietzsche in his polemic Genealogy used philology as a means of prioritizing the axiological over the epistemological. In that text he asked, "under what conditions did man invent those value judgements good and evil? and what value do they themselves have?”29 Elsewhere he questioned the “value of morality,” and the “value of compassion.” The “value of these values must itself be called into question.” “Until now one has not had even the slightest doubt or hesitation in ranking “the good” as of higher value than “the evil,” of higher value in the sense of its furtherance, usefulness, beneficially.”30

28 I do not mean to imply that Nietzsche had any impact on Detienne, Vernant and Raphals’ study. I do mean to imply that Nietzsche’s utilization of genealogy as a critical tool re-valued what is fundamental in terms of naturalism and life-power rather than hyper-rationalistic speculation.

29 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans., Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen, (Hackett: Indianapolis/Cambridge: 1998), 2.

30 Ibid, 4-5.

18 By shifting analysis to the grounds of knowledge claims in an unexamined process of valuation (transvaluation), Nietzsche prioritized axiocentric analysis. He suggested that intellectuals in the dominant cultural tradition made themselves blind because of their ignorance to the origins of their underlying values and biases, for “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”31 Following the naturalistic tendencies of the Scottish philosopher David Hume,

Nietzsche thought that moral valuation originated in the very necessity of life, in the “will to power” rather than in the mental apparatus indicated by the rationalism of the dominant intellectual tradition.32 For example, Nietzsche wrote: “With the necessity with which a tree bears its fruit our thoughts grow out of us, our values, our yes’s and no’s and if’s and whether’s

—the whole lot related and connected among themselves, witnesses to one will, one health, one earthly kingdom, one sun. —And do they taste good to you, these fruits of ours?—But of what concern is that to the trees! Of what concern is that to us, us philosophers!”33 In other words, valuation is an outgrowth of experience and human embodiment. This itself is not only a radical transvaluation of intellectual valuation: Nietzsche suggested that blindness to the underlying processes of valuation has directly resulted in intellectual self-alienation, and he challenged the legitimacy of any claims that are not grounded in human life, experience, valuation, and cultural- historical descent.

What can we learn about mētic intelligence if we disregard the Structuralist assumptions and biases inherent in Detienne, Vernant and Raphals’ epistemological analytic framework?

31 Ibid, 1.

32 For introductory notes on David Hume’s presence in Nietzsche’s Genealogy, please see Hume in the Index . Ibid., 172.

33 Ibid., 2.

19 More specifically, if valuation and evaluation go hand-in-hand as suggested by Nietzsche, what can we glean about mētic intelligence if we shift our focus to examining it through the looking glass of a values framework? What are the value propositions of mētic intelligence? How does it present its claims as authoritative and legitimate? What are its value propositions for attaining human meaning?

Methodology and Analytic Framework

Cultural Genealogy (CG) is a hermeneutic approach to understanding value claims across a broad spectrum of historical cultural domains, and it is an analytic framework that is particularly useful for identifying, articulating and interpreting the change and continuity of implicit features of meaning that underlie a worldview over time.34 CG refers to the study of the evolutionary development of the meaning structures which constitute a worldview, and the value systems identifiable in the cultural history of human societies. What makes CG a particularly insightful interpretative framework for analyzing these implicit features of meaning is the way that it attends to metaphor, history, ontology, and values. In this section, I begin by describing how these foci combine to make CG a robust standard of objectivity, in order to explain why I understand the strategic in terms of a metaphorological paradigm that is antecedent to language and concept.

Metaphor, Imagery and Figures of Speech

By leveraging metaphor, the CG analytic framework provides a means for elucidating the human search for meaning. Metaphor in this instance does not just denote a literary turn of

34 Worldview, what the Germans call weltanschauung, is a way of framing the horizon in which “reality as a whole is basic and fundamental but not foundational.” Francis Ambrosio, Lecture Notes. Georgetown University, LSHV604, Spring, 2016.

20 phrase; rather, metaphor, as articulated in the oeuvre of well-known cognitive linguists George

Lakoff and Mark Johnson, signifies a mental faculty by which humans think conceptually.35

Metaphors not only reveal new dimensions of human reality when one conceptual domain is juxtaposed with another, but they are central to thought itself: the more abstract the concept, the more complex the metaphor. Lakoff and Johnson point out that metaphors are born in the human experience of embodiment, and function as the very structure of human perception. “Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities.”36

Thus, the “imaginative aspects of reason—metaphor, metonymy, and mental imagery” are central to it.37

In this study, I have been influenced by the German Philosophical Anthropologist Hans

Blumenberg’s (1920 - 1996) notion of metaphorological paradigmatics. For him, the metaphorological is akin to, yet different from, both the logocentricism of Philosophy and the central place of concept in the domain of intellectual history.38 The metaphorological, in being paradigmatic, is antecedent to both, but irreducible to neither the terminological nor the conceptual. Blumenberg would be, I think, skeptical of Detienne, Vernant and Raphals’ philosophical/philological analyses: whoever attempts to complete a “history of the concept of truth in a strictly terminological sense aimed at definitional stringency,” he noted, “would have

35 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

36 Ibid., 3, 226-228.

37 George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), xi.

38 Hans Blumenberg, Paradigms for a Metaphorology, trans., Robert Savage, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010), 77.

21 little show for his efforts.”39 As Blumenberg’s translator Robert Savage wrote, the “metaphor eludes the logocentric schema that the philosophical tradition had tried to impose up on it ever since Plato.”40 And the intellectual history of “concepts is constitutively incapable of conceptualizing nonconceptuality and therefore feels justified in ignoring it. If figurative language appears at all on its horizon, then it is only as an irritant.”41

For Blumenberg, metapholorogy is an analysis of a type of nonconceptuality

(Unbegrifflichkeit) that resists totalization and systematization, and it is an excavation of the roots of human meaning in embodiment.42 Metaphorological analysis “seeks to burrow down to the substructure of thought, the underground, the nutrients system of systematic crystallizations; but it also aims to show with what ‘courage’ the mind preempts itself in its images, and how its history is projected in the courage of its conjectures.”43 It “directs its attention to the roots of concept formation,” to “an occluded, subterranean realm where the basic questions posed in the

‘ground of our existence’ (Daseinsgrund).”44 Metaphors as paradigms can be organized into typologies of metaphor histories, the recovery of which may illuminate the historical provenance of human meaning.45 Take the Copernican revolution for example: Blumenberg, quoting Johann

Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832 CE), noted that “of all discoverers and opinions, none may have exerted a greater effect on the human spirit than the astronomical restructuring of the

39 Ibid., 6.

40 Ibid., 135.

41 Ibid., 138.

42 Ibid., 134-135.

43 Ibid., 5.

44 Ibid., 139.

45 Ibid.,77.

22 universe.”46 This is because humanity derives meaning first and foremost through embodied orientation in the world. What is salient is not the “theoretical, terminological work of astronomy, but its metaphorical status…” in that it “became an orienting model…in the sense of his planned and purposeful centrality or his marginality to the cosmic motions and commotions in which he finds himself swept up—the question, that is, of how he stands in relation to everything else that exists and how it stands in relation to him.”47 A change in a cosmological metaphor necessarily threatens human meaning.

This is what I mean when I assert that the mētic-strategic is a root metaphor operating in culture. The root metaphor of the strategic expresses reality metaphorically and imagistically as closure, entrapment, finite, damnation, manipulation, fraud (trick, lie, ruse, artifice), deception, covert, concealment, darkness, unseen, unreal and illusion. Heroic hope is articulated as life, the real, infinite, liberation, freedom, emancipation, salvation, escape, self-actualization, enlightenment, self-esteem, dignity, movement, exposure, and disclosure. The root metaphor is always wrapped up with cultural legacies of hierarchy, justice and injustice, order and disorder, the authoritative and the illegitimate. These do not necessarily signify a mental apparatus or binary logic; rather they point to another aspect of the root metaphor: the competitive, antagonistic game. They are beginnings and ends, opposite goals as in soccer, and opposing corners of the wrestling ring: they are the parameters and the architecture of human meaning- making because they articulate an orientation in the world. I believe that one can track the root metaphor-paradigm in multiple cultural domains and genres, but that it is ultimately irreducible

46 Ibid.,100-101.

47 Ibid., 11, 102.

23 and resistant to conceptual and terminological totalization. In other words, a reducible building block of the strategic escapes us! Like Blumenberg’s book Paradigms for a Metaphorology, which itself has been characterized as focused on the “insights” and “strategies by which we cope with an otherwise alien and overpowering reality,” the strategic is fundamental for the way that it structures reality and informs human meaning.48

An analysis of metaphor and imagery is one of the best ways to trace the human search for meaning. With regards to the power of metaphor, Professor Francis Ambrosio in his text

Philosophy, Religion, and the Search for Meaning wrote that:

it [metaphor] can offer insights into the dynamics of human experience in its encounter with the mystery of existence as a whole, as well as suggesting new paths for inquiry. Used judiciously, these metaphors can serve as hermeneutic tools; that is, tools that are capable of opening up new possibilities of understanding at a level of meaning and truth that exceeds the scope and authority of the properly scientific. Metaphor is the most powerful tool that the human imagination can employ in relation to the mystery of reality as a whole. Metaphors make their own kind of truth claims, and I think we will discover in the course of our investigations that it is those truth claims precisely that are reached through metaphor; that are most powerful in their claim on human experience; and most rich in their contribution to the human search for meaning.49

Metaphors model and inform reality and perception, bundle values into prescriptive and normative cultural memory, and thus guide human behavior. For example, in his 1997 book

Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don’t, Lakoff convincingly demonstrated the degree to which metaphor, values, and cultural politics are inextricably linked.50 Synthesizing insights from Ernst Becker who saw that cultural politics was actually a

48 Ibid.,146.

49 Francis Ambrosio, Philosophy, Religion, and the Search for Meaning. (The Great Courses, 2013), 24.

50 George Lakoff, Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don’t, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

24 battle of values that had been bundled into culturally-validated “heroic roles,” and the Prussian military strategist Karl Von Clausewitz who claimed that “war is the continuation of politics by other means,” we can postulate that culture war is then a life and death war fought for preferred metaphors and the human values that underlie them —something apparently always worth killing and dying for.51

Another aspect of metaphor that is particularly applicable to cultural genealogy lies in a metaphor’s inherent ability to compare divergent domains. As all translators know from experience, in the cross-cultural context, metaphors such as “time is money” (or in our case, life is entrapment) are full of both promise and peril because, partaking of conceptual and linguistic features of a given language in a particular era makes it impossible to entirely capture all of the same nuances of a metaphor in the cultural, conceptual and linguistic features of a different language of a different era. As the Spanish master of prudence Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658) wrote of reality and appearance: “Things pass for what they seem, not for what they are. Only rarely do people look into them, and many are satisfied with appearances.”52 Just because things appear as different does not mean that they really are. More importantly, because metaphors are essentially an act of comparison, they are therefore comparable and commensurable in their functionality across cultural and temporal divides. This insight has enabled me to correlate and compare differently expressed surface metaphors with the same underlying values that express them.

51 Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, (New York: Free Press Paperbacks/Simon & Schuster, 1973).

52 Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, A Pocket Oracle, trans., Christopher Maurer, (New York: Doubleday, 1991), Aphorism 99, 55.

25 CG is an hermeneutic framework that leverages insights from the fields of history

(genealogy) and biology (phylogenesis and genetics). For example, I use the concept of phylogenesis from the field of biological science to explain metaphorically how certain value features are descended in culture over time from common ancestors. By juxtaposing the metaphor of lines of cultural descent with these domain-specific fields, CG itself leverages the features that makes the answers to queries valid. Namely, CG adopts a sophisticated apparatus that explains the appearance of similar tropes in terms of descent, and bases its claims about reality (ontology) on experiential evidence excavated from the historical record, marking it as both replicable and verifiable in the phenomenal. The phylogenetic approach is limited though in that it does not map the actual processes of cultural evolution in some type of cultural genetics.

The metaphor of phylogenesis is effective because of the way that it handles time, and because it focuses attention on the question of descent rather than reproduction. The phylogenetic approach uses the metaphorical figure of the tree of life, one of “the most important organizing ideas in biology” to represent the structure of reality.53 (Figure 1) “The tree of life represents the total set of ancestor-descendant relationships between living things on earth, and its shape…is a series of branchings, in which one lineage splits into two.” 54 The tree of life is a map that exposes to view the general shape of life. In the case of SI, the repeated and aggregated evidence organized in a cultural genealogy thus illuminates a consistent worldview about one path of humankind’s search for meaning, and the possibility of human advantage.

53 Peter Godfrey-Smith, Philosophy of Biology (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014), 113.

54 Ibid., 104.

26 Biological evolution, which mode of transmission in practice is very different from cultural evolution, can nonetheless be used metaphorically to set the basis and common theoretical background for understanding cultural descent. Whereas biological communication is relatively slow and limited by the laws of genetics in regards to which set of features that it can transmit forward, cultural transmission is fast; it is not limited by genetic and biological parameters, but instead is driven forward by the recursive capability of intellectual consciousness. Cultural transmission creates its own distinctively human environment and deigns the opportunities it provides.55 As Peter Godfrey-Smith pointed out in his book Philosophy of

Biology, concepts of change, adaptability,56 fitness,57 reproduction, survival and strategic advantage for individuals and populations in various cultural ecosystems lend themselves well to

CG, especially to the cultural genealogy of strategic rationality, which informs the worldview of

SI that claims to enable the weak to reverse sociopolitical asymmetry.58

Diachronic

For philologists and philosophers like Nietzsche, Bernard Williams (1929-2003), and to some extent Michel Foucault (1926-1984), a genealogy is “a narrative that tries to explain a cultural phenomenon by describing a way in which it came about, or could have come about, or might be imagined to have come about.”59 Genealogy itself is a genre practiced by many cultures, ancient and modern. Genealogists concern themselves with providing grounds to

55 J. Reuscher, LSHV601-01 Class Lecture, Washington DC, 8 September, 2014.

56 Peter Godfrey-Smith, Philosophy of Biology (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014), 46.

57 Ibid., 35.

58 Ibid., 52.

59 Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 20.

27 understand a present reality that is derived from the past; this is just what Hesiod’s (~750 - 650

BCE) Theogony accomplished for the Greeks, what Genesis offered the Hebrews, and the articulation of Jesus’ lineage in the New Testament legitimated for the early Christians.

What is salient about this way of legitimating knowledge is a recognition of the validity and authority of history. Evidence from the historical record is one way of verifying and authenticating perceptions of reality. For example, as early as the 18th-century, the skeptic

English philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) cast scorn on social contract theory as useful and prudent, but ultimately without any historical basis: “But would these reasoners look abroad into the world, they would meet with nothing that, in the least, corresponds to their ideas, or can warrant so refined and philosophical a system.”60 Nietzsche echoed Hume’s skepticism in the preface to his Genealogy, in which he undermined the authority of the “English psychologists” due to their lack of historical evidence. The result being that “we are unknown to ourselves, we knowers: and for a good reason. We have never sought ourselves.”61 For Nietzsche, influenced by Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) theory of evolution, history is a narrative that can help explain why something useful in the present had a greater chance of surviving in culture.62 Nietzsche’s genealogical argument is a challenge; he posits that the project of “know thyself,” and claims to interpreting reality, are only valid if one can document the way in which the present descended from the past. Anything else is sheer speculation.

60 David Hume, “Of the Original Contract.” In Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy, ed. Steven M. Cahn, 2nd ed., (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 642.

61 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans., Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen, (Hackett: Indianapolis/Cambridge: 1998), 1.

62 Maudemarie Clark, “Introduction” Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans., Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen, (Hackett: Indianapolis/Cambridge: 1998), xxiii-xxvi.

28 My interpretation has been highly influenced by Nietzsche’s Genealogy. Like Nietzsche’s study of the historical transvaluation of morality over time from its original and native social formation, the values of SI also have their culturally genealogical provenance which have been entangled with cultural memory and amnesia, self-consciousness and ignorance. Both western

19th-century morality and SI are embedded in a legacy of evolving social formations that reproduce or reject social hierarchies of domination. There is an interesting difference in findings though: whereas Nietzsche highlighted a historical process of transvaluation in morality, I point to a metaphorological paradigm that is consistent through the ages. With its emphasis on strategic rationality, it is quite possible that ressentiment is generated from the SI of the slave class of intellectuals, and its greatest weapon; as Nietzsche pointed out, “The priest is the first form of the more delicate animal that holds in contempt even more readily than it hates. He will not be spared waging war with the beasts of prey, a war of cunning (of the “spirit”) more than of force, as goes without saying—to this end he will perhaps need almost to develop in himself, at least to signify, a new type of beast of prey—a new animal terribleness in which the polar bear, the lithe cold wait-and-see tiger cat, and not least of all the fox appear to be bound into a unity just as attractive as it is fear-inspiring.”63

Although my emphasis on phylogenesis differs from the metaphor of cultural genetics utilized by Ambrosio, what he wrote below is still valid if one swaps out the term ‘genetic’ for

‘genealogical.’ Ambrosio wrote that “the perspective of genetic explanation is fundamentally different from any and every type of metaphysical explanatory framework, including the framework of classical and modern science until the time of Darwin…the basic distinction

63 Ibid., 90.

29 between the genetic and metaphysical explanatory perspectives is the way of understanding the role of history in each perspective.

In metaphysical terms, explanation proceeds on the basis of a “first cause” or a “prime mover” that must exist as an absolute principle in order to avoid the absurdity of an infinite regress. Logically, such an absolute principle must transcend every spatio-temporal condition; in other words, it must be beyond history and apart from history. A genetic explanatory framework, on the other hand, employs explanatory factors, all of which are correlative to all other factors —every one is connected to every other; nothing is beyond the system; nothing is absolute—because none operates above or beyond a spatio-temporal matrix; that is, none is outside of space and time. In other words, all genetic explanations function within the horizons of history, and no appeal to or allowance for metaphysical transcendence beyond the historical is invoked in such explanation.”64

CG is an analytic framework that appropriately explains the continuity and change over time of human values at the level of meaning. Although it is true that meaning evolves over time and that the meaning of life has been adapted to various cultural ecosystems, this provides the dark backdrop against which we can more clearly see both the transmission of the values of strategic rationality as a consistently articulated worldview through the ages, and cultural lines of descent from common cultural ancestors themselves moulded by the root metaphor.

Ontological

The third focus that makes CG a particularly insightful analytic framework is its insistence on articulating a legitimate and verifiable ontology; that is to say, the way that one describes the structure of reality. An appropriate ontology is authoritative, fundamental and legitimate because it is existential; human articulation and interpretation of being/existence is predicated on direct experience, and experience creates artifacts in the historical-cultural record.

64 Francis Ambrosio, Philosophy, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, The Great Courses, (2013), 23.

30 Nietzsche alluded to the importance of the existential-historical in his own philosophical- historical hermeneutic method, such as when he emphasized that “which can be documented, which can really be ascertained, which has really existed, in short, the very long, difficult-to-to decipher, hieroglyphic writing of the human moral past.”65 The American pragmatist philosopher

William James (1842-1910) agreed, concisely noting that “truth has its paleontology.66

Replicable, verifiable evidence from the historical record is critical because it legitimizes any human interpretation of reality, any human articulation of being (ontology). In essence, history provides the touchstone upon which human knowledge of reality is culturally situated.

Getting reality right is critical for the human for two reasons: the right understanding of being makes human existence meaningful, and it provides strategic advantage in the domain of action through orientation. In other words, appropriately interpreting one’s ecosystem informs how one successfully navigates through it. As the scholar Chandra Mukerji pointed out about Nietzsche’s approach, “to study morality as it has actually been lived is to study techniques of thought and forgetting, not just ideas. Cultural learning and memory practices are both techniques for shaping thought that are designed to serve forms of life; they are not natural attributes of human beings, although they make use of our inherent ability to learn and remember. It is this social work to shape passive learning and articulate memory that produces cultural lines of descent.”67

65 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans., Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen, (Hackett: Indianapolis/Cambridge: 1998), 6.

66 William James, Pragmatism, a New name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, Together with Four Related Essays Selected from the Meaning of Truth, (New York: Longmans, Green and Co, 1948), 37.

67 Chandra Mukerji, “Cultural Genealogy: Method for a Historical Sociology of Culture or Cultural Sociology of History,” Cultural Sociology: (Los Angeles: Sage, 2007), 1(1): 49–71.

31 An axiocentric analysis enables us to interpret and theorize about aspects of the human condition that are not queryable through the mathematical and structural metaphors favored by

Structuralism. But how exactly, the reader may wonder, can values function as analytic variables if they are a “mystery,” as the title of Axiologist Ludwig Grünberg’s monograph The Mystery of

Values suggests?68 In the axiological ontology explored by American philosopher Robert Neville, human knowing begins with embodied human experience. Human experience of the world leads to strategic advantage because of the power of imagination, which is an internal process of synthesis. Imaginative synthesis is a “primordial value” that integrates experience, feelings, thought, and memory.

Imagination is the beginning of experience. Creatures without imagination might at any given time respond to particular stimuli; but without imagination, they cannot respond at a moment from the perspective of many moments. With imagination, for instance, it is possible to respond now from the perspective of a whole judgement that began a few moments ago and which vaguely aims off into the future…It is imagination that makes it possible to respond to a subjective world with both spatial and temporal dimensions….the most elementary function of imagination is gathering so as to constitute experience in the form of a world present to a subject.69

Imagination not only produces images that can be analyzed, but they are images with value, significance, worth and meaning for human existence.70 The imaginative production of image is itself a powerful ontology “whereby the content of imagined awareness comes to be.”71

Images are the expressed form of imagination, which is the process of synthesis of experience.72

68 Ludwig Grünberg, The Mystery of Values; Studies in Axiology, (Amsterdam, Rodopi: 2000.)

69 Robert C. Neville, Reconstruction of Thinking, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981), 135.

70 Ibid., 17.

71 Ibid., 142-143.

72 Ibid., 219.

32 Images and figures as values exemplars can be understood variously as types of culture-based models, schemas, case studies and use cases. A forensic and interpretative analysis of underlying values is possible because values are born by cultural products, what the German philosopher

Max Scheler (1874 – 1928) described as an a priori “value bearer” (wertträger). To the degree that the history of valued human experience expressed in image in both metaphors and figures of speech becomes the horizon for a given community, they become axiomatically meaningful at the level of culture. In this philosophy of culture, culture is defined primarily as a systematic realm of values, that “engenders common cultural assets for humanity and a common responsibility for their preservation or continuation.”73 Value is a “specifically human way of responding to the world through projections, attitudes, preferences, ideals.”74 Neville emphasized that human value is the foundation of culture:

Value is the ontological foundation of constitutive culture; it is the irreducible factor of human creativity. By way of its axiological propensity, culture is not only a continuation and amplification of nature by mankind. Beyond a certain limit, culture is a source pursuing its own purposes, the biological cause of which cannot be found. Understood in the perspective of the axiocentric ontology of the human, culture is an autonomous realm of values with its opening toward the dilemmas of human condition.75

In Grünberg’s view, “values are the reconstruction of what we experience as fundamentally human; that is, we value as human and are human in that we are valued in a certain way.”76 As Robert Ginsberg put it, “we human beings are the universe of value. Values

73 Robert C. Neville, Reconstruction of Thinking, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981), 56-57.

74 Ibid., 57.

75 Ibid., 58-59.

76 Ludwig Grünberg, The Mystery of Values; Studies in Axiology, (Amsterdam, Rodopi: 2000), vii.

33 are not simply something we possess or exercise. We are value-beings.”77 A proper interpretation and analysis of images expressed in the phenomenon of cultural products thus enables us to reconstruct the mystery of values operating at the core of human nature.

Together these foci integrate in the analytic framework of CG as a value-centric approach to questioning that can be characterized as qualitative and hermeneutical as opposed to approaches whose authority and legitimacy to answering questions are derived from metaphysics or empirically based scientific method. Empirical approaches do not have the capacity to analyze human value because they can only measure; one certainly may value measurement (although it cannot of itself have meaning), but measurement can never measure human values and meaning.

My concern herein is with excavating human values, appropriately interpreting a worldview, and fleshing out the metaphorological paradigm of the strategic. As I aim to show, the worldview articulated though the metaphorical figures of various strategists is one of the most ancient and most reproduced in the historical cultural record, and its line of descent can be tracked right back to the beginning of Western civilization. It corresponds to what I consider as the most important of all the human journeys towards meaning, and quite simply the first wisdom: human enlightenment is nothing other than the awakening to the primacy of deception, of the not-true, the not-real, the double, to fundamental uncertainty. This is the most profoundly disturbing of all human truth: paradoxically, human security is an illusion; deception is the primary feature of life, life is framed by death, and being by non-being. But there is hope: in such a dark reality, the cultural genealogy of SI documents a heroic path in which the virtuoso of

77 Robert Ginsberg, “Preface" to Ludwig Grünberg, The Mystery of Values; Studies in Axiology, (Amsterdam, Rodopi: 2000), xiii.

34 SI can appropriately interpret the strategic environment, which results in her foresight, adaptation, survival and strategic advantage.

Strategic Rationality in Culture

Only a science which is directly related to life, said the great philosopher William James, is really a science. It might also be said that in a science which is directly related to life, theory and practice become almost inseparable. The science of life, precisely because it models itself directly on the movement of life, becomes a science of living…Such a science is of necessity oriented in a practical sense, for with the aid of knowledge we can correct and alter our attitudes…” [it] “is thus prophetic in a double sense: not only does it predict what will happen, but, like the prophet Jonah, it predicts what will happen in order that it should not happen.” 78 Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

That’s what make the world go around. You see my boy, it’s nature's way: Upon the weak the strong ones prey: in human life it's also true: the strong will try to conquer you. And that is what you must expect unless you use your intellect. Brains and brawn, weak and strong. That’s what makes the world go round.79 Merlin

Cultural products are rarely explicit; rather, they are often highly stylized narratives that require proper interpretation to uncover their latent messages. Before analyzing the strategic dimension of ancient sources, I will begin by examining a relatively late artifact of SI that I see as emblematic of the manner in which the values of strategic rationality have been cleverly embedded in plain sight. Cultural products such as Disney’s The Sword and the Stone serve as a vehicle that transmits the most important cultural values to our most vulnerable and innocent, our naïve young.

78 Alfred Adler, The Science of Living, ed., Heinz L. Ansbacher, (New York: Anchor Books, 1969), 1.

79 Peet, Bill, Wolfgang Reitherman, and T. H. White, The Sword in the Stone. (Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Home Video, 1963).

35 There is a scene that features a wizard’s duel in Disney’s animated film The Sword and the Stone (1963) which is representative of the manner in which the values of SI have always been disclosed in culture.80 The values of SI can be recognized in the stylized representation of antagonistic reality and a protagonist who demonstrates heroic and strategically cunning intelligence.

The wizard’s duel between Merlin, the wise teacher and mentor of the unrecognized future ruler, the young prince Arthur, and the antagonistic and crafty hedge witch Madame Mim, is essentially a battle of wits. In a wizard’s duel, masters engage in magical kung-fu by transforming themselves into a series of creatures traditionally known to be related in a predator- prey relationship. During the duel, each mage dynamically responds to and anticipates his or her opponent’s metamorphosis, and by so doing, each proves his or her know-how, and the virtuosic command of their art.

The scene presents SI as the means to victory against existential threat. It is a type of intelligence that is informed by sensitivity, experience and clarity that leads to rapid adaptation and appropriate action. The great wizard's duel functions in the film as the final test of a practical curriculum in which young Arthur becomes sensitized to the reality of the world. For example,

Arthur first tastes love while transfigured into a squirrel, and he learns to be very wary of the unanticipated crisis of death, the elation of victory of brain over brawn, and the necessity of the mastery of the art of strategy when chased by a predatory pike while in the form of a minnow.81

80 Peet, Bill, Wolfgang Reitherman, and T. H. White, The Sword in the Stone. (Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Home Video, 1963).

81 Peet, Bill, Wolfgang Reitherman, and T. H. White, The Sword in the Stone. (Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Home Video, 1963). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i43I5ECqLY, (accessed 26 April 2017).

36 (FIGURE 5) The capacity to adapt to contingency is the main theme of the scene, and success is measured by the practitioner’s ability to rapidly attend to the unanticipated. After Mim takes the form of a crocodile for example, Merlin quickly responds by transforming into a snapping turtle that bites her.82 When Merlin metamorphoses into a hare, Mim responds with the shape of a fox.

The two virtuosos subsequently transform into a walrus, an elephant, a mouse, a tomcat, a rattlesnake, a crab, a rhinoceros, a goat, a purple dragon, and a virus. Each metamorphosis manifests a type of intelligence that is informed by sensitivity to the opponent and the environment that directly leads to rapid reaction, and ultimately to strategic advantage.

The wizard’s duel is a game of wit that is framed by ruse, stratagem, entrapment and escape, and it is designed to prove both one’s mettle and quality. These are the functional and stylized equivalents of what SI practitioners call disinformation, misinformation, denial and deception, dissimulation and dissembling. As the scene progresses, Merlin, and his voyeurs, becomes continuously sensitized to threat and insecurity through a series of fearful encounters.

He not only tries to anticipate Mim’s patterns, but he also tactically interprets the features of the specific environment to gain strategic advantage: for instance, he transforms into a centipede when he spies a small hole in a hollow log from which he could escape crocodile-Mim, who subsequently transmogrifies into a chicken. Merlin proves his consummate proficiency in the end through ingenuity: he counters the asymmetric threat by leveraging knowledge that Mim does not have. Because Merlin has time-traveled, he has learned from the future about modern germ- theory; he weaponizes this knowledge by changing the very nature of the competition, and unexpectedly infects dragon-Mim with himself as a rare virus. This sneaky move vanquishes his

82 Ibid., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_VpkXd1TKA, (accessed 26 April 2017).

37 foe to her sickbed, liberates his young protégée from Mim's clutch, cathartically releases tension, demonstrates the triumph of good over and evil, manifests the excellence of SI, and teaches an important lesson both to his naïve prince and to the external voyeur.

I am interested here with understanding the nuances of that important lesson.

Essentially, many scenes from The Sword and the Stone depict the theme of unanticipated violence and murder of a young innocent. The question that has driven the research for this thesis is, simply: why has contemporary American society validated this as a legitimate topic to be embedded in a cultural product designed for the youngest demographic of U.S. society? My answer to this question, and the conclusion that I have reached after tracing this theme in cultural products produced by two different civilizations over the course of three thousand years, is that societies have legitimated and authorized this message time and time again because, when used in an exemplary fashion, it is a potent strategy against the unanticipated threats of an antagonistic reality. I will show that cultural products have always served as the preeminent vehicle in a curriculum of SI that intends to teach society’s most vulnerable, the naïve, about how to succeed in the game of life.

Cultural products are not just mere entertainment; rather, they are also cultural models and memories which have crystallized insights developed through embodied experience over millennia, as well as a heuristic and interpretive framework that enables practitioners of SI to achieve strategic advantage by appropriately interpreting the threat features of an antagonistic reality. There is a common set of features in all of these stories which gestures to a cultural genealogy that can be traced for over two and a half millennia. These features highlight 1) personal experience as a means of sensitization to the threat features of any given antagonistic

38 reality, 2) this sensitization to the threat features leads to strategic vision, which is the capacity to interpret the nuances of any new threat environment, and 3) proper interpretation then enables appropriate adaptation and reaction, which leads to strategic advantage.

In addition to being emotionally satisfying entertainment, there are three features that make the wizard’s duel interesting. First, metamorphosis is a device, and the wizard’s duel a frame that highlights the issue of the unanticipated, the threat of contingency, and the basic fact of the threat of a violent and conflict-laden reality to an embodied being. Second, the scene promises hope in the form of power over the unknown; Merlin’s SI offers a type of symbolic immortality by portraying an exemplary and heroic mode of human action that is able to overcome existential threat. Third, I argue that this duel is emblematic of a mode of SI with a long multi-cultural genealogy. The movie is itself a source that frames a profound question one should ask when dealing with the unanticipated, and points to the answer: “WWMD?” (What

Would Merlin Do?) The novice has learned vicariously that human ingenuity (strategic rationality), when used in an exemplary fashion, thwarts entrapment and makes the difference between life and death.

For the first feature, I argue that magical metamorphosis in the film functions as a device that conceals a deadly serious message even as it reveals the heroically strategic in a fun way.

The bottom line is that change is the only constant in life. Although we think that things around us are stable and eternal, the truth is that reality is change. Reality is constantly evolving, and human perception of transforming reality is constantly adjusted as human bodies age. Change thus implies both opportunity and challenge, promise and anxiety for organisms which survival depends on the ability to sense change, to see change, to see through change, to anticipate

39 change, and to leverage new sight to successfully adapt to the dynamically evolving environment. Correctly adaptive human action and reaction in such an insecure environment is then the critical means that enables human flourishing; it is action based on dynamic risk assessment that results in strategic advantage. This is the core message of SI, and one that all of the historical masters of SI have taught.

Reality, otherwise known as the threat environment, is tyrannical; it is unfair, unjust, and illegitimate. Life is sustained only by the death of others, nature, is “red in tooth and claw”— conflict, violence, and murder are primary. History is full of stories that show that security is not even to be had within the confines of the family; how else do we understand all of the stories of murder in our foundational religious, literary, dramatic and philosophical stories (the cannibalism of Saturn, the exposure of Oedipus, the sacrifice of Isaac, Iphigenia, and Jesus, the fratricide of

Cain and Abel, the infanticide of Medea, etc)? The seer Isaiah captured reality perfectly in the

Old Testament: “Terror and pit and snare confront you, O inhabitant of the earth.”83

Humans are always the underdog, since human life is transitory, ephemeral and fragile— always vulnerable to the potential entrapment of “pit and snare” by the unknown, or the improperly interpreted environment. It is enough to both get your adrenalin flowing and to give you a complex. Psychologically, the threat of constant obliteration is so traumatic that it appears necessary to repress the profound tragedy of human finitude in the form of comedy. What can one do? With no safe harbor, what appropriate response is there for humanity but to laugh, cry, and rage? Most alarming about these stories is that when stripped of their entertaining escapades and the colorful details that delight the reader or listener, what is left is an extremely disturbing

83 Isai. 24:17.

40 point: if you do not get smart, and fast, you will be murdered, by predators, gods, monsters, demons, nature, starvation, sickness, enemies, perhaps even friends and family, or the whimsy of unanticipated change herself (fortuna). This is the first lesson that culture imparts to our most innocent and vulnerable.

For the second feature, although reality is terribly antagonistic to human interests, the species is not without hope. Hope here signifies increasing sensitivity that leads to the strategic vision that enables appropriate action and strategic advantage. Although insensitivity and ignorance to the dynamics of change in the mutable present can easily lead to one’s unanticipated and premature end, The Sword and the Stone is authoritative cultural evidence that the only human hope lies in SI. The sense that most symbolizes the heroically strategic is the sense of sight; strategic advantage here is first won through the acquisition of foresight, when the hero can see through and anticipate, thereby properly interpreting the threat in order to rapidly adapt to it. It is sensitivity that is cultivated and honed through personal, practical experience. Strategic rationality is a deadly weapon that both enables and disables human dignity and freedom.

The wizards’ duel described here is a device that reveals both the game of life which is violent and conflict laden, and the hero himself, homo ludens, gaming man.84 Gaming man overcomes the insecurity of unanticipated threat by cultivating sensitivity to the unique features of any given threat. Sensitivity to the present is a type of strategic vision (foresight) that enables one to “see through,” to anticipate, to envision tactics and strategies that may even incorporate subterfuge. Sensitivity enables the knack of attending both to the face of change experienced as the unknown (and its corollary: the known that turns out to be false), to appearance (and its

84 In contrast to Johan Huizinga, I focus on the gaming aspect in lieu of the play aspect of homo ludens. See Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens; a Study of the Play-Element in Culture, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955):105.

41 corollary: the thing seen which turns out to be mere illusion) and to exposure. Masters who wield

SI like a weapon dominate the contingent because they have the power to reveal and conceal, to entrap and liberate, to trick or enlighten (or even to trick in order to enlighten). In short, wisdom is power, and power is strategic advantage resulting from foresight, and the proper interpreting and leveraging of reality. Born in human embodiment, SI is a type of utilitarian wisdom with its own ethical framework and categorical imperative in which expediency is the most highly valued. Expediency, or the freeing of one’s feet (Latin ex + ped), is that which enables human dignity, freedom and ambition from the enclosure of snare and pit. In short, SI is soteriological— the possibility of human salvation is born within, but must be developed.

Last, I argue that the wizard’s duel as a device that frames the problem of contingency and adaptation is just one example of this worldview which has a long multi-cultural genealogy.

The term “strategic culture” is redundant, because culture, defined here as that which is worth remembering, is always strategic. Culture is the repository of strategic values deemed relevant to human flourishing, and thus transmitted through time. Constructed through generations of lived experience, cultural memory and models remain relevant through time to the degree that they make us more fit in any given environment, because they enable strategic advantage. In addition to the wizard’s duel discussed here, the problem of the contingent can be treated genealogically when we understand that it has been articulated under different but related and comparable metaphors in the culturally foundational stories of Europe, the Middle East, and South and East

Asia, often in terms of journey, exile, aging, the vicissitudes of fortuna, regime transition, seasonal change, astrological wandering, and death.

42 It is striking that over the course of human cultural evolution this basic lesson has been developed and articulated as the elementary curriculum delivered to our most vulnerable in the form of animal fables and cartoons. In the North American cultural context of the 20th-21st centuries, the same setting of antagonistic reality and strategic use of intellect to thwart threat infuses the cartoons that we show our most naïve. I refer to the Loony Tunes characters upon which generations of Americans have been raised: Bugs Bunny and the hunter Elmer Fudd, Wile

E. Coyote and Road Runner, Tweety and Sylvester, or Hanna and Barbera characters Tom and

Jerry. Recall also the antagonistic characters Mowgli and Shere Khan or Rikki Tikki Tavi and

Nag and Nagaina in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. The message? Get smart or get eaten, smashed, or shot. Think fast, or get done fer. These stories teach about the tyranny of reality which is terrifying, fraught with extreme uncertainty, unpredictable change, and insecurity. True wisdom is the awareness of the paradox that even though human life is not possible without a sense of meaning, that meaning is always at risk of being undermined by the absurdity of unexpected death, that meaninglessness shadows everything we do, and that mutability is the only constant.

Where is hope in such a dire reality?

In this thesis, I argue that mētic intelligence is actually a strategic type of rationality born out of existential necessity. The values of SI are important because SI enables the vulnerable to achieve human meaning at its most elemental level (life itself) in the face of sudden, unanticipated existential threat. SI is critical not because it exists as a category in the mind or at some type of universal level, but because it operates in the day-to-day world of prudent action, and it has been culturally validated since time immemorial.

43 I also argue that the cultural models discussed here under the heading of SI function as the theoretical component of a practical curriculum that taught humankind the means to success in a reality experienced as antagonistic. SI is a type of strategic rationality informed by sensitivity, experience, and clarity that is performed—and the virtuosic performance of the art of

SI leads to human excellence. Whether articulated through the figures of purposeful trickster gods, heroically strategic humans, and plucky animals in historical narratives produced in cultures around the globe, or in the form of good manners and savoir vivre, SI presents itself as a critical enabler to the historical cultures that advocated for it, and for contemporary times as well. With a didactic intent, these stories served as a practical curriculum because they enabled young princes to see. They enabled sight through experience, through experiencing vicariously the predicaments of shrewdly strategic heroes. These stories also enabled young princes to learn that the exemplary utilization of strategic intellect in crisis situations enables strategic advantage under asymmetric threat. In other words, youth gained practical experience through suffering the experiences of the stories’ heroes as case studies, for as the Greek wise men noted, that which is suffered is learned.85 What is learned in this curriculum of case studies and models of heroic strategy is that power is a matter of sensitivity to power and appropriate means; and that power can both be gained or lost through the selection of appropriate means. The virtuosic utilization of

SI can both benefit and threaten the prince. It is both comic, and beautifully tragic.

85 τα παθηµατα µαθηµατα.

44 Why Strategic rather than Mētic?

In her study, Raphals made the claim that English does not “have an equivalent of the

Greek work for mētis.”86 I disagree. Her assertion only makes sense, I think, if we assume either a strict one-to-one correspondence between a linguistic utterance and its mental object or cultural phenomenon, or the lack of a word in contemporary English derived etymologically from the

Greek word mētis. I see no reason why one is required to abide by such a limiting parameter; in my view, any taxonomy of language must take into account both polysemy (the co-existence of various possible meanings for one word), and polyvalence (that one concept may be represented differently in language). In other words, various aspects of an underlying strategic paradigm may be exposed through different metaphorical expressions. In my taxonomy, aspects of the strategic, which is primarily defined through the experiential images of certain figures (Zeus, young Prince

Arthur, fox, generals, hunters), is the hypernym of mētis.

The English language has a perfectly good equivalent for the Greek concept mētis: strategic. The concept of the strategic refers in ancient Greek to a person of authority and legitimacy who leads, or brings things to be. The strategist is a master of force στρατός (stratós,

“force”) who leads ἄγω (ágō, “I lead, I conduct, I bring forth, I induce”). Over the long course of its linguistic history, this term clearly describes the behavior of those who exercise the power of command and actualization, including gods (Zeus, Athena, Jesus), generals, beggar-kings

(Odysseus), hunters (masters of hounds) consuls, magistrates, governors, viceroys, philosophers, and even certain types of animals. For example, fox is not only snare-aware, but strategically

86 Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), xii.

45 and resourcefully adaptive, always preparing its escape routes.87 Reviewing all of the cultural evidence provided by Detienne, Vernant, and Raphals, I have found no example where the use of the term strategic harms our understanding of mētic activity. Conversely, we can critique the label of mētic intelligence for various reasons. First, focusing on the term mētic intelligence as a disembodied cognitive category reduces the agency of the mētically intelligent, diminishes the significance of its occasion, and conceals its values-base and the means of acquisition. Moreover, the term “mētic intelligence” exoticizes a part of human life that any common Jill can easily recognize. The term strategic rectifies all of these. As the British Philosopher Whitehead (1861 –

1947) wrote “philosophy must found itself upon the presuppositions and the interpretations of ordinary life…we should appeal to the simple-minded notions issuing from ordinary civilized social relations.”88

Existential

In contrast to exposing SI as a universal cognitive category, I focus on the question of human meaning. In many of the narratives purveyed, human meaning only becomes possible within the framework of the existential. The existential refers to a way of being and acting in the world that enables human meaning in the face of “the encounter with nothingness,” and a philosophical anthropology that highlights man in the raw, a denuded, alienated man who is homeless in the universe.89 SI is born out of existential necessity, what the Greeks called Ananke,

87 Master of Hounds: στρατηγοὶ κυνηγεσίων. Snare-aware (δολόφρονες): strategically resourcefully adaptive: στρατοπεδευόντων. Escape routes (πόρε).

88 Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought, (New York: Macmillan: 1938), 17.

89 William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1962), 23-41.

46 and the Latin West called Necessitas.90 In my analysis, the existential privileges the figures of homo ludens (gaming man) and homo aestimans (evaluating man) over all of the other homos:

(sapiens, faber, cogitans, economicus, significans, simbolicus). These two figures, I believe, ground human value and the human process of valuation in survival, often co-occuring with tropes of hunger and desire, entrapment and subjugation (and opposites: freedom and liberty), justice and proper exchange (and injustice), hierarchy (autonomy) and order (and disorder).

Either - or, or Both?

In contrast to structuralism above, I ground valuation, at least the valuation of SI, in paradox. From the many examples that I discuss, we can only conclude that SI is ambivalent and equivocal. In other words, the value of SI is always linked to perspective and interpretation, and it is thus both good, bad, beautiful and ugly. In this era of quantum mechanics, we no longer have to create binary oppositions, nor dwell in a simplistic either-or. Just like quantum mechanics expresses the concept of wave-particle duality, that every particle may be partially described as both particles and waves, we can posit multiple, simultaneous valuations of SI operating in human nature. Adapting the image of the duck-bunny famously utilized by the philosopher

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951 CE), what might we conclude if we replace the Structuralist binary opposition with a healthy appreciate of paradox?

What I mean to suggest about this image is that the valuation of SI, necessarily tightly coupled with perception, perspective and interpretation, can be both good and bad, helpful and hurtful, comedic and tragic. In other words, the possibility of human meaning under the condition of the naturalistic and the existential compels us to see that it is predicated on the loss

90 Ananke (Ἀνάγκη).

47 of a distinction between predator and prey. To use Nietzschean metaphors, every predator is simultaneously prey, to another predator or to finitude itself. At the level of meaning, within each of us concurrently paradoxically exists both the blonde beast/bird of prey and the sheep. Human value and the possibility of self-esteem is similarly postured: human meaning is bookended by threat from both sides—both from predator and dependence on prey, from both death and life.

The utilization of SI enables meaning, self-esteem, satiation, and well being, even as it disables another. Human meaning is paradoxically enabled by the lack of meaning, life by death.

Strategic rationality is paradoxical, and it is always perspectival. The difference lies in how SI is valued—it is quite simply both—the greatest and worst that man has to offer—the stuff of comedy and tragedy.

The comic and tragic dimensions of SI have played out over and over in culture for thousands of years—success and failure both provide life lessons for the neophyte: Oedipus (and many others) tried to trick fate through strategy, and tragedy haunted the House of Thebes for generations. The trickster-strategists Sisyphus and Prometheus likewise tragically lost the game, and were punished eternally. Odysseus found temporary immortality in Homer’s Odyssey, but there is also a now lost tradition, as indicated by Sophocles’ tragedy Odysseus Wounded, in which he was tragically killed by his youngest son Telegonus, who then married Penelope.91 The grand strategist of the Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 - 1527 CE), tragically wound up tortured and languishing. The deception of Adam and Eve resulted in the tragic fall into the trap of the postlapsarian state even as it set the condition for human liberation—an act only enabled when God the Father (tragically? heroically?) sacrificed God the Son. Man’s greatest ingenuity is

91 (Ὀδυσσεὺς ἀκανθοπλήξ, Odysseus Akanthoplēx)

48 also his downfall because it is tied to life, and when life is primarily lived as a contest, then it is always a zero-sum game. Meaning is never given; it is only won—or lost in, and to, mystery.

Visual Culture

Because images and metaphors exist in both textual and visual sources, I hypothetically should be able to excavate underlying values from both media, even though the visual functions outside of the strictly terminological. The many examples of visual culture provided throughout this thesis provide evidence for the valuation of SI that is carried by culture in a continuous line of descent. A genealogy that excavates a cultural descent of strategic values in images helps us understand the worldview of a culture that visually celebrates themes such as the rapes of Zeus, and explains why 5th-century Roman Christians displayed a mosaic of the rape of Dinah in their sacred space. The mythopoetic conveys values in a figurative language that is at odds with literalism: what is expressed in these cultural products are not the heroic values of a rape culture, in the sense of the contemporary American Harvey Weinstein/ #metoo scandals; rather, the organization of evidence in a cultural line of descent understood as generated from the strategic as a metaphor enables the interpreter to recover a sense of hope—the possibility of actualization, and the defiant dream of the underdog to achieve dignity, justice, and meaning through virtuosic strategy in the face of finitude.

Heroic and the Mythopoetic

The term ‘heroic’ used here is a term of art that denotes an image that bundles experiential value-features. My conception of SI as heroic fits well with American

Anthropologist Ernest Becker’s (1924-1974) concept of heroics as culturally-validated roles that

49 enable humans to achieve meaning in life.92 Culture itself is deceptive—it both conceals the threat of finitude even as it reveals validated roles. For example, modern American culture legitimizes as heroic roles such as doctor, lawyer, soldier, movie star, pop diva, and basketball player. It is difficult to imagine garbage collectors in a heroic sense even though they provide a critical service to modern society. Becker understood these heroic roles as vital lies; they are vital because humans cannot exist without meaning, and they are lies because they are arbitrary. In this sense, virtuosic SI is ambivalent—it simultaneously enables and disables. The great heroes of SI are also paradoxically the greatest rogues.

Because I seek to expose values, worldviews, and the architecture of meaning, my axiological interpretation of many texts privileges the internal and psychological over the external, and this has compelled me to read against the grain of the dominant position taken by academic specialists in certain fields. I assume that the will-to-power and the necessity of the expansion of life, expressed in the human through (heroic) self-esteem, self-expansion and self- actualization, are primary values in humans and fundamental drivers of human action, I privilege this type of universal over the particular. For example, my analysis of late Qīng dynasty sources in chapter 6 recovers this universal and internal dimension of human ambition (and ressentiment at its thwarting), as opposed to studies in literary history which have concluded with structuralist, realist, aesthetic, and historicist interpretations, as middlebrow, exposés, and as unfortunate

92 Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, (New York: Free Press Paperbacks/Simon & Schuster, 1973).

50 examples of repressed modernity.93 In addition to critiquing society and political corruption as previous studies point out, I highlight the notion that the official is also a type of heroic figure that expresses core values. A critique of officialdom in an era of cultural turmoil, of values conflict, in my view, is more fundamentally a questioning of that which is authoritative, legitimate and valid in society, and of what is culturally valued as a meaningful path for human ambition. This critique, in addition to functioning as an assertion of external political and economic corruption (fǔbài 腐败), is also the internal death terror and cultural trauma experienced from the stinking decay (fǔxiǔ 腐朽) and death rattle of a heroic role that no longer sustains meaning. Much of this literature is an understandably vicious attack by a resentful people of thwarted ambition who were betrayed by their own cultural legacy.

Notes on Translation

Translation is inevitably a process of choice, and I offer here an apology for my choices to preempt critique from technical specialists in various fields. Two principles have guided my translation. The first is plain speech. This thesis includes an interpretation and translation of words, concepts and metaphors drawn from complex texts written in Classical and modern

Chinese, early and later versions of Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish. Hebrew, Arabic, German, and Sanskrit-Hindi are thrown in for fun. In every case, I chose the least technical, least jargony

93 Lǔ Xùn 魯迅, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, trans. Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1976). A Brief History of Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Xiǎoshuō Shǐlüè 中國⼩說史略). Reprinted- (Hong Kong: Qingwen shuwu, 1972. Liu, Ts’un-yan, “Introduction: ‘Middlebrow’ in Perspective,” in Ts’un-yan Liu, ed. Chinese Middlebrow Fiction: From the Ch’ing and the Early Republican Eras, (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1984), 1-40. Doleželová-Velingerová, Milena, ed. The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 1980. Patrick Hanan, Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth & Early Twentieth Centuries, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004); David Der-wei Wang’s monograph, Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qīng Fiction, 1849-1911, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). Yáng Chūmíng 杨出明, Late Qīng Fiction and Socioeconomic Transformation (Wǎnqīng Wénxué yǔ Shèhuì Jīngjì Zhuǎnxíng 晚清⽂学与社会经济转型), (Shànghǎi上海: Dōngfāng Chūbǎn Zhōngxīn 东⽅出版中⼼), 2005.

51 and least philosophical English equivalent. In some cases, this bias compelled me to alter highly philosophical translations, and to ignore complicated syntactical and rhetorical structures in the native languages that might not resonate with the common vernacular of the general reading public. My second bias was to choose in my translations of foreign words an equivalent that fleshed out the metaphorical significance of the strategic. My rule of thumb was to choose translations that were both analogically similar in function at the level of values-analysis, and internally cohesive with my interpretation. In the end, the requirements of narratology (good story telling) trumped technical specialization. I decided to translate the Chinese philosophical terms of art rén (仁) and yì (义), as “empathetic response” and “rightly ordered relationships,” (sometimes simply as ‘loyalty’) since I feel that those translations adequately convey important aspects of Lǐ’s theory of strategic manipulation. For Chinese transliteration, I use the contemporary Mainland standard pīnyīn (拼⾳). I made little effort to standardize my use of traditional or simplified characters, but tried to use the form provided by the particular source.

In any case, Sinologists nowadays should know both.

Chapter Summaries

Chapters two to five trace the phylogenesis of the values of strategic rationality carried in cultural products excavated from more than 3,000 years of Western civilization. I explore in chapter two strategic rationality in Greco-Roman cultural products, including Hesiod’s

Theogony, and Works, and Homer’s Odyssey. Chapter three continues the exploration of the values of strategic rationality in Greco-Roman culture by highlighting the trope of the hunt and the emphasis on strategic foresight. Chapters four and five trace the descent of SI after the fall of

52 the Roman empire in sources which authority is recognized as religious (chapter four) or secular

(chapter five), an admittedly anachronistic and unhistorical division, but one that is nevertheless very helpful in telling the story of SI, and demonstrating the degree to which the values of SI are operative in texts with different foundations of legitimacy, validity, and authority. I gesture to the potential universality of the metaphorological paradigm of the strategic operating in culture in chapter six through a short genealogy of the heroically strategic in Chinese culture, arguing that

Lǐ Zōngwú’s (1879–1943) long suppressed, early twentieth-century text Theory of the Thick and

Black (Hòuhēixué 厚⿊學: hereafter Theory) becomes much more meaningful when understood within the cultural trajectory of Chinese strategic rationality.

53 CHAPTER II STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE IN GRECO-ROMAN CULTURE

It is natural for wisdom and great power to come together, and they are for ever pursuing and seeking each other and consorting together. 94 Plato (428-348 BCE) FIGURE 4. Mars and Venus Caught in Vulcan’s Trap Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael (1566-1638)95

94 Plato, Letters, (310e), Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/ citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=1&query=Pl.%20Ep.%20310d (accessed 26 April 2017).

95 Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael (1566-1638). In the famous myth represented here in the 17th century, the Greek God Hephaestus uses his divine SI to see through the cuckoldry, catching the perpetrators in the act. J. Paul Getty Museum, Public domain. http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/715/joachim-anthonisz-wtewael-mars- and-venus-surprised-by-vulcan-dutch-1604-1608/?dz=0.5000,0.5000,0.75

54 SI is as old as humankind. Starting from the appearance of divine deceivers transmitted to the subsequent oral and textual tradition of myths and epics of the first millennium BCE, we can posit a much earlier valorization of SI in human societies. What is most salient about this history is that one can detect a cultural genealogy of SI articulated through the figures of strategic heroes of the various ancient cultures surrounding the Mediterranean basin. From the myths of pre- history, we can still appreciate the divinities, humans, and animals that exemplified the power of

SI in the figures of tricksters, mages, masters and mistresses of ruse and stratagem, and heralds.

This cultural genealogy includes Enki/Ea of Mesopotamia, the deities Isis and Seth in the

Egyptian tradition, Inanna and Inara from the Mesopotamians, and the many examples from the

Greeks: Prometheus, Sisyphus, Cronos, Zeus, Metis, Autolycus, Mestra, Hermes, Odysseus

(Ulysses), Athena, Circe, Hephaestus, Apollo, and Momus. We can add in Loki for the Nordic cultures, and a plethora of tricksters in the Judeo-Christian tradition, including the serpent in the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, and many other eminent cultural heroes, including tricksters and prophets: Moses, Jacob, Solomon, St. Peter, and even Jesus.

The label of trickster is, I fear, a misnomer that has obscured the central point of these agonists: they are in fact heroic strategists who make use of the means of deception and trickery in order to attain their ends. They are crafty because of their mastery of the craft of the strategic.

Carpenters use a hammer, but we do not call them hammerers because we perceive that there is something more central that points to the essence of carpentry; likewise the term trickster obscures the holistic skillset of the strategist. In contrast to other approaches, I interpret these ancient figures in terms of SI because the possibility of fraud sets the condition for human excellence in an ambiguous universe. The great deceivers of ancient philosophical and religious

55 myth mark the birth of SI because they compelled humanity to develop the strategic vision necessary to interpret the features of reality that they observed, as effective, ineffective or paradoxically as both. My interpretation of the evidence shows that culture has always transmitted themes of deception because surprisingly trickery may be good for us—it somehow makes us better. I argue that trickery actually helps us ‘up our game,’ so to say, because it makes us better at the game of life. In other words, exposure to stories of divinely heroic trickery and narratives that expose (exposés) are a heuristic that both compel us to see, and through seeing (or through seeing through) we are able to master the ambiguous threat environment.

Before we analyze the images of SI in ancient sources, it is worth mentioning that the strategic aspect of rationality was encoded in both the Greek and Latin languages. Before being enshrined as terms of art by philosophers, theologians, sophists and rhetoricians, both the Greek and Latin terms for reason, ratio and λόγος, communicated the concepts of measurement and value. Nowadays, we recall the rationalism of the Enlightenment and empirical scientific method when we hear ratio (reason/rationality), and reverence for the Word that is ritually proclaimed during mass, that “in the beginning was the λόγος, and the λόγος was with God, and the λόγος was God.96 In a way, both are expressions of value and worth, of what is worthy, and of what counts as important in culture. Although these are the senses of the terms beloved by pedants throughout the ages—we can trace the pre-historic roots of both terms in the banal and the day- to-day. What is concealed by the abstruse is revealed by etymological dictionaries; we can speculate that rationality was born in the functional requirement to measure, weigh, evaluate, and interpret, the nascent domains of metrology, axiology, and hermeneutics. Both terms signify the

96 John 1:1.

56 concepts of counting, reckoning, accounting, calculating, and computing. Appropriate accounting, whether of commodities, or especially of days and seasons for astro-theological concerns and right interpretation of omens, enabled the ancients to assign significance, meaning, value, and worth. These calculating masters were thus able to orient human experience in time and space, and provide strategic advantage through prediction. Thus, in this earliest stage, rational intelligence was defined by the practical activity of observing, calculating, and interpreting. By doing so, these intellectuals of accounting became the privileged arbiters of what counts, and their exclusive sacred lore only offered to the limited consumers of value, the initiated and the aristocratically powerful.

The high cultural obsession with universals never really left us; the hyper-valorization of the universal in Bronze Age astro-theology one perceives in the gold-leafed material culture of goldhütes and skydisks, and the preference for astro-theological monumentality (stonehenge, pyramids) evolved into Iron Age calculating equivalents, such as the antikythera mechanism.

Sacred astro-theological lore evolved into an obsession with cosmological foundations:

Pythagorean mathematics, Platonic forms, cosmological and metaphysical religion, natural law, sub species aeternitatis, transcendent deontological ethics, theoretical totalizations, to name just a few. In the domain of human value and meaning, calculating rationality, what I call strategic rationality, also found expression in the metaphors and images of culturally foundational stories produced by the heirs of that ancient sect of calculating intellectuals. The values of this calculating SI informed the stories of Bronze Age strategic deities who populated both the Iron

Age and Greco-Roman epic mythological lore of heroic strategists.

57 The strategic values underlying these figures come more sharply into focus in the great

Greek epics of the first millennium BCE, conventionally understood as the foundation of

Western civilization. In this section I show that there are common features in Hesiod’s Theogony, and Homer’s Odyssey; both of these are sources that seek to teach humanity the means of winning through the development of strategic vision that leads to strategic advantage.

Hesiod’s Theogony

It is not difficult to perceive the culturally genealogical linkage between Disney’s Sword and the Stone and Hesiod’s Theogony, a culturally foundational text written nearly two and half millennia earlier in a very different social environment.97 In lieu of the wizard’s duel, Hesiod utilized the device of cosmogonic, intergenerational conflict as the game in which a god won over tyrannical reality by his use of SI.98 What the initiate to SI observes is a vision of reality structured as successive political and familial conflict, and the development of the gaming god

Zeus whose power grows as his SI matures. When we get down to brass tacks, we discover a rather stunning depiction of heroic SI: the lesson of Theogony is that ambition thumos (θυµός) is both enabled and stymied by SI (µῆτις).

97 Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, trans. C.S. Morrissey (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012).

98 µῆτις; I have generally tried to avoid philological and philosophical terms of art. For a more precise study of these terms, such as ‘mētic intelligence,’ please refer to Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, trans. Janet Lloyd (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1978), and Jeffrey Barnouw, Odysseus, Hero of Practical Intelligence Boulder: Lanham: 2004); for a cross-cultural comparison, see Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).

58 The first depiction of SI in Theogony is the self-liberating of Earth (Gaia) from excessively lusty, tyrannical, and intemperate Sky (Uranus), when their youngest child Cronos

“of the famously evil stratagem” castrates dad with the help of mum. 99

The second exemplar of SI occurs shortly later in the text when Rhea connives with her youngest child Zeus “full of stratagems” and her mother-in-law Earth (Gaia) to overthrow

Cronos, who also recklessly raped his consort. The conflict between Zeus and the four excessively ambitious sons of Iapetus (Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, Epimetheus) provides the third example of SI. Zeus, “whose stratagems never end,”100 sees Prometheus’ trick for what it was beforehand,101 and then successfully outmaneuvers him. “But Zeus who drives the clouds was greatly vexed and said to him: “Son of Iapetus, clever above all,102 you have not yet forgotten your arts of deception!”103 So spake Zeus in anger, whose wisdom (literally: undying vision of plots) is everlasting104; and from that time he was always mindful of the ruse.105 In essence, Zeus gained strategic foresight from experience. The Greek term προειδοποιήσει

(foresight) aligns with its equivalent in Latin (praemonitus) and the many derivations in Western

European languages (prévenu, avvisato, avvertito, prevenido). Most importantly, it is the

99 aiolos.

100 Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, trans. C.S. Morrissey (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012): line 561.

101 Ibid., line 551.

102 πάντων πέρι µήδεα εἰδώς.

103 δολίης ἐπιλήθεο τέχνης. Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, trans. C.S. Morrissey (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012): lines 560-565. For a more detailed philological analysis, please see Marcel Detienne and Jean- Pierre Vernant, The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks, trans. Paula Wissing, (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 21-86.

104 Ζεὺς ἄφθιτα µήδεα εἰδώς.

105 ἐκ τούτου δἤπειτα χόλου µεµνηµένος αἰεὶ.

59 acquisition of strategic foresight that makes humanity god-like—we become strategic like God through providence. More frankly, SI is itself pro-vidential.

Hesiod’s Works, another primer of SI, points out that reality is strife, which can be understood both as praiseworthy and blameworthy.106 The philosopher Heraclitus (535 – 475

BCE), Aristotle noted, saw that strife in life was necessary: criticizing Achilles’ wish for peace in the Iliad (“would that strife might perish from among gods and men”), Heraclitus thought that harmony could not exist without high and low notes, nor living things without female and male, which are opposites.”107 Strife as war is necessary, he taught: “we must recognize that war is common and strife is justice, and all things happen according to strife and necessity.”108 And,

“war is the father of all and king of all, who manifested some as gods and some as men, who made some slaves and some freemen.”109 Strife is the womb in which the strategic is born.

Like the Sword and the Stone, underneath Hesiod’s Theogony lies the same points that I identified earlier, including a stylized representation of reality that is antagonistic, and a heroically strategic protagonist, or assumed naïve pupil, who develops strategic vision from personal experience, that results in strategic advantage. In contrast to Zeus, his forebears Sky and

Cronos who are tyrannical god-babies with poor impulse control and reckless ambition, portray antagonistic reality. Zeus, on the other hand, evolves into the exemplar of the just, wise, and

106 ἔρις. Ibid. Works, lines 1-40.

107 Homer Iliad 18.107. Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics line 1235a9-10. http://data.perseus.org/citations/ urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0086.tlg009.perseus-eng1:7.1235a, (accessed 4 May, 2017).

108 Heraclitus, Fragment B80, Randy Hoyt, “The Fragments of Heraclitus,” http:// www.heraclitusfragments.com/files/e.html (accessed 4 May, 2017)

109 Πόλεµος πάντων µὲν πατήρ ἐστι πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς, καὶ τοὺς µὲν θεοὺς ἔδειξε τοὺς δὲ ἀνθρώπους, τοὺς µὲν δούλους ἐποίησε τοὺς δὲ ἐλευθέρους.

60 appropriate ruler who incorporates strategic deception and denial in order to accomplish his legitimate goals. For example, starting as a vulnerable infant, Zeus is saved first by Rhea and

Earth’s ruse to hide him in the dark depths. He learns more of SI when the ruse of the swallowed omphalos stone functions as an emetic that forces Cronos to vomit up Zeus’ siblings, which weakens the old deity. Trickery thus underscores one of the earliest of soteriological doctrines in western civilization: Zeus’ anabasis, or rising up from the depths, is an archetype of the victorious ascent of the underdog that would echo through the ages, most notably when Jesus freed humanity from the bowels of the devil in the story of the harrowing of hell.

Zeus still has a long way to go though; although his thumos-impulse flared up in the conflict with Prometheus, he is well on the journey to becoming more sensitive to ruse itself.

Unlike his grandfather who imprisoned cosmogonic powers within the wombs of Earth, Zeus learns from his father Cronos' example by internalizing strategic power: it is only through the swallowing of the deity of SI herself, Metis, an act itself accomplished through trickery, that

Zeus is able to become the paragon of SI, what Homer called mêtieta, what I translate as “the

Strategically Wise.” By so doing, Zeus became the most cunning and strategic of the gods, a

“long-range thinker,”110 whose mode of power is equal with that of the goddess ‘bright-eyed’

Athena, who is generated from his forehead.111 As the icon of SI and as “a lover of war and wisdom,” Athena’s relationship with Odysseus provides the key to interpreting Homer’s Odyssey as a primer of SI, discussed below.

110 Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, trans. C.S. Morrissey (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012): line 883. Plato, Republic.

111 Ibid., line 897.

61 Hesiod’s Theogony has much to tell us about the religious, mythical political, social, and cultural dimensions of the times in which it was written. But what is the ethical lesson of the text, if there is one? In Theogony we discover little of the prevailing ethical paradigms one learns in

Ethics 101, whether Consequentialist, Non-consequentialist, and Agent-centered theories. We see little of the deontological and utilitarian; there is neither a vision of grace, duty, virtue nor a categorical imperative. One may be tempted to see the ethics of Theogony as an early articulation of egoism, like that expressed by Thrasymachus,112 Thomas Hobbes, or Ayn Rand’s virtue of selfishness. But it is not quite, for in these sources we cheer for homo ludens and homo aestimans rather than homo moralis, for gaming and calculating man rather than moral man.

It is not that Theogony lacks an ethical lesson; rather, its ethical stance can only be recovered when we appreciate the values underlying the calculating worldview of SI. Like Sword and the Stone, Theogony operates in the model of life lived as game. The earliest of categorical imperatives for homo ludens centered on value of expediency and the obligation to win, where winning signifies survival and self-expansion. Winning is achieved through knowledge and vision; the most important ethical obligation for gaming man is to cultivate strategic vision in order to achieve his purpose. What is salient about this paradigm is the natural integration of heroic strategy with the criteria of a risk management framework intent on mitigating harm.

What counts is the expedient and the efficacious rather than that which is understood in terms of good or bad, right or wrong.

For the ancients, strategic vision and knowledge were interchangeable terms: strategic vision was knowing. The Roman historian Polybius (200 – 118 BCE), following the insight of

112 Plato, Republic, Book 1, Translated by Benjamin Jowett “The Internet Classics Archive” http:// classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.2.i.html (accessed 4 May, 2017).

62 the earliest of all phenomenologists, Heraclitus (535 – 475 BCE) wrote that “nature has bestowed on us two instruments of inquiry and research, hearing and sight. Of these sight is, according to Heraclitus, by far the truer; for eyes are surer witnesses than ears.” 113 The sense of sight, as a metaphor of enlightenment, signifies the ability of the mind to see reality as it is. Sight is also the most strategic of the senses because it enables the organism to properly interpret its environment: farsightedness is strategic because it is anticipatory—it provides greater protection against threats further removed in space and time. Theogony’s divinely inspired bard is able to reveal the contours of reality, he tells us, through the indwelling power of the inspiration of the muses, and the mind of the listener is impregnated with SI now that it beholds reality. What is most important about strategic vision is the capacity to change perspective; the power to receive divine insight is not the same as properly interpreting that insight: rather, truth and falsehood are two sides of the same coin.114 The art of SI lies in the most efficacious way of properly interpreting the portents.

This worldview formed the core of the Greco-Roman strategic tradition. In fact, Hesiod relayed to posterity that the emblem of Zeus’ trickery, the rock of ruse (omphalos)115 that induced

Cronos’ demise, became the bedrock of Greek religious life and divine revelation when it was placed as the foundation stone of the pythian oracle at Delphi.116 In other words, the cosmic trick is both the navel of the world and the core of cosmic ambiguity. Mutable reality is tricky, as

113 Polybius, Histories, 12:27. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http://perseus.uchicago.edu/ perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=1&query=Polyb.%2012.27 (accessed 26 April, 2017)

114 Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, trans. C.S. Morrissey (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012): lines 25-30.

115 ὀµφαλός.

116 Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, trans. C.S. Morrissey (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012): line 499.

63 Heraclitus said: "The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign.”117 In other words, not only is deception cosmological, connecting SI to metaphysical interpretation increases its value in an era in which metaphysical speculation was considered fundamental: although a sign may be given, strategic advantage results from proper interpretation of oracular ambiguity.

FIGURE 5. THE PUNISHMENT OF PROMETHEUS Peter Paul Rubens (1577 – 1640)118

117 Heraclitus, Fragment B93, Randy Hoyt, “The Fragments of Heraclitus,” http:// www.heraclitusfragments.com/files/e.html (accessed 4 May, 2017)

118 Peter Paul Rubens, Prometheus Bound, 1618, Image provided for reprint with permission of Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, W1950-3-1.

64 In conclusion, like the Sword and the Stone, Hesiod’s Theogony is a primer for the game of life. After listening to it, the initiate of the cult of SI knew that the stakes were high, and the consequences of losing were severe, as exemplified in Figure 5. In response to the question

“WWZD? (What Would Zeus Do?), the novice now knows the potency of SI through the model of heroically strategic Zeus, the role model of strategic planning and divine deception. Zeus in

Theogony is a great example of the victory of heroic SI over the reckless, the impulsive and the intemperate, through the cultivation of strategic vision which is able to properly interpret and gain power over the features of violent reality as strife.

Homer’s Odyssey

Above all, Homer has taught the others the proper way of telling lies.119 Aristotle (384–322 BCE)

Like Theogony, a closer inspection of Homer’s Odyssey reveals a cultural genealogical link with Disney’s Sword and the Stone.120 Similar to the other two texts, Homer structured the

Odyssey with the same features, and the text functions as a manual of success for life lived under extreme hardship. It is notable that the Odyssey integrates the voyage metaphor as a paradigm for existence with the metaphor of the strategic; Odyssey teaches the strategic lesson that hope for the ambitious person on the unstable journey of life amongst insecurity and threat lies in SI, and appropriate adaption born from the development of strategic vision— all of which is gained

119 Aristotle, Poetics 1460a.20, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg, 0086,034:1460a (accessed 26 April 2017).

120 For a deeper, philological analysis of the Odyssey, see Jeffrey Barnouw, Odysseus, Hero of Practical Intelligence (Boulder: Lanham:2004), and Silvia Montiglio, From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011).

65 through lived experience.121 More than two thousand years later, the Spanish Master of SI Juan

Luis Vives (1492-1540) echoed this sentiment when he described life as “a wandering amid the many hazards which crop up on every side. With threats everywhere, its end, perpetually imminent, may occur without warning from the slightest of causes.”122

The opening lines of this greatest of scriptures that teach about divine deception reveals both the import of the narrative and the secret of all secrets: the potency of SI:

Of the man, pray tell O Muse, of many places, Driven far after sacking sacred Troy. Many the men he saw and insights learned, Many the pains of ambition while on the vast sea.

As opposed to the meaninglessness of a life lived by impulsive wrathful ambition in the

Iliad, the opening lines of of the Odyssey clarify that the adapted man, the man made adaptable through his experience of many places (polytropos), is superior to the brawny warrior driven by wrath and excessive ambition. Homer also reveals something more profound: endurance of present pain in the pursuit of aim is a critical life-enabler. To put it in modern parlance, not only does personal experience enable strategic vision, but strategic advantage is won through the temporary acceptance of pain and degradation (and shame in the case of King Wén, see chapter

6). In addition to being a swashbuckling travelogue, biography, and penny dreadful, Homer’s

Odyssey is also the hagiography of a strategic virtuoso, an early pilgrim’s progress if you will, a primer through which experience was and is gained vicariously by pupils everywhere.

121 Hans Blumenberg, Shipwreck with Spectator: Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence, trans. Steven Rendeall (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997).

122 Juan Luis Vives Introductio ad Sapientiam, in Vives’ Introduction to Wisdom: a Renaissance Textbook, ed. Marian Leona Tobriner, (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1968), Aphorism 36, 89.

66 In place of the wizard’s duel and cosmogonic intergenerational rivalry, Homer used the device of journey to represent both the painful experience of antagonistic reality and the experience of the new, the strange and the dangerous as necessary to stimulate strategic insight in the mind to grow. Outward journey as the device that stands for inner cultivation is analogous to the way the ancients understood the journey of the sun through the great zodiacal houses over the course of the year—in actuality what counts is the journey.123 Heraclitus echoed this sentiment:

“Traveling on every path, you will not find the boundaries of soul by going, so deep is its measure.”124 The metaphor of journey is a mythical archetype that goes back to Gilgamesh and beyond, and is the most common ontology of modern gaming culture—Monopoly, Chutes and

Ladders, Dungeons and Dragons all utilize it. In fact, it is even difficult to imagine a contemporary first-person shooter video game that is not centered on some theme of journey amidst enemies. And what can be said of this hero, Odysseus, the great hope of humankind?

What answer does “WWOD?” provide? In short, Homer’s Odyssey is the story of the master gamer who, through perseverance, temperance, strategic prudence and adaptability, is able to endure every indignity that nasty reality can throw at him in order to win the long game and achieve his singular purpose.125

Odysseus exemplifies the lesson that unexpected transformation of homo ludens into homo impotens (powerless man) is but a temporary set back for those who adapt themselves to the reality of the present and await the possibility of future opportunity. Odysseus withstands all

123 Silvia Montiglio, Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

124 Heraclitus, Fragment B45, Randy Hoyt, “The Fragments of Heraclitus,” http:// www.heraclitusfragments.com/files/e.html (accessed 4 May, 2017)

125 Jeffrey Barnouw, Odysseus, Hero of Practical Intelligence (Boulder: Lanham: 2004).

67 types of indignities throughout the epic; in addition to physical privation of long exile on the sea, resulting in the indignity of age, physical and material impoverishment, and being enslaved to the tyranny of the stomach, he is emasculated, sexually objectified, unrecognized, jeered, derided, belittled, and seen as a delicious substitute for mutton. Although he comes under the stilettoed heel of two divine dominatrixes, that actually accentuates his internal virility; it is perhaps significant that he was never sodomized nor cuckolded—both acts would have undermined the integrity of his Mediterranean masculinity.

Integrity in extreme poverty was an inspiring theme for the Stoics, and the Stoic philosopher Epictetus (50 – 135 CE) through the voice of Socrates asked, “shall he not imitate

Odysseus, who made no worse figure in rags than in a fine purple robe”?126 More than two thousand years later, the Italian master of SI Machiavelli in his Discorsi described the great man in similar terms: great men remain the same whatever befalls. “If fortune changes, sometimes raising them, sometimes casting them down, they do not change but remain ever resolute, so resolute in mind and in conduct throughout life that it is easy for anyone to see that fortune holds no sway over them.”127 By maintaining his integrity (virtue), Odysseus also kept alive the ancestral glory and honor that would transfer to his progeny.128

Although Odysseus does often weep and bewail his lot, he slowly overcomes his reckless impulsiveness, and he learns to master strategy by tempering his impulsiveness. He becomes a paragon of temperance and self-restraint for the ancients, which is significant in light of the

126 Epictetus, Fragments, Perseus Digital Library, http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/ getobject.pl?c.132:4.GreekFeb2011 (accessed 26 April 2017)

127 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 3.31, 488.

128 (κλέος)

68 passionate Mediterranean temperament that could be quick to anger and vengeance when honor was threatened, often resulting in multi-generational vendetta. Odysseus shares with his wife

Penelope the singularity of purpose that enables him to survive by adapting in order to achieve the future.129 This is the great hope of SI.

King Odysseus, the hero of SI, is the potential everyman, and Homer’s Odyssey documents his growth into the strategically wise. Like Zeus or Prince Arthur discussed in the narratives before, Odysseus in the Odyssey offers another example of the nurturing of heroic SI through the development of strategic vision as the means to achieve appropriate action that leads to strategic advantage. Examples of his now famous immature recklessness include the visit to the land of the lotus-eaters, the hypocritical usurping of Polyphemus, the hubristic boasting with

Polyphemus the giant cyclops that resulted in further persecution, his miscalculation in not revealing to his crew that he had the west wind tied up in a bag, the risky encounter with the

Sirens, and his downright stupidity in not forewarning his crew about the monsters at Scylla and

Charybdis. (FIGURE 14) Although he was much more cautious when he visited the island of the

Laestrygonians, he still lost all of his men. It was not that Odysseus was a good or bad leader, or suffered from a character flaw; he was simply human, all too human. These episodes are cultural models that gesture to the problem of imprudence, defined as a miscalculation and poor interpretation of the threat environment due to the lack of experience. In the worldview of SI, imprudence results in a value judgement of inexpedient and the ineffective rather than the good or the evil.

129 Jeffrey Barnouw, Odysseus, Hero of Practical Intelligence (Boulder: Lanham: 2004).

69 One can observe the maturation of imprudent Odysseus to the master of SI in the distance traveled from his encounter with the cyclops Polyphemus to his rendezvous with the Princess

Nausicaa of the Phaeacians. The episodes in which Odysseus meets Polyphemus and Nausicaa of the Phaeacians are complementary, both because of the similarities and differences. Starting with the antagonistic cyclops Polyphemus, whose name means “many-sounds,” the episode is a model that highlights the integration of what is known (sight) with what is appropriately done and said.

Although Odysseus, with a clever double ruse, extricated himself out of the mess that he caused through his own over-reaching curiosity, he still had not mastered the art of dissimulation. The irony in the scene is that Odysseus is the one of too many words, not Polyphemus: the lesson learned is that Odysseus would have escaped scot-free if he had just kept his trap shut. But, as the old folks say, he just could not leave well enough alone; his miscalculation and excessively imprudent blabbing resulted in further damage, death and cursing. The strategic lesson here is comparable to many articulations in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, in which the tongue is a weapon: “The tongue devises mischief; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.”130

“The end of all action," wrote Aristotle in a section of the Nicomachean Ethics dedicated to SI under the heading of ‘practical wisdom’131 “is to avoid that extreme which is the more opposed to the mean, as Calypso advises— ‘steer the ship clear of yonder spray and surge.’”132

Although Odysseus actually said the phrase that Aristotle cited, the point is that proper interpretation of the features of the threat environment enables one to act and speak

130 Psalms 52:2-3.

131 phrōnesis.

132 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.9; Homer Odyssey 12.219.

70 appropriately. This observation does hit the mark because we observe in the encounter with

Nausicaa the exemplary model of a matured, strategically-minded Odysseus, what the goddess of

SI Athena no doubt proudly characterized as a man of “many machinations.”133

In contrast to the encounter with Polyphemus, the Odysseus who met the Princess

Nausicaa played by the rules of a very different game, the game of the strategic hunt. This is the masterly Odysseus whom the Roman intellectual Plutarch observed was the man “adept at speaking and a man of sense.”134 Interestingly, Homer integrated in the image of Nausicaa the intelligence of both the divine deceiver and strategist behind the infamous Trojan horse, Athena, and the Virgin Huntress, Artemis.135 Homer layered the scene with many senses of the term game: Nausicaa was playing a game with her handmaidens when she roused the slumbering

Odysseus from his sleep. Odysseus and Nausicaa were in a symbolic predator-prey relationship since Homer portrayed Odysseus as a wild lion compelled to the hunt by insatiable hunger, stealthily staking his prey.136 Reduced to his wits and his birthday suit, having learned from his experience with Polyphemus, the successful graduate from the “school of hard knocks” quickly decides to strategically flatter the young princess and beg for her mercy. And his matron Athena helps him with a spell that glamours his onlookers: “then Athena, strategic daughter of Zeus, made him seem taller for the eye to behold, and thicker, and on his head she arranged the curling locks that hung down like hyacinthine petals. So Athena gilded with grace his head and his

133 πολυµηχανος

134 φρόνιµος. Plutarch, De Pythiae Oraculis 22, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http:// www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0247:section=22&highlight=odysseus (accessed 26 April 2017).

135 Homer Odyssey 6:105.

136 Homer Odyssey 6:130-134.

71 shoulders.”137 His persuasive rhetoric is so effective (and affective) that Nausicaa sees the revealed form of the thoughtful, cultured man underneath the appearance made rough by the vicissitudes of fortune ordained by Zeus.138

Even though the man is slightly revealed, the episode of Odysseus with the Phaeacians highlights the potency of ruse and concealment, dis and misinformation, with Nausicaa and

Athena going to great lengths to conceal his true identity. In essence, Odysseus, like Zeus before him, is saved and perfected by feminine SI, expressed through the figures of Metis, Athena, and now, Nausicaa. His salvation is accomplished through his own excellence, as Heraclitus wrote:

“Thinking well is the greatest excellence; and wisdom is to act and speak what is true, perceiving things according to their nature.”139 By the time that Odysseus finally reaches Ithaca, we observe the master gamer of SI who is able to heroically maintain the power of dissimulation and deception almost to the end of the story. In fact, the only two characters who see through his plot are his hunting dog Argos, and his wet-nurse Eurycleia. When Her High Holiness, the Mistress of Divine Deception herself, Athena, finally meets with Odysseus face to face as he is hiding his booty in a cave, she is simply charmed by the jolly good yarn that he spins. Revealing her true form, she:

smiled on him, and stroked him with her hand…and addressed him in winged words, saying: ‘It would be a sharp one, and a stealthy one, who would ever get past you in any contriving; even if it were a god against you. You wretch, so devious, never weary of tricks, then you would not even in your own country give over your ways of deceiving and your thievish tales. But come, let us talk no more

137 Ibid., 6.229-235.

138 Ibid., 6:186-189.

139 Heraclitus Fragment B112, Randy Hoyt, “The Fragments of Heraclitus,” http:// www.heraclitusfragments.com/files/e.html (accessed 4 May, 2017)

72 of this, for you and I both know sharp practice, since you are far the best of all mortal men for counsel and stories, and I among all the divinities am famous for wit and sharpness…And now again I am here, to help you in your devising of schemes.’140

Translating this into a 21st-century vernacular, Athena is basically saying you got some balls ya little bastard, trying to bullshit a bullshitter. Let mama show you how its done, son. To highlight the degree to which Greek culture positively valued SI as a means of salvation, denial and deception as the core attribute of mother-son intimacy could not be more different than that relationship exemplified in Christianity by Mary full of grace, with her own son, Jesus.

The Sword and the Stone, Theogony and the Odyssey all point to values of an underlying and cohesive strategic worldview, and a metaphorological paradigm in which morality is characterized by the expedient. But even back then, the strategic dimensions of this source of SI were not immediately understood by all, especially by those ancients who interpreted the model that the Odyssey provided in a moral framework rather than a strategic one that dramatized the conception of life lived by the expediency of the game. Rather than being an issue of epistemological categories as suggested by Detienne, Vernant and Raphals, Greek cultural specialists were already contending about the worth and values of SI as early as the 5th century

BCE.

For some, “godlike Odysseus”141 had much to teach humankind about how to win success in life in a hard world. Aristotle cited the Odyssey in reference to a “form of education in which boys should be trained not because it is useful or necessary but as being liberal and noble; though

140 Homer Odyssey, 13: 285-300.

141 δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς.

73 whether there is one such subject of education or several, and what these are and how they are to be pursued.”142 And Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BCE) in the section “An Historian Needs Practical

Experience” in his Histories, referred to Odysseus as the endpoint of excellence: he is what the

“man of light and leading should be”; the man of many experiences is “the exemplar to which professional historians need to attend.”143 To Polybius, practical experience was the pinnacle of learning, enabling the military historian, the speechmaker, the healer and navigator. The soldier

Xenophon (430–354 BCE) in his Symposium agreed that the Odyssey was a type of practical primer: “You know, doubtless, that the sage Homer has written about practically everything pertaining to man. Any one of you, therefore, who wishes to acquire the art of the householder, the political leader, or the general, or to become like Achilles, Ajax, Nestor or Odysseus, should seek my favor, for I understand all these things.”144

Xenophon and Plutarch (46-120 CE) too saw much to imitate in the strategic paragon of

Odysseus. Xenophon compared the ascetic Socrates to Odysseus, who was able to strategically avoid undesirable metamorphosis into a swine through his self-restraint and avoidance of indulgence.145 In Advice for Bride and Groom, Plutarch contrasted Odysseus’ crew as dimwitted, degenerate swines and asses in contrast to strategic Odysseus who was exceedingly loved by

Circe because he “had sense and showed discretion in her company.”146 In “On Garrulousness,”

142 Aristotle, Politics, 8.1338a.

143 Polybius, Histories, “An Historian Needs Practical Experience” 12. 27. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University (accessed 26 April 2017).

144 Xenophon Symposium 4, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University (accessed 26 April 2017).

145 Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.3.7-11, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University (accessed 26 April 2017).

146 Plutarch, Moralia, Conjugalia Praecepta, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http:// penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Coniugalia_praecepta*.html (accessed 26 April, 2017).

74 his praise of Odysseus as a paragon of temperance and prudence in service to his resolution to achieving his strategic objective is positively gushing:

And the Poet has has made the most eloquent Odysseus the most reticent, and also his son and his wife and his nurse; for you hear the nurse saying, I'll hold it safe like sturdy oak or iron. And Odysseus himself, as he sat beside Penelope, Did pity in his heart his wife in tears, But kept his eyes firm-fixed within their lids Like horn or iron. So full of self-control was his body in every limb, and Reason, with all parts in perfect obedience and submission, ordered his eyes not to weep, his tongue not to utter a sound, his heart not to tremble or bark: His heart remained enduring in obedience, since his reason extended even to his irrational or involuntary movements and made amenable and subservient to itself both his breath and his blood. Of such character were also most of his companions ; for even when they were dragged about and dashed upon the ground by the Cyclops, they would not denounce Odysseus nor show that fire-sharpened instrument prepared against the monster's eye, but preferred to be eaten raw rather than to tell a single word of the secret-an example of self-control and loyalty which cannot be surpassed. 147

Many later masters of SI agreed with Plutarch, seeing that strategic advantage was often enabled by opportunism and adaptability. The Spanish master of SI Vives taught that “it is easy to turn the inconveniences of the body or the mischances of fortune to your profit, if you but suffer them patiently.148 His compatriot, the master of SI and Jesuit priest Baltasar Gracián recommended that “you adapt yourself to circumstance. Governing, reasoning, and everything else must be done at the right moment. Wait to do something when you can, for time and opportunity wait for no one.149 The Italian master of SI Machiavelli thought that it “behooves

147 Plutarch, Moralia, De garrulitate 8 Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http:// penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/moralia/de_garrulitate*.html (accessed 26 April, 2017).

148 Juan Luis Vives, Introductio ad Sapientiam, in Vives’ Introduction to Wisdom: a Renaissance Textbook, ed. Marian Leona Tobriner, (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1968), Aphorism 79, 95.

149 Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, A Pocket Oracle, trans., Christopher Maurer (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 288: 162.

75 one to adapt oneself to the times if one wants to enjoy continued good fortune: I have often thought that the reason why men are sometimes unfortunate, sometimes fortunate, depends upon whether their behavior is in conformity with the times.”150 “What folly it is to play a game in which you can lose incomparably more than you can win!” claimed the Italian master of SI

Francesco Guicciardini (1483 – 1540 CE):151

Unless rightly understood, it would be a dangerous proverb that enjoins the wise man to take advantage of the benefits brought by time. For opportunity knocks at your door just once, and in many cases you have to decide and to act quickly. But when you are in difficult straits or involved in troublesome affairs, procrastinate, and wait as long as you can. For often time will enlighten or free you. Using the proverb thus, it is always salutary. But understood differently, it could be harmful.152

The values articulated through Odysseus’ craftiness and deceit in Homer’s epic was morally problematic for others. Although Plato was highly vexed by the poets and wished to banish them from the republic, he still nonetheless recognized their divine insight, even if they were not able to interpret the meaning of the portent. And in the Lesser Hippias, after an incredibly insightful analysis of a scene in the Odyssey, Plato’s favorite character Socrates surprisingly advocated for the ‘integrity’ of Odysseus over the ‘deceit’ of Achilles.153 Like in

Theogony, Pindar (c. 522 – c. 443 BCE) also alluded to the problematic of a stable truth and falsehood. He wrote: “and I expect that the story of Odysseus came to exceed his experiences through the sweet songs of Homer, since there is a certain solemnity in his lies and winged

150 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 3.9, 430.

151 Francesco Guicciardini, Ricordi, in Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi), trans., Mario Domandi, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972), Aphorism 51, 55.

152 Ibid., Aphorism 80, 61.

153 Plato, Lesser Hippias, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, (accessed 26 April, 2017).

76 artfulness, and poetic skill deceives, seducing us with stories, and the heart of the mass of men is blind. For if they had been able to see the truth, then mighty Aias, in anger over the arms, would never have planted in his chest the smooth sword.”154 The depiction of Odysseus in

Sophocles’ (496 - 406 BCE) drama Philotectes (409 BCE), makes his strategic shrewdness problematic in contrast with the wise value of straightforwardness as exhibited by Nestor in the

Iliad, Telemachus in the Odyssey, and Neoptolemus in Philotectes. Mirroring Plutarch’s comments about temperance above, moralizing Aristotle interpreted the character of

Neoptolemus in Philotectes as the moral example of the temperate man who is appropriately continent.155

In my opinion, rather than take sides, we should be content to see the reality of SI for what it is: in the metaphor of life lived as game, there are no absolutes. All of the subsequent masters of SI agree that strategic advantage is at least partially constructed on the integration of opportunism, patience, experience and adaptability. The same strategic values expressed through the exemplars of strategic saints were expressed aphoristically by the most famous of their

Mediterranean heirs, Guicciardini, Machiavelli, and Gracián. Although the past can be instructive, the master Guicciardini saw that “to judge by example is very misleading. Unless they are similar in every respect, examples are useless, since every tiny difference in the case may be a cause of great variations in the effects. And to discern these tiny differences takes a

154 Pindar, Nemean 7:20-25, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text? doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0162%3Abook%3DN.%3Apoem%3D7 (accessed 27 April, 2017).

155 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 7:9 (1151-1152). By “moralizing,” I point out that Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics tried to tame the value of expediency that is articulated in the phrōnesis of earlier texts by integrating it with his conception of the morally good.

77 good and perspicacious eye.”156 Machiavelli agreed, noting that every action needs to be

“adapted to the times.”157 Quite simply good judgement is the appropriate interpretation of a situation’s unique circumstances, which may lead fortune.158 One needs to think on your feet;

“good impulses spring from a happy readiness of spirit.”159 “For such a spirit there are no tight spots.”160 And, “know when things are at their acme, when they are ripe, and know how to take advantage of them. All works of nature reach their point of full perfection. Before, they were gaining; from then on, waning.”161 The 17th-century master of SI Gracián advised to “adapt to those around you. Don’t show the same intelligence with everyone, and don’t put more effort into things than they require.”162

156 Francesco Guicciardini, Ricordi, in Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi), trans., Mario Domandi, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972), Aphorism117, 71.

157 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 3.8, 428.

158 Ibid., (3.28) 428.

159 Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, A Pocket Oracle, trans., Christopher Maurer (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 56.

160 Ibid., 31.

161 Ibid., 39.

162 Ibid., 58, 32-33.

78 CHAPTER III THE HUNT AS GAME

At many things—wonders, Terrors—we feel awe, But at nothing more than at man… The clans of birds…The tribes of beasts…Dwelling sea creatures— All these he catches, in the close-woven nets he throws around them, And he carries them off, this man, most cunning of all. With devices he masters the beast…he harnesses the horse…the never-wearied bull.163 Sophocles (497-406 BCE)

Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper; The snare is broken and we have escaped.164

What do Monopoly, Looney Tunes, Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Theogony,

Odyssey, Zootopia and Disney’s Sword and the Stone have in common? It is not only that these are immensely popular stories of SI. What links them together is the underlying model of life lived as a game, that life is game. In other words, life is the story of the tension of the hunters and the hunted, of the necessary stressful relationship of predators and their prey, that humans are both hunter and the quarry. Quite simply, as contemporary American slang points out, got game and you live; lack skillz and you die; strategic skillz is the name of the game and are the difference between being yourself for another day or someone else’s vittles. In this section, I show that the hunt is a type of game that reveals the underlying worldview and metaphorological paradigm of SI in the culturally foundational texts of western civilization. This section

163 Sophocles, Antigone, trans., Reginald Gibbons & Charles Segal, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), Scene 1 lines 373-392.

164 Psalms 124:7.

79 incorporates insights from the ancient masters of SI who shared their insights on the divine hunt, including Homer’s Odyssey, Oppian’s The Hunt and Fishing, and Aesop’s Fables.165

I have alluded to the life of the hunt and life as hunt repeatedly through the preceding pages, especially in the episodes of Merlin and Mim, and Nausicaa and Odysseus. I pointed out that in the scene in which Odysseus met Princess Nausicaa of the Phaeacians, Homer characterized her as a model that integrated the SI of both Athena and the the divine Huntress,

Artemis.166 The double meaning of game is encoded in this scene; not only did Homer present

Odysseus and Nausicaa within the motif of predator and game since he is described as a wild lion compelled to the hunt by insatiable hunger,167 they also met while she was literally playing a game with her handmaidens. There is a plethora of imagery that links Odysseus to the hunt: these include the boar hunt when he was scarred as a youth, by which his wet nurse revealed his identity years later. The now neglected hunting hound Argos who dies on the dung heap is, to some degree, a metonymic device for Odysseus himself, as is the description of his cloak, on which was depicted a hound pinning down a dappled fawn as it writhed, by which he proved his identity to Penelope.168 In Sophocles’ drama Ajax, finding Odysseus “on the prowl” after his quarry Ajax, Athena remarked that “your course leads you well to your goal, like that of a keen- scenting Laconian hound,”169 which was also a phrase used often in Platonic corpora.

165 Oppian Cynegetica, The Hunt (Κυνηγετικά: Cynegetica) and Fishing (Ἁλιευτικά Halieutica), trans., A. W. Mair, Bill Thayer, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Oppian/home.html (accessed 4 May, 2017).

166 Homer Odyssey:105.

167 Ibid., 130-134.

168 Homer Odyssey: 17:315, and 19:435.

169 Sophocles, Ajax: 10. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/ citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=1&query=Soph.%20Aj.%201 (accessed 4 May, 2017).

80 The trope of the hound of hunt is a feature that reflects the metaphor of heroic hunt in the worldview of SI, and has been used in the domains of war and the cultivation of strategic intellect. For example, Homer in the Iliad portrayed the Trojan hero Hector as a hound:

Amid the foremost went Hector exulting in his might. And even as a hound pursueth with swift feet after a wild boar or a lion, and snatcheth at him from behind either at flank or buttock, and watcheth for him as he wheeleth; even so Hector pressed upon the long-haired Achaeans, ever slaying the hindmost; and they were driven in rout.170

Plato in the Republic extended the metaphor of the hunting hound to describe a type of spirit required for the guardians:

“Do you think,” said I, “that there is any difference between the nature of a well- bred hound for this watch-dog's work and of a well-born lad?” “What point have you in mind?” “I mean that each of them must be keen of perception, quick in pursuit of what it has apprehended, and strong too if it has to fight it out with its captive.” “Why, yes,” said he, “there is need of all these qualities.” “And it must, further, be brave if it is to fight well.” “Of course.” “And will a creature be ready to be brave that is not high-spirited, whether horse or dog or anything else? Have you never observed what an irresistible and invincible thing is spirit, the presence of which makes every soul in the face of everything fearless and unconquerable?” “I have.” “The physical qualities of the guardian, then, are obvious.” “Yes.” “And also those of his soul, namely that he must be of high spirit.”171

In Parmenides, Plato through the voice of Zeno describes Socrates as a hound that

“follows the arguments with a scent as keen as a Laconian hound’s.”172 But for the soldier

Xenophon, the hunt is a divine legacy from the gods themselves, and the strategic means by which the greatest excellence, as articulated by the figures of the Greek hero-founders, is

170 Homer, Iliad, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University http://data.perseus.org/citations/ urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng2:8.253-8.343 (accessed 4 May, 2017).

171 Plato, Republic, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text? doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D375b (accessed 4 May, 2017).

172 Plato. Parmenides 128B. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus- cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=1&query=Pl.%20Prm.%20128b, (accessed 4 May, 2017).

81 cultivated. He taught that the hunt was passed from the deities Apollo, patron of seers and prophets, and his sister Artemis the Goddess of the Hunt, through the Satyr Chiron to all of the heroes, including, Cephalus, Asclepius, Meilanion, Nestor, Amphiaraus, Peleus, Telamon,

Meleager, Theseus, Hippolytus, Palamedes, Odysseus, Menestheus, Diomedes, Castor,

Polydeuces, Machaon, Podaleirius, Antilochus, Aeneas, Achilles, and Odysseus. “Therefore,” said Xenophon,

“I charge the young not to despise hunting or any other schooling. For these are the means by which men become good in war and in all things out of which must come excellence in thought and word and deed…For among the ancients the companions of Chiron to whom I referred, learnt many noble lessons in their youth, beginning with hunting; from these lessons there sprang in them great virtue, for which they are admired even today. That all desire virtue is obvious, but because they must toil if they are to gain her, the many fall away. For the achievement of her is hidden in obscurity, whereas the toils inseparable from her are manifest.”173

Oppian in The Hunt concurs with Xenophon about the hunt as a divine legacy. We can excavate the underlying value on strategic thought expressed by the poem by examining more closely the particular terms that he used. What is fascinating about the Hunt and Fishing is that the terms he uses for predators and prey, including “wily,” “tricky,” “resourceful,” and

“strategically planning,” are also attributes of the deities and heroic humans we have discussed above, including Cronos, Zeus, Odysseus, and his wife Penelope. These terms indicate the presence of a metaphorological paradigm.

“Sing” commanded the Divine Huntress Artemis to her poet, “of the glory of the hunt,”174 and “the battles of wild beasts and hunting men; sing of the breeds of hounds and the varied

173 Xenophon, Memorabilia. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg002.perseus- eng1:3.11 (accessed 26 April, 2017).

174 θήρης κλυτὰ δήνε᾽.

82 tribes of horses; the quickly devised strategic plans and the deeds of skillful tracking.”175 The

“mysteries” of Artemis, full of artful plotting, rival that of the mysteries of the cult of Bacchus, epics of warriors and journeyers, and the intrigues of Aphrodite.176 The sacred song of Artemis, for Oppian, is a celebration of the excellent competition of hunters and prey, to whom “God hath given strength, courage and wits, not far inferior to the hunters themselves.”177 The competition,

Artemis proclaims, is of the “valiant might, resourceful strategic planning, and of heart-minds full of strategic craftiness and traps.”178

In the schema of life lived as hunt, the successful hunter needs to be able to interpret the threats and weaknesses of opponents. The strategic resources of each opponent, Oppian revealed, varied widely across species. Some were wise and roguish but small; others were physically strong but “weak in strategic planning.”179 The enlightened hunter needed to know the strengths and weaknesses of each: the bull uses its horns whereas the stag flees; the lion’s teeth are its weapon, whereas the teeth of the Oryx are harmless. The hare’s feet are its armor in a way that the rhinoceros’ are not. The leopard is deadly with his claws, the ram with its forehead, and the boar with its tusks. The villainous apes, mimics of humanity, are full of strategic plotting.180

Horses exceed all creatures in that nature has bestowed on them an artful resourcefulness,181 an

175 Strategic plans: βουλὰς ὠκυνόους; skillful tracking: στιβίης ἐϋκερδέος ἔργα.

176 Mysteries: µυστήρια; artful: τέχνης; αἰόλα.

177 Wits: φρένας.

178 Strategic planning: ἐπίφρονα βουλὴν; strategic craftiness and traps: κέρδεά τ᾽ αἰολόβουλα πολυφράστοις τε δόλοισι. Oppian, The Hunt (Κυνηγετικῶν) Book 4 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/H/Roman/ Texts/Oppian/Cynegetica/4*.html#1. (accessed 27 April, 2017)

179 πόρε.

180 αἰολόβουλον.

181 τεχνήεσσα ἵπποις γὰρ περίαλλα φύσις πόρε τεχνήεσσα.

83 attribute closely shared with the tiger’s cunningly artful nature.182 The porcupine is an especially wickedly wrought foe: 183

There is nothing in the shady wood more terrible to behold nor aught more deadly. Their size is like that of the bloody wolves; short, small, and strong is their body, but their hide bristles all about with rough and shaggy quills, such as those with which the cunning tribes of Hedgehogs are armed. But when far mightier beasts pursue it, then it uses this strategy” [of quill-throwing].

SI is even apparent in the behavior of the various creatures of the watery depths. The oceans are a domain that lacks justice/order, and strife is rampant.184 Just like humankind, all opponents differ in skill. In lieu of brawn or physical weapons, God has girded certain fish with

“a weapon of mind, even crafty counsel of many devices; these by guile ofttimes destroy a stronger and mightier fish.” Many are wily, and have their own traps. For example, although weak and slow, the family of rays practice the art of paralyzing their prey.185 The largest, though physically weak, can even ensnare and overcome sly men through strategy. “For he greatly delights to banquet upon man and human flesh above all is to him pleasing and a welcome food.186 Crabs and starfish both are characterized by SI, and urchins, in addition have wits.

182 φύσις ὤπασε τεχνήεσσα.

183 ἐµήσατο.

184 δίκη.

185 Mightier fish: τοῖς δ’ ἐκ φρενὸς ὅπλον ἔφυσε βουλὴν κερδαλέην, πολυµήχανον, οἵ τε δόλοισι πολλάκι καὶ κρατερόν καὶ ὑπέρτερον ὤλεσαν ἰχθύν. wily: κερδαλέοι; traps: δόλος; rays (stun/put to sleep): νάρκη; art: τεχνάζεται. Oppian, Fishing (Halieutica) http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Oppian/Halieutica/ 2*.html#ref35. (accessed 27 April, 2017).

186 Ibid., ἐν δέ οἱ εἰσὶν ἀείδελοι ἔνδον ὀδόντες βαιοί τ’ οὐ κρατεροί τε· βίῃ δέ κεν οὔτι δαµάσσαι,ἀλλὰ δόλῳ καὶ φῶτας ἐπίφρονας εἷλε πεδήσας·δαιτὶ γὰρ ἀνδροµέῃ ἐπιτέρπεται, ἔξοχα δ’ αὐτῷ ἀνθρώπων κρέα τερπνὰ καὶ εὐάντητος ἐδωδή.

84 Cuttle-fish are snare-strategied, and prawns are deadly because they destroy by being destroyed

—they kill their predator only after being swallowed.187

Other marine animals live through the art of deception. The octopus molds itself to the shapes of rocks, avoiding notice, but it is deadly when prey approach. Likewise, the fishing frog, though soft and sluggish, feeds itself through through the use of strategy; he sets a trap by hiding in the mud and uses his own flesh as bait for prey.188 This is not unlike the schemes of the wily fox (FIGURE 18):

A like device, I have heard, the cunning fox contrives. When she sees a dense flight of birds, she lies down on her side and stretches out her swift limbs and closes her eyes and shuts fast her mouth. Seeing her you would say that she was deep asleep or even lying quite dead: so breathless she lies stretched out, contriving guile. The birds, beholding, rush straightway upon her in a crowd and tear her fur with their feet, as if in mockery. But when they come nigh her teeth, then she opens the doors of guile and suddenly seizes them, and with wide gape cunningly catches her prey, even all that she takes at a swoop.189

Although some animals are fearful and weak, “to others again God hath given all the gifts together — strategic artfulness, physical strength, and agility,” and this provides for strategic advantage. The first of these is the mongoose: the masterly wiles and shifty strategies of the mongoose are enough to overcome the asymmetric threat posed by two far bigger and deadlier opponents, both snakes and crocodiles.190 The mongoose does this through strategic ensnarement, entrapment, and wickedly wrought strategic plans.191 “O Mongoose,” the poet

187 SI: µῆτις; wits: ὀξυκόµοισι νόος; snare-strategied, δολόµητις; deadly: δόλοισι.

188 Art of deception:τέχνης; deadly:δόλοιο; strategy:µῆτις; trap: δόλον/ κρυπτὸν δόλον.

189 Oppian, The Hunt (Κυνηγετικῶν) Book 4 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/H/Roman/Texts/Oppian/ Cynegetica/4*.html#1. (accessed 27 April, 2017)

190 Wiles: κέρδεσσι; shifty strategies: αἰόλον.

191 Ensnarement:αἰόλον ἕρκος; entrapment:δολίην; wickedly wrought strategies: ἐδαµάσσατο βουλαῖς.

85 praised, “great wonder, greatly valiant and of shifty strategic planning,” who is able to advance to the very “jaws of death” and overcome his foes!” He is worthy to be praised!192

In terms of SI, the evidence from the world’s cultures shows that there is but one paragon of perfection, that is the fox. For Oppian, the fox was the most strategically intelligent of all the animal masters of ruse. Strategically intelligent, the fox “dwells in remotest lair, with seven- gated openings to her house and tunneled earths far from one another, lest hunters set an ambush about her doors and lead her captive with snares.193 Terrible is she to fight with her teeth against stronger wild beasts and hunting dogs. And when chilly winter comes and she lacks food, and the vines show bare of grapes, then she weaves a deadly device for hunting, to capture by craft birds and the young of hares.”194 The fox is known for her “alert mind” which is sensitive to traps.195

She cannot be captured nor ambushed by noose or net since she can break the rope and loose the knots, and she thus evades death. She is a master because she is “stratagem-enlightened"—her resourcefulness enables her to evade threat because she has planned for contingency, and yet she can successfully set her own traps when needed. Because she sees through stratagem, the fox is the generalissimo of strategic positioning and rapidly adaptive orienting.196

These texts all demonstrate that the true masters of life are those who are ruse-minded.

Whether they be hunters who capture Libyan lions by trickery, crafty fishermen who fish at night, the hunters whose machinations lure jackals to their death in pits, leopards to entrapment

192 Great wonder µέγα θαῦµα; greatly valiant: µεγασθενές; shifty strategic planning: αἰολόβουλε; worthy to be praised: µεγάλοισιν ὁµοίως µέλπεσθαι.

193 Strategically intelligent: αἰολόβουλος; resourceful: πραπίδεσσι καὶ πινυτὴ.

194 Deadly: δόλοισιν; craft: τέκνα.

195 Alert mind: ἐπιφροσύνῃσι νοῆσαι: sensitive to traps: πυκινοῖσι δόλοισιν.

196 Stratagem-enlightened: δολόφρων; strategically prepared στρατοπεδευόντων.

86 by the “love of wine,” or through whose “wise foresight” flush hares downhill so that they cannot take advantage of their strong forepaws.197 What is fascinating is that the terms used for the ruse-minded198 masters are equally applicable to the strategic deities and heroic humans discussed earlier. For example, Odysseus’ wife Penelope, a devotee of Athena, who is "wise and makes good counsel in her mind,”199 also “wove her web of wiles.”200 Penelope here is foil for

Clytemnestra who is “sly."201 Zeus and Cronos are both described as masters of strategic plans and traps. And Odysseus famously hubristically boasted of his fame: “I am Odysseus, son of

Laertes, who for all my tricks am an object of concern to men, and my glory reaches heaven.”202

Eternal glory is achieved by ruse-minded, foxy masters of SI who, through an acute awareness of changing reality, are able to achieve their single-minded purpose.203 In the motif of the hunt, ruse and stratagem, artifice and machination, denial and deception, and resourcefulness all define the contest of wits. This profound truth has been captured nowhere as simply and precisely as in the texts associated with the Archmage of SI himself, the Archmaster, Aesop. SI has been hidden in plain sight in the form of the Aesopic tradition for over two millennium. The following parable is just one of many examples of this tradition:

197 Ruse-minded: δολόφρονες; trickery: δόλον; machinations δόλοισι; entrapment: ἐµήσατο; wise foresight: σοφῇσι προµηθείῃσιν.

198 δολόφρονες.

199 λίην γὰρ πινυτή τε καὶ εὖ φρεσὶ µήδεα οἶδε, 11.445. As a devotee of the Divine Deceiver Athena, who endowed her heart with wiles (116 τὰ φρονέουσ᾽ ἀνὰ θυµόν, ὅ οἱ πέρι δῶκεν Ἀθήνη |117 ἔργα τ᾽ ἐπίστασθαι περικαλλέα καὶ φρένας ἐσθλὰς |118 κέρδεά θ᾽

200 Homer Odyssey: 19.137–158: οἱ δὲ γάµον σπεύδουσιν· ἐγὼ δὲ δόλους τολυπεύω.

201 δολόµητις, Ibid., 11.422.

202 δόλοισιν, κλέος. Ibid., ix 19–20.

203 Ruse-minded: δολόφρονες .

87 A lion had grown old and weak. He pretended to be sick, which was just a ruse to make the other animals come and pay their respects so that he could eat them all up, one by one. The fox also came to see the lion, but she greeted him from outside the cave. The lion asked the fox why she didn’t come in. The fox replied, ‘Because I see the tracks of those going in, but none coming out.’204

The fox in the fable is the master of SI who, being ruse-minded, evades the trap because it can see through it with strategic vision. In other words, the fox can interpret the signs properly because she is sensitive to the parameters of the threat environment and can therefore rapidly adapt and appropriately react, which results in strategic advantage.

In this short fable, there are two beneficiaries: the fox as the master of cunning, and the reader/listener of the text who is sensitized to the reality of ruse vicariously. Aesops’ Fables became enormously influential in the Middle Ages, functioning as a textbook for the game of life.205 Underneath these stories of trickster gods, shrewd humans and wily animals lies the values of the age-old worldview of SI, a form of pragmatic wisdom that teaches humanity the means of dealing with unanticipated threat and insecurity. The answer to “WWFD?” (What

Would Fox Do?) is crystal clear: fox avoids entrapment because it foresees it; it foresees it because it saw it personally in the past, and that experience has taught it to be resourceful.206 Its resourcefulness is the outcome of proper interpretation.

204 Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation by Laura Gibbs, trans. Laura Gibbs, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 12.

205 David G. Hale, “Aesop in Renaissance England, The Library, Vol. 5-XXVII, (2), 1 June 1972: 116–125. Edward Wheatley, Mastering Aesop: Medieval Education, Chaucer, and His Followers, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000). Jacqueline de Weever, Aesop and the imprint of medieval thought: a study of six fables as translated at the end of the Middle Ages, (Jefferson: McFarland & Co, 2011). “Fable,” Routledge Revivals: Medieval France, An Encyclopedia, ed. William W. Kibler, Grover A. Zinn, (Milton Park: Routledge , 1995/2016), 331.

206 πόρε.

88 Praemonitus, Praemunitus. Forewarned is Forearmed

Hombre prevenido es hombre armado, vale por dos. A man forewarned is a man forearmed, and the worth of two. Don Quixote

The many do not take heed of such things as those they meet with, nor do they recognize them when they are taught, though they think they do.207 Heraclitus

Well, is not dimness of sight faultiness of the eyes?208 Socrates

In the preceding pages, I argued that Greco-Roman SI was a worldview that seamlessly integrated the strategic with the heroic in a framework that valorized expediency. In this last section, I continue to explore this theme by demonstrating both the great importance of theme of strategic vision in the SI worldview as well as my insight that strategic vision is the common denominator and ultimate goal of multiple cultural domains, including the religious, the philosophical, the martial, and the literary. To put the bottom line up front, masters who achieve strategic vision, including mystics, generals, seers, prophets, satirists and strategists, all are a type of wonder worker, whom the ancients considered as masters of the art of thaumaturgy.

What immediately stands out about strategic vision is the utilitarian and instrumental associations. Strategic vision is good because it helps us to achieve our objectives, rather than being inherently good or evil in itself. It is good because life is good—it is bad when it gets in the way of life. Resuming the preceding section about master fox, Oppian wrote that foxy

207 Heraclitus, Fragment B17. Randy Hoyt, “The Fragments of Heraclitus,” http:// www.heraclitusfragments.com/files/e.html (accessed 4 May, 2017)

208 Plato, Lesser Hippias: 374d. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University http://data.perseus.org/citations/ urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg026.perseus-eng1:376c (accessed 4 May, 2017).

89 masters of SI are “mighty,” of “strategic planning,” and a “great wonder,” who are able to escape insecurity and death. In other words, the fox is like Zeus, the “undying master of scheming.”209 By describing foxy SI as a “great wonder, ” Oppian pointed out that strategic vision is a particularly efficacious tool or weapon. The phrase “great wonder to behold” was used by Hesiod in Theogony to refer to potent and efficacious weapons, including god-like Herakles’ amazing shield, and to the infamous rock of ruse which was set as the foundation of the oracle at

Delphi as a ‘marvel’ for humankind to behold.210 Aristotle wrote that philosophy was born out of human wonder and puzzlement about reality; “even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of

Wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders.”211

What is common to all of these parables of SI is the emphasis placed on strategic vision as an potent weapon. In this section, I argue that ancient masters of SI strategically embedded the secret of strategic vision in cultural texts in order to compel in their pupils strategic vision vicariously. In other words, the Sword and the Stone, Theogony, the Odyssey, and tales of the hunt are to the game of life what sparring is to martial arts; all are primers in a practical training program that systematically exposed naïve princes to life’s threats while in a relatively safe environment.

The concept of strategic vision, which equates to the adage that ‘seeing is knowing, and knowing is power’ is the essence of SI and the core of all of the ancient cultural domains, religious (poetic, oracular), philosophical, literary-poetic, dramatic and military. The core of the

209 Strategic planning: αἰολόβουλε. “Great wonder” (µέγα θαῦµα). Ζεὺς ἄφθιτα µήδεα εἰδώς. Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, trans. C.S. Morrissey (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012): line 561.

210 “Great wonder to behold” (θαῦµα ἰδέσθαι). Rock of ruse: ὀµφαλός. Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, trans. C.S. Morrissey (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012): line 499. τὸν µὲν Ζεὺς στήριξε κατὰ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης Πυθοῖ ἐν ἠγαθέῃ γυάλοις ὕπο Παρνησοῖο σῆµ’ ἔµεν ἐξοπίσω, θαῦµα θνητοῖσι βροτοῖσιν.

211 Aristotle Met. 982B 10-20.

90 Liberal Arts is strategic because they are arts that enable the practitioner to escape from the trap to the wonder of freedom (libera).The word thauma ‘wonder’ itself is semantically related to

Greek terms for vision, which in turn have generated a host of terms, including theory, theorem and theater—all three of which describe reality through a demonstration by vision.212 In ancient

Greek culture, the theoros was the one sent by a community to consult an oracle, observe a religious feast, or view the vision (thea).213 Plato and the Pythagorians were obsessed with mathematic theorems in their philosophical texts, which were the means that revealed the concealed. Most importantly for my purpose here, is that according to Liddell and Hart’s Greek dictionary, vision is also related to strategy, as the strategic sight of generals who assess both their force assessment and the threat environment, but also in terms of reconnoitering.214 Plato makes this point through the voice of Socrates in his text Laches:

Socrates: I will tell you. It seems to your friend and me that, to take the various subjects of knowledge, there is not one knowledge of how a thing has happened in the past, another of how things are happening in the present, and another of how a thing that has not yet happened might or will happen most favorably in the future, but it is the same knowledge throughout. For example, in the case of health, it is medicine always and alone that surveys present, past, and future processes alike; and farming is in the same position as regards the productions of the earth. And in matters of war; I am sure you yourselves will bear me out when I say that here generalship makes the best forecasts on the whole, and particularly of future results, and is the mistress rather than the servant of the seer's art, because it knows better what is happening or about to happen in the operations of war;

212 Vision, θέα, θεάοµαι.

213 The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Classical Criticism, ed., George A. Kennedy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), Vol.1, 24-29.

214 Vision: θεάοµαι. generals στράτευµα. “ θ. τὸ στράτευµα to review it.” Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott., A Greek-English Lexicon Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ morph?l=qea%2Fomai&la=greek&can=qea%2Fomai0#lexicon (accessed 27 April, 2017).

91 whence the law ordains that the general shall give orders to the seer, and not the seer to the general.215 (italics added for emphasis)

In addition to linking the divine sight of the religious seer to the more highly valued strategic vision of the general, both Oppian and Xenophon emphasized the role of godly providential strategic vision in the motif of the hunt. For example, Oppian wrote:

Many are the modes of glorious and profitable hunting: modes innumerable, suited to the various beasts and tribes and glens. Who with his single mind should comprehend them all and tell of them in order with euphonious song? Who could behold them all? Who could behold so much, being mortal? Only the Gods easily see all things. But I shall tell what I have seen with my own eyes when following in the woods the chase, splendid of boons, and whatever cunning mysteries of all manner of mysterious craft I have learned from them whose business it is. 216 (italics added for emphasis)

It is fascinating that Oppian discussed the hunt as if it were a type of illumination or initiation of the Greek mystery cults.

Strategic vision, with its emphasis on the change of perspective required when dealing with the overt and the covert, is a major motif in Xenophon’s On Hunting. In that text, Xenophon clarifies that hunting is a form of education that leads to heroic virtue that is “wondrous.”217 The hunt hones the artfulness, reason and battle skills of the most heroic of Greek warriors.218 Most importantly, the hunt is the means by which ones’ hidden “excellence” was revealed.219

215 Plato, Laches, 198e. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/ citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=1&query=Pl.%20La.%20198e (accessed 4 May, 2017).

216 Single mind φρενὶ. See: ὁρόωσιν. Seen: ὀφθαλµοῖσι. My own eyes ἐµοῖς ἴδον. Cunning αἰόλα. Mysterious craft: µυστήρια τέχνης. Oppian, The Hunt (Cynegetica), Book 4, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/ E/Roman/Texts/Oppian/Cynegetica/4*.html (accessed 27 April, 2017).

217 ἐθαυµάσθησαν.

218 τέχνας καὶ λόγους καὶ πολέµους ἀγαθοί.

219 Hidden “excellence µεγάλη ἀρετή. Revealed: φανεροί.

92 It may be that, if the body of excellence were visible, men would be less careless of virtue, knowing that she sees them as clearly as they see her. For when he is seen by his beloved every man rises above himself and shrinks from what is ugly and evil in word or deed, for fear of being seen by him…But in the presence of Virtue men do many evil and ugly things, supposing that they are not regarded by her because they do not see her. Yet she is present everywhere because she is immortal, and she honors those who are good to her, but casts off the bad. Therefore, if men knew that she is watching them, they would be impatient to undergo the toils and the discipline by which she is hardly to be captured, and would achieve her. 220 (italics added for emphasis)

Xenophon’s Memorabilia often links SI with strategic vision. His portrayal of Socrates binds the SI of a general with knowledge of good and bad men, the appropriate reaction to which results in strategic advantage. In addition to other duties, the generalissimo must be “resourceful, active, careful, hardy and quick-witted; he must be both gentle and brutal, at once straightforward and designing, capable of both caution and surprise, lavish and rapacious, generous and mean, skillful in defense and attack.221 “Oh youth,” Socrates exclaims, “just as a general needs to know the right and wrong disposition of his forces in different situations, he must also be able to discern the noble from the base.”222 In other words, the strategic vision of the military domain is analogous to the strategic vision required in threats rising in the social domain. Both are related to the appropriate deployment of force effectuated by strategic discernment.

220 Xenophon’s On Hunting (Κυνηγετικός), Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University http:// data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg014.perseus-eng1:1 (accessed 27 April, 2017).

221 Ibid., ἀλλὰ µήν, ἔφη ὁ Σωκράτης, τοῦτό γε πολλοστὸν µέρος ἐστὶ στρατηγίας. καὶ γὰρ παρασκευαστικὸν τῶν εἰς τὸν πόλεµον τὸν στρατηγὸν εἶναι χρή, καὶ ποριστικὸν τῶν ἐπιτηδείων τοῖς στρατιώταις, καὶ µηχανικὸν καὶ ἐργαστικὸν καὶ ἐπιµελῆ καὶ καρτερικὸν καὶ ἀγχίνουν, καὶ φιλόφρονά τε καὶ ὠµόν, καὶ ἁπλοῦν τε καὶ ἐπίβουλον, καὶ φυλακτικόν τε καὶ κλέπτην, καὶ προετικὸν καὶ ἅρπαγα καὶ φιλόδωρον καὶ πλεονέκτην καὶ ἀσφαλῆ καὶ ἐπιθετικόν, καὶ ἄλλα πολλὰ καὶ φύσει καὶ ἐπιστήµῃ δεῖ τὸν εὖ στρατηγήσοντα ἔχειν.

222 ἀγαθοὺς καὶ τοὺς κακοὺς.

93 The mind is not only a terrible thing to waste, but it is also a mighty weapon.223 When it sets out to expose social and political traps and vice, it can deliver the paralyzing sting of the stingray, as in the case of the genre of satire, which compels vision through subtle attack. The following two examples from Xenophon and Horace both compel vision by exposing the social entrapment of miscreants.

Xenophon’s parable about Socrates and the beauty Theodote is a good example of the way in which a master of SI compelled strategic vision through satirical exposure, linking the motif of the hunt with a change of perspective for the naïve reader.224 The text subtly critiques the linkage of vision with the desired object, and serves as a mirror that exposes the action of looking as a spectacle rather than a vision. On hearing of the legendary beauty of Theodote,

Socrates rushed over to examine her closely as one could “learn more from seeing than hearsay.”225 There she was, “a sight to behold,” having her portrait painted. After watching for a while, Socrates asked: as for we the lookers (θέα) and her the exhibitionist, who has the greater advantage?226 Socrates very quickly surmised that Theodote had the more to gain because all who saw her pined for her.227 Examining her more closely, Socrates realized that Theodote’s life was actually sustained by gentleman callers in the same way that spiders lured flies to their web.

Theodote was a huntress who lived through artifice; she fed on anyone who got stuck in her

223 φρενὸς ὅπλον ἔφυσε βουλὴν κερδαλέην.

224 Xen. Memorabilia. 3.11 Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http://data.perseus.org/citations/ urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg002.perseus-eng1:3.11 (accessed 26 April, 2017).

225 καταµαθεῖν.

226 “a sight to behold θεασοµένους; exhibitionist: ἐπέδειξεν; ὠφελιµωτέρα.

227 κερδαίνει.

94 web.228 Her life was sustained just in the same way that hounds pursued their prey, except she had a pimp in lieu of hounds, and she used her body as a net to ensnare her prey. By characterizing Socrates as a peddler of love potions, Xenophon ends the passage with a subtle critique of Platonic theoria. In a way, Socrates’ pilgrimage to view Theodote puts him in the role of the theoros just in the same way as he does in the Phaedrus. The motif of the viewer is also prominent in the Symposium and the Republic, once we recall that the text begins with a trip down to Piraeus, that the section about Plato’s cave is essentially a trip that enables the strategic vision of true forms, and that the text ends with the myth of Er and the descent into Hades.

The Roman satirical poet Horace, like Xenophon, also sought to compel strategic insight by satirically exposing legacy hunters on the prowl for a sugar daddy.229 In response to the ravages of fortune, Ulysses (Odysseus) asked the ghost of the blind prophet and “master of cunning” ('iamne doloso) Tiresias by what arts (artibus) and means (modis) could he restore his wealth? Tiresias encouraged Odysseus to use his famous mastery of trickery to prey on vulnerable old men and to worm himself both into their affections and their final will and testament. To do so, the ghost recommended that he take their sides at all times, make himself irreplaceable as a second son, and slavishly adapt to the old man’s every need and desire. Tiresias encouraged Odysseus to adapt to all situations: if the old man is a poet, praise his poetry, and if he is a lecher, give him your woman. Practice dissimulation: make sure you say some nice things

228 There is a clever implicit pun in the text: (biós, Homeric word for bow puns with bíos, life). (φάλαγξ. : phalanx is both military maneuvering and a reference for spiders. Artifice: µηχανᾷ. ἀράχνια γὰρ δήπου λεπτὰ ὑφηνάarµεναι, ὅ τι ἂν ἐνταῦθα ἐµπέσῃ, τούτῳ τροφῇ χρῶνται.

229 Horace, Satyrarum Libri “Hereditatum captatores quibus artibus uterentur faceto Ulyssem inter et Tiresiam dialogo exponit. “In a humorous dialogue between Ulysses and Tiresias, he exposes those arts which the fortune hunters make use of, in order to be appointed the heirs of rich old men.” http://data.perseus.org/citations/ urn:cts:latinLit:phi0893.phi004.perseus-lat1:2.5. Hor. S. 2.5 Works of Horace, Satyrarum Libri, (accessed 26 April 2017).

95 and shed a tear to show your sadness when the old man passes, for “it is fit to disguise your countenance (est gaudia prodentem vultum celare) which [otherwise] would betray your joy.”

This is the way to “live well and prosper!” (vive valeque)

These satirical exposés from Xenophon and Horace and are just two examples of satire that compel strategic vision through the exposure of vice, another example of the metaphorological paradigm of the strategic at work in culture. These literary forms are direct descendants of earlier dramatic texts: the ancient Greek tragedies and comedies exposed reality as a spectacle for those voyeurs in the place of seeing, the theater. Aristophanes’ Knights, Wasps and Lysistrata, for example all exposed the horror of war in an entertaining way. From this vantage point, strategic vision and proper interpretation were the two most important features and cultural dominants of Greco-Roman culture. Strategic vision and proper interpretation of external reality was the difference between being free (πόρε) or trapped (απορια); quite simply, strategic vision and proper interpretation were an expression of power.

I end this chapter with my interpretation of Socrates as a master of SI. Reading against the grain of the professional philosophers who have usurped the identity of Socrates for over two thousand years, I want to reclaim him in his primary role as a strategic trickster-seer who was forced to the insecurity of constant questioning because of the problematic of interpretation, and the lack of any authoritative and legitimate foundation for knowledge. For Socrates, the problem of the interpretation of signs to anticipate the future was the primary driver of intelligence.

96 To recap, Xenophon portrayed Socrates as a spell master and peddler of love potions and jinxes.230 And Meno called him a sorcerer who entrapped and bewitched with spells and incantations that stunned his prey like a ray,231 a curious description that reminds us of Oppian’s

Fishing and Sophocles’ Odysseus Wounded, (in which Odysseus’ son kills him with the spike of a stingray). Socrates appears to agree with Meno in that his prey are stunned to the degree that he is also stunned by bewilderment (aporia: no way out of the trap). And in the Lesser Hippias,

Socrates’ stunning conclusion (discussed below) causes both himself and his listener to be lost in his own mind.232 The threat of aporia, of not knowing for sure, provides the foundation for questioning reality. Aporia is strategic because it is the starting point of the quest for reality, as

Socrates said: “I cause doubt in others. So now, for my part, I have no idea what virtue is, whilst you, though perhaps you may have known before you came in touch with me, are now as good as ignorant of it also. But none the less I am willing to join you in examining it and inquiring into its nature.”233

Socrates emphasized the problem of the means of authoritative interpretation. Many, including poets, soothsayers, prophets, seers and even statesmen received the sign or the voice,

230 φίλτρων τε καὶ ἐπῳδῶν καὶ ἰύγγων ἐστί. Xenophon Memorabilia 3.11 Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text: 1999.01.0208:book=3:chapter=11&highlight=wheel (accessed 27 April, 2017).

231 ναρκῶ.

232 πλανῶµαι. Plato. Lesser Hippias: 376C. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University http:// data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg026.perseus-eng1:376c (accessed 4 May, 2017).

233 Plato, Meno. 80c-d (ἀπορεῖν. καὶ νῦν περὶ ἀρετῆς ὃ ἔστιν ἐγὼ µὲν οὐκ οἶδα, σὺ µέντοι ἴσως πρότερον µὲν ᾔδησθα πρὶν ἐµοῦ ἅψασθαι, νῦν µέντοι ὅµοιος εἶ οὐκ εἰδότι. ὅµως δὲ ἐθέλω µετὰ σοῦ σκέψασθαι καὶ συζητῆσαι ὅτι ποτέ ἐστιν.

97 but most could not interpret what the message portended.234 In other words, with regards to interpretation, they were all in a state of bewilderment (aporia). Socrates thought that a living person who was truly able to interpret reality in this world would be akin to the ghost of the blind prophet amidst the shadows in Homer’s Odyssey, a seer who Sophocles said was “most like our lord Apollo.” 235 The testimony of Hermogenes that was relayed in Xenophon’s Apology also appears to identify Socrates in the Apollonic seer tradition: “Socrates resumed: “Hark ye; let me tell you something more, so that those of you who feel so inclined may have still greater disbelief in my being honored of Heaven. Once on a time when Chaerephon made inquiry at the Delphic oracle concerning me, in the presence of many people Apollo answered that no man was more free than I, or more just, or more prudent.”236

In Phaedo, Socrates claimed that he was a seer, but not very good at it. Like Jiminy

Cricket for Pinocchio, Socrates’ inner daiminion manifested itself to him, and he thought that he heard a voice.237

One thing that I marvel at in Meletus, gentlemen, is what may be the basis of his assertion that I do not believe in the gods worshipped by the state; for all who have happened to be near at the time, as well as Meletus himself,—if he so desired, — have seen me sacrificing at the communal festivals and on the public altars. As for introducing ‘new divinities,’ how could I be guilty of that merely in asserting that a voice of God is made manifest to me indicating my duty? Surely those who take their omens from the cries of birds and the utterances of men form

234 Plato. Meno 99C. Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. trans, G.M.A. Grube, ed. John M. Cooper, 2nd Ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett: 2002).

235 Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, 285. Sophocles, Four Tragedies: Oedipus the King, Aieas, Philotectes, Oedipus at Colonus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

236 Xenophon, Apology, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0212, (accessed 27 April, 2017).

237 Plato, Phaedo 242b8-c8. Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo, trans, G.M.A. Grube, ed. John M. Cooper, 2nd Ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett), 2002.

98 their judgments on ‘voices.’ Will any one dispute either that thunder utters its ‘voice,’ or that it is an omen of the greatest moment? Does not the very priestess who sits on the tripod at Delphi divulge the god's will through a ‘voice’? But more than that, in regard to God's foreknowledge of the future and his forewarning thereof to whomsoever he will, these are the same terms, I assert, that all men use, and this is their belief. The only difference between them and me is that whereas they call the sources of their forewarning ‘birds,’ ‘utterances,’ ‘chance meetings,’ ‘prophets,’ I call mine a ‘divine’ thing; and I think that in using such a term I am speaking with more truth and deeper religious feeling than do those who ascribe the gods' power to birds.

Most intriguing is Plato’s seemingly controversial view of SI. The Socrates of the

Hippias Minor was on a quest to unpackage Hippias’ contention that moral integrity excellence is superior to SI. By comparing and contrasting these values in the figures of Achilles and

Odysseus, Socrates concluded that only the man of excellence was capable of artifice because he knew how to adapt his technique for strategic advantage: “It is, then, in the nature of the good man to do injustice voluntarily, and of the bad man to do it involuntarily, that is, if the good man has a good soul….then he who voluntarily errs and does disgraceful and unjust acts, Hippias, if there be such a man, would be no other than the good man.”238 Therefore, Odysseus and Achilles can both be said to be true and false, alike rather than opposite.239 Because of his emphasis on knowledge, Socrates surprisingly concluded that one who knowingly errs is still morally superior to one who errs in ignorance. When we combine this surprising conclusion with his insight that both words and rhetoric are basically ambiguous (merely “the sorcerer’s arts of snake- charming”), we ultimately must ground human interpretation or reality in adaptive perspective.

For Socrates, the proof is in the pudding; appropriate interpretation is proven in time (or not)

238 Plato, Lesser Hippias: 376B. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University http://data.perseus.org/citations/ urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg026.perseus-eng1:376c (accessed 4 May, 2017).

239 Ibid., 369b.

99 “Now that I do not lie against God I have the following proof: I have revealed to many of my friends the counsels which God has given me, and in no instance has the event shown that I was mistaken.”240

One gets the distinct impression that Plato/Socrates too is engaged in the playing of some type of game of entrapment in which bewilderment is the starting point of enlightenment.

Socrates is a ruse-minded241 seer like the fox, a master of many-means242 like Odysseus and the

Hebrew prophets, on the “road of many forks and crossroads.”243 Socrates follows the scent of reality like a hound at hunt and paralyzes his listeners like a manta ray. The famous Socratic method, what philosophers refer to as elenchus, most often leads listeners into the trap of bewilderment (ἀπορία), a term that literally means ‘no path.’ All of this functions as a part of a curriculum that compels his listener-pupils to be paradoxically freed from the blinding entrapment of surety and certainty. Like the master seer Tiresias, paradoxically, the philosophic sojourner travels from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, from smug closure to the possibility of opening.

Conclusion

This chapter has demonstrated that the terms strategic intelligence and strategic culture are but modern instantiations of a very ancient strategic worldview, which cultural genealogy can

240 Xenophon, Apology, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0212, (accessed 27 April, 2017).

241 δολόφρονες.

242 πολυτρόπως.

243 Hebrews 1:1. “Forks and crossroads” from Plato, Phaedo, 108A Plato, Phaedo 242b8-c8. Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo, trans, G.M.A. Grube, ed. John M. Cooper, 2nd Ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002).

100 be tracked into pre-history. For over two and half millennia, societies have formalized their life strategies that achieve success in the game of life in cultural narratives that double as memories and models that can be recycled to interpret new features of reality. And the many masters of SI have embedded strategic vision in cultural products, since culture is itself a strategic means that enables humans to overcome the threat of the unknown and achieve flourishing. What is common to these many stories in the Greco-Roman cultural legacy are a constellation of features that mark the existence of underlying strategic values. To reiterate, these features emphasize that personal experience is the means of sensitization to surrounding threats, that sensitive develops strategic vision, which then enables appropriate adaptation and reaction, and subsequent strategic advantage.

From the perspective of Greco-Roman narratives in which strategic vision enables freedom from entrapment, one can perceive a linkage between the strategic and Liberal Arts as a set of strategies that enable gaming man to win the game of life, a game which seemingly has few consistently stable rules. Greco-Roman narratives, such as Hesiod’s Theogony, Homer’s

Odyssey, various tales of the hunt, and narratives that detail a special emphasis on strategic vision demonstrate that SI was delivered historically in cultural products such as myth, epic, drama, satire, and philosophical treatise. SI professionals in government, security and business communities will all benefit from the vast repository of SI embedded in the cultural products of the past: these narratives are not merely artifacts that inform us about a particular culture’s history and irrelevant to our current environment; they are rather the lived memories and an interpretive framework through which entire civilizations showed the means to success in an insecure, threat-ridden mutable reality.

101 SI is relevant both for success in professional and personal domains. It provides a sophisticated yet fun, and time-proven training curriculum for countering asymmetries in political life and overturning sociopolitical systems deemed illegitimate or unjustly grounded in less than authoritative theoretical foundations. As the philosopher William James wrote, “for the philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos.”244 The 20th- century psychoanalyst Alfred Adler concurred with James: “only a science which is directly related to life, said the great philosopher William James, is really a science. It might also be said that in a science which is directly related to life, theory and practice become almost inseparable.

The science of life, precisely because it models itself directly on the movement of life, becomes a science of living…Such a science is of necessity oriented in a practical sense, for with the aid of knowledge we can correct and alter our attitudes…” [it] “is thus prophetic in a double sense: not only does it predict what will happen, but, like the prophet Jonah, it predicts what will happen in order that it should not happen.” 245 Merlin, Zeus, Odysseus, clever detectives (Sherlock

Holmes), ingenious explorers (Indiana Jones), divine deceivers, devious courtiers (Lords Varys and Baelish, the Imp Tyrion), swashbuckling buckaroos, outlaws of the marsh and merry men, concealed heroes (Scarlet Pimpernel, Batman, Superman), and ingenuous animals (wily foxes, focused hounds, rascally rabbits, goofy ducks, plucky monkeys): although the masters of SI are

244 William James, Pragmatism, a New name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, Together with Four Related Essays Selected from the Meaning of Truth, (New York: Longmans, Green and Co, 1948): 4.

245 Alfred Adler, The Science of Living, Heinz L. Ansbacher, ed., New York: Anchor Books, 1969: 1.

102 many, one can now see that all seem to express aspects of a common metaphorological paradigm.

103 CHAPTER IV HOLY STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE

מְזִמָה, תִשְמֹר עָלֶיָ; תְבונָה תִנְצְרכָה Consilium custodiet te prudentia servabit te Deliberation will protect you; Prudence will guard you.246 Proverbs

Bring out the people who are blind, even though they have eyes, And the deaf, even though they have ears.247 Isaiah

I document in this chapter the cultural genealogy of SI by excavating its presence in religious cultural products, textual and visual, from the Greco-Roman period to the beginning of the 17th century. The first part of the chapter excavates the presence of SI in historical religious texts, from the Jewish patrimony that was integrated with Greco-Roman thought in the Christian synthesis of antiquity (section one), to narratives and visual representations of holy SI in the medieval European era (section two). In contrast to previous assertions, the plethora of textual and visual evidence from the religious patrimony shows that Christian culture itself was a bearer of SI. Like the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant who thought that the Christian religion bore morality, I explore how Christian culture expressed the metaphorological paradigmatic of the strategic.248 Not only did Christian cultural products simultaneously serve as strategic models of living and cultural memory, but holy SI was invested with the authority and legitimacy deemed critical by Christendom; holy SI was validated as universal and cosmological,

246 Prov. 2:11.

247 Isai. 43:8.

248 Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt Y. Hudson. New York: Harper, 1934.

104 scriptural, traditional, divinely revealed, ancient, and wise. Holy SI was the preeminent means that enabled and threatened human freedom and dignity.

Holy SI in the Judaic Legacy

A prudent man conceals knowledge, but the heart of fools proclaims folly.249

The naïve believes everything, but the sensible man considers his steps.250

The marriage of Greek and Jewish intellectual lineages in the great synthesis of Roman

Christianity bequeathed to Western Europe an incredibly rich patrimony of resources that articulated SI as the preeminent means to achieve strategic advantage. The Old Testament alone offers a surprising quantity of stories about heroic SI, proffering lessons peopled with a devious deity, probing patriarchs, gaming generals, cunning kings, witty women, and prudent prophets.

Similar to Hesiod ’s depiction of the ambiguity of the gods in Theogony, the Hebrew Old

Testament similarly reveals that deception is a primary experience of human reality. The story of the serpent in the Book of Genesis documented that cunning was the impetus that led humankind into enlightened maturity, a postlapsarian state in which humans realized that they were divine, self-aware, and paradoxically finite. The gist of Genesis 3 is that enlightenment to reality is possible only through crafty deception. A close reading of the text shows that God is not necessarily angry at the ambiguous language used by the serpent, but rather that the serpent aided

Adam and Eve in disobeying. Divine deception is cosmological and universal; without the machination of the serpent, Jesus could not ultimately trick the trickster, enslaving the devil while liberating humanity—the central premise of one of Christianity’s earliest (but not original)

249 Prov. 12:23.

250 Ibid., 14:15.

105 soteriological doctrines. This insight appears to be evidenced in the story of Cain and Abel as well: whereas the deity is angered at the murder, he nowhere condemns Cain’s dissembling.

Most shocking perhaps to many modern Christians are three scriptural texts that indicate that the Hebrew God depicted in the Old Testament, the Tetragrammaton Yahweh, may be more like the Greek gods than what is generally assumed. For example, certain passages in the Old

Testament seem to indicate that Yahweh himself summons and dispatches the spirits of deceit into the world of man:

And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner.And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.251

The Book of Ezekiel echoes this: “And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.”252 The fact that 2 Chronicles 18:19-21 in the

New Testament copies the text from 1 Kings indicates that early Christians may have shared the same view that the deity sends forth deception into the world. Exodus 3:22 provides evidence that Yahweh commanded the Hebrews to steal from their Egyptian overlords: “But every woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye

251 1 Kings 22:20-23.

252 Ezek. 14:9.

106 shall spoil the Egyptians.”253 When we recall that stories of the deity often inform the model of

‘good’ human behavior, we must pause and ask the rhetorical question: in light of the above evidence, WWGD?

SI is also one of the key characteristics of many of the Jewish patriarchs. In Genesis chapters 12 and 20, Abram passed off his wife Sarai as his sister twice, and his son Isaac created a similar artifice with his wife Rebecca while with the Philistines.254 Isaac’s son Jacob was perhaps the greatest of all of the Jewish masters of SI; in fact his name puns with the Hebrew word for betrayal.255 Like Odysseus with his matron Athena, Jacob with his mum’s help cozened his old blind father’s blessing over Esau the first-born, and then he out-schemed his scheming uncle Laban.256 After Laban the Aramean (a word which puns with ‘deceiver’ rama′i) tricked

Jacob into marrying his spinster daughter Leah, Jacob labored for another seven years to marry the bride whom he desired. Through his discerning use of selective breeding of the herd, he enriched his father-in-law’s family and himself, to the degree that he aroused the envy of his brothers-in-law. Like fox, Jacob needed a way out: his wife Rachel stole the clan’s gods and they escaped. Laban pursued them for seven days before making peace, but not before Rachel tricked

Laban again: she blocked him from searching her tent on the pretext that she was menstruating.

In essence, the deceiving Aramean was himself deceived by a cleverer deceiver, another mistress of SI.

253 Ex. 3:22.

254 Gen. 26:7.

.deceit yaçqob י ַעֲ ק ֹב 255

256 Gen. 27.

107 Jacob’s argute inclinations were evidently passed on to his sons: after their sister Dinah was raped by Shechem the Hivite, they agreed to wed her to him if he were first circumcised.

During the recovery period, two of Jacob’s sons enacted their revenge through chicanery, and murdered all of the men in the town in order to avenge her honor.257 The lesson was forever memorialized, and sanctified in a sacred space, such as the mosaic of the Rape of Dinah preserved in the nave of the 5th century Basilica of Santa Maggiore in Rome.

Referring back to Judah, the prophet Jeremiah later described the Judahites in terms of this archetype of brotherly deception: “Do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver (yaçqob).”258 This judgement should make us wonder about other asymmetric relationships as well: was deception involved in the story of Cain and Abel? Is the masterful utilization of SI ‘owned’ by the younger religion of Christianity as opposed to its older sibling

Judaism? Regardless of the answer, the legacy of SI was transmitted through Jacob to the patriarch Judah, although he was not as exemplary as his father.

Patriarch Judah thought he was clever, but in the end he was deceived by a mistress of SI,

Tamar. Tamar was first wed to Judah’s evil first son Er, who subsequently died without heir.

Onan, Judah’s second son, attempted to trick her (and God) through the now famous sin that carries his name: this resulted in his death. Tamar successfully out-maneuvered the old man after he tried to dodge her by not marrying her to his third son Shelah: Judah then unknowingly impregnated Tamar when she disguised herself as a prostitute, giving birth to Perez, the progenitor of the royal line of King David.

257 Gen. 38.

258 Heb. çaqôb yaçqob, Jer 9:4[3].

108 In my view, the story is notable because, with the various mythico-religious narratives of the various rapes committed by Zeus, it functions as an early articulation of the trope of the bed trick—the acquisition of one’s desire through subterfuge. The heroic aspect of SI was apparently highly valued even by the early Christians, since the Gospel of Matthew depicts Jesus in this SI lineage as the descendent of King David.259 With a pedigree that includes cozening women and hustler kings, one sympathizes with Nathaniel, who asked “what good can come out of

Nazareth”?260

Both the Old Testament patriarchs Moses and Joseph also function as figures of heroic patriarchal SI. Jochebed, Moses’ mother, tricked the Egyptians by having him adopted by pharaoh’s own daughter, and Moses duped the Egyptians through the power of the Hebrew God, such as when his staff transformed into a snake which consumed the snakes of the other sorcerers. The Qur’ān especially makes it clear that Moses was a trickster who “exposed the falsehood of the Egyptian wise men (7.118). “But Pharaoh said: This surely is a plot you have hatched to expel the people from the land.”261 Joseph also tricked the tricksters: after his brothers exiled Joseph into slavery, he got the last laugh. First he accused them of being spies and imprisoned them for three days. And then he set them up by hiding a silver chalice in his brothers’ sack and accused them of theft.262 The integration of the heroic and the strategic in the lessons of duplicitous patriarchs also informs the answer to the question: WWPD? What Would the Patriarchs Do?

259 Matt. 1:1-3.

260 John 1.43-46.

261 Qur’ān 7.123.

262 Gen. 44:2.

109 In addition to deceptive deities and cunning patriarchs, heroic SI is also an attribute of kings and warriors in the Old Testament. Joshua destroyed the Kingdom of Ai through subterfuge.263 In Judges, God explicitly told Gideon to spy on his enemies, and he intentionally reduced the number of Gideon’s soldiers to emphasize both the subtlety and power of God.

Gideon was victorious through ruse: his small regiment blew horns and smashed empty pots to confuse their foe.264 Conversely, the Gibeonites tricked Joshua into making a treaty with them.265

The con of the Gileadites enabled them to slaughter 42,000 Ephramites because of their shibboleth.266 King Jehu destroyed all of the priests of Baal after tricking them—he made it publicly known that he was more pious than Ahab; he then murdered in cold blood all of the pagan priests after they innocently assembled in their temple.267 The judge Ehud assassinated the

Moabite King Eglon through treachery when Ehud used a concealed dagger to penetrate Eglon’s abdomen. Locking the door and escaping, the Israelites killed 10,000 Moabites that day.268 King

Saul lied to the witch of Endor who saw through his “snare.” King David lied to the priest

Ahimelech, to his liege lord Achish, and feigned insanity—an image that strangely enough was memorialized in a 9th center Christian psalter:

When David realized that he had been recognized, he panicked, fearing the worst from Achish, king of Gath. So right there, while they were looking at him, he pretended to go crazy, pounding his head on the city gate and foaming at the

263 Josh. 8:1–29.

264 Judges. 7:20.

265 Josh. 9.

266 Judg. 12.

267 2 Kgs 10:18–31.

268 Judg 3:15–25.

110 mouth, spit dripping from his beard. Achish took one look at him and said to his servants, “Can’t you see he’s crazy? Why did you let him in here? Don’t you think I have enough crazy people to put up with as it is without adding another? Get him out of here!”269

Later, David used a female spy who hid Ahimaaz and Jonathan in a well, lying to

Absolam’s officials.270 A few centuries later, to add scriptural authority to his views on SI,

St. John Chrysostom cited two scenes from the Old Testament: 1 Samuel 19-20 which depicted how David’s wife Michal tricked Saul’s soldiers in order to help her husband David escape, and

Jonathan’s lie to Saul about David’s whereabouts.271

In addition to the plethora of examples of heroic SI in the figures of deities, kings, and warriors, Old Testament prophets and women are also capable of exemplifying its merits.

Ancient Jewish holy men and prophets were no strangers to SI, as evidenced by stories of Elisha,

Samuel and Daniel. Through God’s power, Elisha tricked the enemy by blinding them and trapping them in Samaria, and later he tricked the enemies of the Israelites into retreating because they thought that they heard the noise of hostile forces.272 Through divine inspiration

Samuel fooled the Bethlehemites: although they thought that Samuel had come to sacrifice, his real mission was to identify King Saul’s successor, a man outside of the genetically royal bloodline (but not the SI royal line), David.273 In the apocryphal text Bel and the Dragon, the prophet Daniel exposes the treachery of the priests of Bel by spreading ashes over the floor and

269 1 Sam.. 21.

270 2 Sam. 17./

271 Paul J. Griffiths, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity, (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), 139.

272 2 Kgs 7:6–7.

273 1 Sam. 16:1–3.

111 exposing their secret. And in the episode Susanna and the Elders in the Book of Daniel, Daniel used his SI to ferret out the truth of the situation, saving Susanna’s honor.

Like the stories of Rachel and Rebecca above, figures of wily women abound in the Old

Testament, including Judith, Esther, Jael, and Rahab. As early as the Book of Exodus, heroic

Hebrew mid-wives Shiphrah and Puah lie to the Pharaoh in order to save the Hebrew babies, thus tricking the trickster.274 Judith beheaded the Assyrian general Holofernes after getting him soused. Esther saved the Hebrew nation through artifice when she tricked the king and the evil councilor Haman at a banquet.275 Offering respite to Sisera the enemy combatant, Jael stabbed him through the head with a tent stake after he fell asleep.276 And Rahab lied to the enemy who had come to ferret out the Hebrew spies.277 What Would Rachel, Rebecca, Judith, Esther, Jael, and Rahab Do?

The many lessons of heroic SI from the Jewish sacred heritage enriched the legacy of

Greco-Roman thought. As the various images in this section show, sacred SI captured the imagination of medieval and Renaissance Europeans, and was memorialized in the visual cultural products of European Christianity as that which was worth remembering. For example,

Donatello’s statue Judith and Holofernes, commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici, was displayed in front of the Palazzo della Signoria along with Donatello’s David. And Both became enduring symbols of anti-Medici sentiment; Judith and Holofernes is especially interesting as an image

274 Pharaoh tries to be tricky in Ex. 1: 10, 1:15-22 and 3:22.

275 Esth 5:1–8; 6:14–9:17

276 Judges 4-5.

277 Josh 2:1–7.

112 that links SI with salvation because it was installed after the expulsion of the Medici, and accompanied by the phrase “exemplum salutis publicae cives posuere” (erected by the citizens as an exemplar of public salvation).278

Holy SI in the Christian Tradition (Classical - Medieval)

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.279 Jesus according to St. Matthew

Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis: Doloris inferni circumdederunt me. The Groanings of death have encircled me: the sorrows of hell have enclosed me. Cristóbal de Morales (1500-1553 CE) 280

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.281 St. Peter

Greco-Roman and Judaic values of SI were both synthesized in the pan-mediterranean

Roman Christian synthesis of the common era, and this synthesis formed the patrimony and foundation on which subsequent generations of masters would articulate SI. This section excavates the descent of the values and worldview of SI in European Christianity, as evidenced by features in the New Testament and patristic corpora, its underlying presence in the Ransom

Theory in theological circles, the depiction of trickster saints in holy tradition, and some contemporary articulations.

278 Edward Hutton, Florence, (London: Hollis and Carter, 1952), 53-54.

279 Matt. 10:16.

280 Cristóbal de Morales, “Circumdederunt Me Gemitus Mortis,” 1559.

281 1 Pet. 5:8.

113 Although at first glance there appears to be far fewer references to heroic strategic rationality in the New Testament than the Old Testament, a careful examination of the cultural data reveals that the values of strategic rationality can be found both explicitly and implicitly in various passages. Strategic rationality appears to be a part of Jesus’ DNA: the first chapter of

Matthew traces Jesus’ genealogy in a line of descent from the most famous of Hebrew strategists, including Jacob, Judas, Solomon, and David. This chapter indicates that, like the classical Greek texts discussed above, Jesus’ SI was also born in trickery and strife: like Zeus, Jesus is saved from infanticide only after Herod is thwarted by the deception of the magi.282

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of stories about the life of Christ that relates to strategic rationality is the game of entrapment played by Jesus and the Pharisees. Dolophron-like entrapment was not unknown in the Hebrew tradition, as shown by this passage from Job: "He frustrates the plotting of the shrewd, so that their hands cannot attain success. "He captures the wise by their own shrewdness, and the advice of the cunning is quickly thwarted.”283 With the exception of the Gospel of John, the other Gospels point out that the Pharisees were trying to trap

Jesus, and the parables that Jesus uses were in fact intellectual weapons that intended to expose

“the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”284 The way that Jesus entraps the trapper is analogous to the snare-aware dolophron theme in Greco-Roman culture. For example, Jesus immediately saw through the Pharisees’ trap when they goaded him into answering the question

“is it lawful to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, “knowing their hypocrisy, said to

282 Matt. 2:16.

֭ ֵמ ֵפר ַמ ְחשְׁ ֣ב ֹות ֲערוּ ִ֑מים ְוֽל ַא־ת ֲע ֶ֥שׂינָה יְ֝דֵיהֶ֗ ם תּוּשִׁיָּֽה׃ל ֵ֣כד ֲח ָכ ִ֣מים בְּ ָע ְר ָ֑מם ַו ֲע ַ֖צת נִ ְפתָּ ִ֣לים נִ ְמ ָהֽ ָרה׃ :Job 5:12-13 283

284 Luke 12:1. Entrapment: Matt. 22:15-18, Mark 12:13, Luke 20:20, Matt. 26:3, Mark 14, Luke 22.

114 them, "Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at.”285 Elsewhere Jesus himself set an intellectual snare for the pharisees, like when he asked them whether it was lawful to heal on the sabbath.286 If it was lawful, then it exposes the moral bankruptcy of the Pharisees since they were not helping the less fortunate; if it was not lawful, then the juridical law is exposed for being inhumane. By doing so, Jesus was beguiling the beguiler, as St. Paul wrote “for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness (πανουργια). And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”287 “Taketh the wise,” renders the Greek word for the one that traps (δρασσόµενος) the trapper.

Jesus’ parables of the wily steward and the ten virgins, both of which point to the values of foresight and strategic preparedness, are amongst the more explicit articulations of the positive valuation of strategic rationality. Luke 16 relays the story of the crooked steward who is about to be fired because he wasted his lord’s goods. Knowing that he was not well liked by the many debtors he had to collect from on behalf of the lord, the crafty steward made the best of a bad situation by cleverly cutting in half the debt owed; this resulted in a feeling of gratitude towards him, rather than the lord, and gave the crafty steward an escape route. “And his master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.” “And,” Jesus teaches, “I say to you, make

285 Luke 20.

286 Matt. 12:10, Luke 14:3.

287 1 Cor. 3: 19-20.

115 friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings.”288

The story of the ten virgins from the Gospel of Matthew also points to the strategic values of foresight and resourcefulness enabled by memory and preparation. 289 Like fox, the five wise virgins were resourceful in that they all remembered to bring extra oil along with their oil lamps.

Even though they all fell asleep while the bridegroom tarried, the five wise virgins were well prepared for when the bridegroom arrived at midnight. The result? The wise virgins went to the party, and the foolish ones were locked out. The Eastern Churches have triumphantly memorialized this parable of SI by incorporating it into the Bridegroom Matins during the first four nights of Holy Week: “Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching, and unworthy is the servant whom he shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, oh my soul. Do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the kingdom.” Jesus’ positive valuation of strategic rationality is further conveyed in the parable of the man who built his house on a great rock: “I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.”290 Strategic foresight appears to have been highly valued by the early Christian apostles and disciples as well: the strategic value of foresight is explicitly called out in both Acts of the Apostles and Hebrews.291

288 Luke 16.

289 Matt. 25.

290 Luke 6:47, Matt. 7:24.

291 προϊδὼν, προνοίας, providens. Acts 2: 24:2-3, 31; Heb. 12:15.

116 In addition to functioning like the snare-aware dolophron, the life of Jesus also appears to show him dissimulating. In the Gospel of John, Jesus attended a feast in secret after telling others that he would not attend.292 In Matthew 15:21-28, Jesus denies a non-Jewish Canaanite woman who is begging for his assistance. According to one local priest, “Jesus seems terribly out of character”; the scene is “moving” and “initially troubling,”and he interprets the passage to show

Jesus “deliberately” acting "out of character. Jesus only seems to adopt the legalistic perspective of some of His Jewish brethren. He, in fact, does not, for it is contrary to His mission.” 293

Similarly, St. Peter denied that he knew Jesus in Mark 14, and St. Paul criticized St. Peter in Galatians 2 for hypocritical dissimulation (simulatio) that pandered to the Jewish Christians.294

This irony is further accentuated in Acts 16 where we witness St. Paul circumcising Timothy, an act designed to cater to the prominent Jewish Christians—and this in turn provided an authority utilized by the Archbishop of Constantinople St. John Chrysostom a few centuries later. St. Paul followed this up in his second letter to the Corinthians in which he claimed that “being crafty, I caught you with guile.295 In Corinthians, St. Paul admits to an extreme adaptability to achieve his strategic aims:

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under

292 John 7.

293 Father Dominique Peridans, “Table Scraps Have Never Tasted So Good.” Parish email, Ascension and St. Agnes, August 18, 2017.

294 Paul J. Griffiths, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity, (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), 146.

295 2 Cor. 12:16.

117 Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.296

The apostles too taught that Christians should be strategic by being forearmed with foresight. Christian adepts were warned against those “who are full of deceit and fraud” who

“make crooked the straight ways of the Lord,”297 that “as a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming,”298 and that Christians would not be taken advantage of because they have been enlightened to devilish scheming. 299 These lessons of

Christian SI from the son of God himself and his first generation disciples certainly informs the questions, WWJD? and WWAD? (What Would the Apostles Do?)

Scriptural authority for holy SI was soon adopted into the nascent holy tradition that was being informed by the patristic corpora created by the Church fathers: in time, holy tradition would itself become a source of authority that mirrored the legitimacy of holy scripture. We can trace a continuous genealogy of Holy SI in the writings of the saints as well, including St.

Clement of Alexandria (~150 - 215 CE), Origen (185-254 CE), St. Jerome (347-420 CE), St.

Augustine (354-430 CE), St. John Cassian (360 – 435 CE), St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 CE),

Bishop Gregory of Nyssa (335-395 CE), St. John of Damascus (675-749 CE), Bishop Theodulf of Orléans (~750-821 CE), and Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153 CE). Since all of these have

296 1 Cor. 9:16-23.

297 Acts 13:10.

298 Eph. 4:14.

299 2 Cor. 2:11.

118 been studied in depth from the perspective of church history and theology, and since my goal here is to trace the cultural genealogy of SI through the ages, this section will aim to relay the more intriguing assertions.

St. Clement of Alexandria (~150 AD - 215 AD) in his Stromateis noted St. Paul’s dissimulation and also made allowance for it. He also approved of stratagem, as evidenced in his writings that explore the generalship of Moses. Stratagem for Clement is characterized by security, boldness, speech, and actions, all of which are made possible through “persuasion, violence, injustice in self-defense, justice (when pertinent), deceit, truthfulness, or use of all these simultaneously.”300 “The stratagema of Moses teaches us that before the appearance of danger we ought to survey advantageous courses.” Moses’ surprise attacks are the work of experience and the excellence of generalship.301 This sentiment was amplified one thousand years later by the master of SI Machiavelli, who wrote that “he who reads the Bible with discernment will see that, in order that Moses might set about making laws and institutions, he had to kill a very great number of men who, out of envy and nothing else, were opposed to his plans. 302

In commenting on Galatians, St. Jerome made a case for holy SI when he explained that both apostles were dissimulating: St. Peter was really using “good management” (oeconomia/ dispensatio), and St. Paul was also dissimulating (simulatio) because he actually was aware of

300 Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.24 (160-161) and 7.9.53, in The Fathers of the Church: a New Translation, trans. John Ferguson, (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991), Vol. 85, 140-144. In Everett L. Wheeler, Stratagem and the Vocabulary of Military Trickery, (Leiden: E.J Brill, 1988), 22-23.

301 άρετή του στρατηγικου; εµπειρίασ γαρ και στρατηγίασ. Ibid.

302 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 3.30, 486.

119 what St. Peter was intending to do.303 St. John Cassian believed that he was only transmitting the

SI of the desert fathers; in a chapter entitled “How even Apostles thought that a lie was often useful and the truth injurious,” St. Cassian wrote that St. Paul was not “free from dissimulation.”304 Like St. Jerome, St. Cassian, through the figures of Germanus and Abba

Joseph, appealed to “good management” (oeconomia/dispensatio), citing the Old Testament exemplary models of Rahab and Jacob and New Testament authorities (1 Corinthians 9). But the best articulation of SI in the early church is that written by Archbishop of Constantinople St.

John Chrysostom in his text On Priesthood.305

In On Priesthood, Chrysostom adapted the ‘noble lie’ (γενναῖον ψεῦδος, gennaion pseudos) of Plato’s Republic, by making the argument that deception is permissible and advisable when done in love. After he tricked his friend Basil into accepting the priesthood by

“concealing himself,” Basil accused him of “deceit,” “treachery” and “much guile.” Basil’s reality is that of a “cruel age,” in which “designing men are many, genuine love is no more, and the deadly pest of envy has crept into its place: we walk in the midst of snares, and on the edge of battlements.” In response, Chrysostom relays that “seeing, then, his tearful and agitated condition, and knowing as I did the cause I laughed for joy, and, seizing his right hand, I forced a kiss on him, and praised God that my plan had ended so successfully, as I had always prayed it

303 Paul J. Griffiths, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity, (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), 145-153.

304 Ibid., 155-170.

305 New Advent, trans., W.R.W. Stephens, in ed., Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1889.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. . In Paul J. Griffiths, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity, (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), 136. Trickery is related to oikonomia.

120 might. But when he saw that I was delighted and beaming with joy, and understood that he had been deceived by me, he was yet more vexed and distressed.”

For Chrysostom, the ‘evil’ of deception is not absolute, but rather is good or bad according to intention, justifying deception in the ultimate foundation of authority, Christian love:

You must desist from complaining of deceit, and prove that it has been devised against you for a bad purpose; and as long as this proof is wanting it would only be fair for those who wish to conduct themselves prudently, not only to abstain from reproaches and accusation, but even to give a friendly reception to the deceiver. For a well-timed deception, undertaken with an upright intention, has such advantages, that many persons have often had to undergo punishment for abstaining from fraud. And if you investigate the history of generals who have enjoyed the highest reputation from the earliest ages, you will find that most of their triumphs were achieved by stratagem, and that such are more highly commended than those who conquer in open fight…But one who has been able to gain the victory by stratagem involves the enemy in ridicule as well as disaster… And not in war only, but also in peace the need of deceit may be found, not merely in reference to the affairs of the state, but also in private life, in the dealings of husband with wife and wife with husband, son with father, friend with friend, and also children with a parent.

Chrysostom grounded his argument for Holy SI in both practical wisdom and scripture.

For the first, like Plato’s Republic, in which lies are said to be useful like medicine, Chrysostom described the placebo effect in medicine, in which a patient recovers due to psychological factors.306 For the second, he cited examples of holy deception in scripture, including the lies of

David’s wife and friends (1 Samuel), and the story of St. Paul and the circumcision of Timothy

(Acts 21, Galatians 5).307 And like previous saints, Chysostom justified deception with the concept of “good management”:

306 Ibid., 382d.

307 Timothy had a Jewish mother and a Greek father. Although St. Paul preached that circumcision was unnecessary, he still circumcised Timothy.

121 For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind. For I would not call Phinees a murderer, although he slew two human beings with one stroke308: nor yet Elias after the slaughter of the 100 soldiers, and the captain,309 and the torrents of blood which he caused to be shed by the destruction of those who sacrificed to devils.310 For if we were to concede this, and to examine the bare deeds in themselves apart from the intention of the doers, one might if he pleased judge Abraham guilty of child-murder311 and accuse his grandson and descendant of wickedness and guile.312 For the one got possession of the birthright, and the other transferred the wealth of the Egyptians to the host of the Israelites. But this is not the case: away with the audacious thought! For we not only acquit them of blame, but also admire them because of these things, since even God commended them for the same. For that man would fairly deserve to be called a deceiver who made an unrighteous use of the practice, not one who did so with a salutary purpose. And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived.313

Subsequent bishops after Chrysostom followed in the same vein. Some versions of the St.

Patrick myth relay that he tricked the snake into entering a box. The Carolingian Bishop

Theodulf of Orléans (~750-821 CE) in his The Lost Horse (De Equo Perdito) wrote “A thief snatched a horse from a soldier in a crowd; listen by what cunning the soldier got it back…often yields what strength has refused to give; he who is weak in strength is powerful in cunning.”314

308 Num. 25:7.

309 2 Kings 1:9-12.

310 1 Kings 18:34

311 Gen. 22:3.

312 Ex. 11:2.

313 New Advent, trans., W.R.W. Stephens, in ed., Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1889.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. .

314 Saepe dat ingenium quod vis conferre negabat, compos et arte est, qui viribus impos erat, in Marc Wolterbeek, Comic Tales of the Middle Ages: an Anthology and Commentary, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 47-48.

122 The 10th-century poem Heriger in the Cambridge Songs depicts Bishop Heriger as a man of SI who catches a thief in his own lie, and cleverly punishes him for something that he actually did not do. Similarly the story of Priest and the Wolf (Sacerdos et Lupus) that is preserved in the same collection shows the instrumentality and two-way potency of ars, strategic craftiness.315

After the priest created a ruse to trap his foe the wolf, the poet praised “Nothing greater is given to man than his genius!316 But the priest is surprised when the wolf uses ars to escape the trap by using the priest’s back as a spring board. WWCFD? What Would the Church Fathers Do?

The trickster bishops of this world are mirrored by trickster saints from the next. The

11th-century Bernard of Angers’ hagiography of St. Foy Liber Miraculorum Sancte Fidis states that the miracles performed by St. Foy were called tricks (joca). One story relates that rather than donating his late wife’s golden ring to the church as promised, a castellan used it to marry his second wife. The new wife was compelled to come to the shrine after St. Foy enflamed her finger: "when the sorrowful woman happened to blow her nose, the ring flew off without hurting her fingers, just as if it had been hurled from the strongest siege engine, and gave a sharp crack on the pavement at a great distance.317 Here then is another case of the trickster being tricked.

The question WWSD? (What Would the Saints Do?) gestures to a similar answer.

I conclude this section with evidence that the worldview of SI not only informed

Christian scripture and Holy Tradition, but it also functioned as the foundation for the most

315 Ibid., 22.

316 “Humano datum commodo nil maius est ingenio!” Nothing is a greater advantage given the human genius! in Marc Wolterbeek, Comic Tales of the Middle Ages: an Anthology and Commentary, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 21-24.

317 Ashley, Kathleen M.; Sheingorn, Pamela. Writing Faith: Text, Sign & History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 139.

123 important theological doctrine of the Church for over two thousand years. Known as Ransom

Theory, or the theory of Christus Victor, this soteriological understanding is remarkably close to the stories of cosmological duping in Hesiod’s Theogony. Ransom Theory posits that Satan, the great duper of humanity in the Book of Genesis, was cosmologically duped by God through the sacrifice of Jesus. In other words, in the great competition between God and Satan for human souls, Satan was duped through the strategic trickery of Jesus, and humanity was rescued from the ensnarement of the devil.

This soteriological tradition was grounded in an interpretation of sacred scripture that was shared and developed successively by Bishop Iraneaus of Lyon (-202 CE), Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Ambrose of Milan (340 – 397 CE). 318 For example, the Blessed Augustine wrote:

The Redeemer came and the deceiver was overcome. What did our Redeemer do to our Captor? In payment for us He set the trap, His Cross, with His blood for bait. He [Satan] could indeed shed that blood; but he deserved not to drink it. By shedding the blood of One who was not his debtor, he was forced to release his debtors.319 (italics added for emphasis)

Agreeing, St. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa (335 – c. 395) wrote that “in order to secure that the ransom on our behalf might be easily accepted by him who required it, the Deity was hidden under the veil of our nature, so that as is done by greedy fish, the hook of the Deity might be gulped down along with the bait of flesh.”320 John of Damascus echoed this: “Wherefore death

318 Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 83, 140 Note 91.

319 “Doctrine of the Atonement,” Catholic Encyclopedia, (Denver, CO: New Advent, 2000).

320 Candida R. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 93.

124 approaches, and swallowing up the body as a bait is transfixed on the hook of divinity….”321

The monk Rufinus of Aquileia (344/345–411) in his Commentary on the Apostles' Creed noted that the cosmic baiting was the very mystery of the Incarnation:

For the object of that mystery of the Incarnation which we expounded just now was that the divine virtue of the Son of God, as though it were a hook concealed beneath the form and fashion of human flesh (He being, as the Apostle Paul says, “found in fashion as a man”), might lure on the Prince of this world to a conflict, to whom offering His flesh as a bait, His divinity underneath might catch him and hold him fast with its hook, through the shedding of His immaculate blood. For He alone Who knows no stain of sin has destroyed the sins of all, of those, at least, who have marked the door-posts of their faith with His blood. As, therefore, If a fish seizes a baited hook, it not only does not take the bait off the hook, but is drawn out of the water to be itself food for others, so He Who had the power of death seized the body of Jesus in death, not being aware of the hook of Divinity inclosed within it, but having swallowed it he was caught immediately, and the bars of hell being burst asunder, he was drawn forth as it were from the abyss to become food for others. Which result the Prophet Ezekiel long ago foretold under this same figure, saying, “I will draw you out with My hook, and stretch you out upon the earth: the plains shall be filled with you, and I will set all the fowls of the air over you, and I will satiate all the beasts of the earth with you.” 322 (Italics added for emphasis)

This complex metaphor certainly disrupts other interpretations of the Christian ichthys

(ἰχθύς) fish symbol: in relation to Satan, Jesus is both prey and Predator-Pantocrator!

The underlying worldview of SI enables us to see that the body of Christ in Ransom theory is a type of Trojan horse, the very means by which the deceiver is deceived, a theme amplified visually by the medieval depiction of “the harrowing of hell.” Not only is Christ’s body deadly to Satan, Christ is snare-enlightened like the prawn in Oppian’s Fishing that

‘destroys by being destroyed.323 Saint Augustine went one step farther when he stated that the

321 Ibid.,

322 Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Apostles' Creed, Catholic Encyclopedeia, (Denver, CO: New Advent, 2000), 16 .

323 Deadly (δόλοισι); snare-enlightened δολόφρονες.

125 cross was in fact, the “mousetrap for the devil.”324 This vision of the cosmological dupe echoed down through the centuries, in martyrdom stories in which martyrs were depicted as cosmological warriors who defeated the devil through their death,325 in sacred art such as the

15th-century Mérode altar triptych, in the sermons of St. Leo, the "Morals" of St. Gregory the

Great, and the teaching of Bernard of Clairvaux, who affirmed that Satan had ‘rights’ (ius) and dominion over humanity.326

For Bernard,

Christ defeated Satan both by strategy and by strength—by strategy in that the adversary laid hands on the innocent one, thus forfeiting his rights over humanity; by strength in rising from the dead…Christ tricked the serpent with a holy deception, Christ’s humanity being the trap that deceived him..the Jews referred to him as a deceiver (Matt. 27.63), and they were right. He was a deceiver—though godly rather than wicked….327

Two texts of the fourteenth century, Piers Plowman and The Lilly, one English and one

Icelandic, both pick up this theme: in Piers Plowman the conqueror taunts that Lucifer ‘was beguiled by the beguiler (18.356. 18.78-86), 328 and in Lilly: “But I rejoice that here he came, To

324 Crux muscipula diaboli. Mortis avidus diabolos fuit, mortis avarus diabolos fuit. Crux Christi muscipula fuit: mors Christi, immo caro mortales Christi tamquam esca in muscipula fuit. Augustine’s Sermon CCLXV (d). v, ed. G. Morin, Sancti Augustini Sermones post Maurinos reperti. Miscellenea Agostiniana 1 (Rome, 1930), p. 662 (cf. PLS 2, col. 707), . Sermones CXXX. Extensive literature review in Paul G. Remley, “Muscipula Diaboli and medieval English Antifeminism" English Studies Vol. 70, Iss. 1, 1989 (footnotes 1 & 2).

325 Candida R. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010:87-102.

326 Meyer Schapiro, “‘Muscipula Diaboli,’ the Symbolism of the Mérode Altarpiece,” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 27, 1945 - Issue 3, 06 Mar 2015., 182-187.

327 Anthony N.S. Lane, Bernard of Clairvaux: Theologian of the Cross, (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2013), 160-170.

328 Lawrence Warner, The Myth of Piers Plowman: Constructing a Medieval Literary Archive, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 31.

126 have his fell greed put to shame; For on the cross the worm enjoyed, Nowise the bait that him decoyed.329

The patrimony of the modern West includes a vision of holy SI that stretches as far back as Greco-Roman and Judaic pre-history, and as far forward as the 20th and 21st centuries. The trope of cosmological consumption and the strategic emetic mirrors Hesiod’s Theogony, where the most ancient of gods were tricked and castrated. In lieu of the mousetrap, Gustaf Aulén in his treatise Christus Victor, picked up the metaphor of the cross as a fishhook from scripture (Rev.

12:9 and Job 41:1-2), through Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. John of Damascus.330 Aulén wrote “when the Godhead clothes itself in human form, the devil thinks that he sees a uniquely desirable prey…therefore he accepts the offered prey; as a fish swallows the bait on the fish- hook, so the devil swallows his prey, and is thereby taken captive by the Godhead.”331

This worldview of SI is still viable in the various liturgies of the Eastern Orthodox churches. For example, the theme of ‘beguiling the beguiler’ is reflected as the “capture of hell,” and as “destroying death by death” in the Paschal Sermon by St. John Chrysostom, which is traditionally pronounced on Easter morning:

Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions. It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked. It was embittered, for it was slain. It was embittered, for it was overthrown. It was

329 Eiríkr Magnússon and Eysteinn Ásgrímsson, Lilja (The Lily) an Icelandic Religious Poem of the Fourteenth Century. Ulan Press, 2012), Verse 60, 61.

330 Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 131/note 60, 193.

331 Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: an Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, trans., A. G. Hebert (London, S.P.C.K., 1970).

127 embittered, for it was fettered in chains. It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen. O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.

The Paschal Troparion (hymn) echoes this: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs, bestowing life!332 The celebration described transmits values descended from the Old Testament:

And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people will take away from all the earth…333

The worldview of holy SI continues in the 21st-century Western church as well: Pope

Francis at the 2014 Feast of the Holy Epiphany intimately linked the birth of the savior of humanity with a SI articulated through the figures of the Magi. “The Magi “teach us how not to fall into the snares of darkness and how to defend ourselves from the shadows which seek to envelop our life…” Holy cunning for the pope, “is a spiritual shrewdness which enables us to recognize danger and to avoid it.” Like the magi, we need to “safeguard the faith with holy cunning, guard it from that darkness which, many times, is also disguised as light,” he said.

“Spiritual cunning”enables the faithful to see through the “deception of appearances.”334

332 Χριστὸς ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν, θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας, καὶ τοῖς ἐν τοῖς µνήµασι, ζωὴν χαρισάµενος!

333 Isaia 25:8.

334 “Guard faith with ‘spiritual cunning,’ says pope,” The Catholic Sun, http://www.catholicsun.org/2014/01/06/guard-faith-with-spiritual-cunning-says-pope/. Jan 6, 2014 (accessed 18 Jan. 2018)

128 Pope Francis has preached on shrewdness as an aspect of SI expressed through the figure of St. Paul, who was “inspired by the Holy Spirit.”335 In his catechesis on Christian hope, he wrote that:

A Christian travels along his road in this world with the essentials for the journey, but with his heart full of love. The true defeat for him or her is to fall into the temptation of revenge and violence, by responding to evil with evil. Jesus tells us: “I am sending you out as lambs among wolves” (Mt 10:16). Therefore, without jaws, without claws, without weapons. Instead, the Christian has to be prudent, and sometimes shrewd: these are the virtues accepted by the logic of the Gospel…336

Elsewhere, he extols Christian shrewdness over worldly fraud:

The fraudster is a man who has no faith”, he continued. “The Gospel tells us about him in the parable of the dishonest manager. How did this manager arrive at the point of defrauding and stealing from his master? From one day to the next? No. Bit by bit. Perhaps one day he gave a tip here, a bribe there, and gradually, step by step he arrived at the point of corruption. In the parable. the master praises the manager for his shrewdness. But this is an entirely worldly and sinful shrewdness, which does great harm. There exists, instead, a Christian shrewdness, of doing this in an astute way, but not in a worldly spirit: doing things honestly. And this is good. It is what Jesus says when He invites us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves: putting these two dimensions together is a grace of the Holy Spirit, a grace we must ask. Today too there are many of these corrupt fraudsters…I am struck by how corruption is widespread everywhere.337

In conclusion, the plethora of textual and visual evidence from the Western religious patrimony shows that Christian culture itself was a bearer of SI, articulating the values of the

335 Holy See Press Office, Daily Bulletin, Pope Francis Morning Meditation in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, “The Shrewdness of Saint Paul,” Thursday, 1 June, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ cotidie/2017/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20170601_shrewdness-of-saint-paul.html, (accessed 18 Jan. 2018)

336 Holy See Press Office, Pope Francis General Audience, Saint Peter's Square, Wednesday, 28 June 2017, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2017/documents/papa-francesco_20170628_udienza- generale.html. (accessed 18 Jan. 2018).

337 Holy See Press Office, “Mass for the 200th anniversary of the Vatican Gendarmerie: the poor pay the price of fraud and corruption, 18.09.2016” https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/ 2016/09/18/160918a.html (accessed 18 Jan. 2018). See also https://aleteia.org/2017/06/28/pope-francis-christians- love-but-they-are-not-always-loved/.

129 metaphorological paradigm of the strategic. Not only did its cultural products simultaneously serve as models of living and cultural memory, but holy SI was invested with the authority and legitimacy deemed critical by Christendom: holy SI was validated as universal and cosmological, scriptural, traditional, divinely revealed, ancient, patriarchal, apostolic, saintly and wise. In short, holy SI was the preeminent means that enabled human freedom, dignity and transcendence.

130 CHAPTER V SECULAR STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE

Aut aliquis latet error: equo ne credite, Teucri. Some tricks lie hidden: trust not the horse, Trojans. Virgil (70 - 19 BCE)

Ill is it to trust to Fortune's fickle bounty Boethius (480 - 524 CE)

Qu'est-ce que les Lumières? (What is Enlightenment?) It is a way out: a sortie… Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984)338

To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. Ludwig Wittgenstein

Late Antiquity - Medieval

It is clear, that, when the power of the Romans was first beginning to grow, they did not fail to use fraud; of which it is always necessary that those should make use who from small beginnings wish to rise to sublime heights, and the better they conceal it, as the Romans did, the less blameworthy it is.339 Niccolò Machiavelli

As the previous chapters showed, SI has always been invested with the highest forms of authority. In contrast to earlier periods in which authority in SI was grounded in metaphysical justifications (cosmological and the universal), and through divine revelation, subsequent ages authorized SI from the perspective of philosophical, societal and interpersonal necessity. But regardless of the means by which SI was proffered as a legitimate path that enabled the practitioner to achieve one's objectives, the worldview of SI that informed many genres remained intact.

338 Foucault, Michel. "What is Enlightenment?" In The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 32-50. Original Publication: Qu'est-ce que les Lumières ?

339 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, Bernard Crick, ed, Leslie J. Walker, trans, London: Penguin, 2003: (2.13), 312.

131 The existence and necessity of deceit in public life was already explored by Plato in his

Republic as early as the 4th century BCE, by Aristophanes in The Birds, and to some degree,

Rome itself was founded on deceit. In addition to the betrayal of brotherly love in the mythological founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, the myth of the rape of the Sabine women again clarifies the connection of SI, power and the acquisition of aim (eros) seen earlier in the various rapes of Zeus (Metis, Hera, Antiope, Danae, Europa, Leda, Callisto, Ganymede, Helen).

Writing about the 8th-century myth of the founding of Rome, the Roman historian Livy (~64

BCE – 17 CE), relayed that the Romans set up the games (ludi) as a pretext to abduct the Sabine women. This deceit was memorialized yearly in the Consualia Ludi, a public festival that integrated the themes of war, sustenance (grain), and family fertility, and which mode of piety was celebrated with races, hunts and theatrical performances.

SI is both reflected in Roman military history, and in Virgil’s epic Roman genealogy, the

Aeneid. For example, the paradigm of the strategic is discerned in the Roman historian Appian’s

(95-165 CE) description of the war between Masinissa and Carthage:

Masinissa was an example in all doing and enduring and had only cavalry, no pack animals and no provisions. Thus he was able the more easily to retreat, to attack, and to take refuge in strongholds. Often, when surrounded, he divided his forces so that they might scatter as best they could, concealing himself with a handful until they should all come together again, by day or by night, at an appointed rendezvous. Once he was one of three who lay concealed in a cave around which his enemies were encamped. He never had any fixed camping- place. His generalship consisted especially in concealing his position. Thus his enemies never could make a regular assault upon him, but were always warding off his attacks. His provisions were obtained each day from whatever place he came upon toward evening, whether village or city. He seized and carried off everything and divided the plunder with his men, for which reason many

132 Numidians flocked to him, although he did not give regular pay, for the sake of the booty, which was better.340

Virgil’s (70 – 19 BC) epic poem Aeneid continued the exploration of ‘strategic piety,’ a term that sounds rather strange to modern sensibilities. This poem depicts the circuitous and

Odyssey-like journey of ‘pious’ Aeneas from the fall of Troy to the founding of Rome. However,

Aeneas’ pietas is only possible because of a strategically intelligent deceitfulness. In lieu of the

SI of the deities Athena or Diana, Venus is the matron of Aeneas; she is a formidable mistress of

SI, through whose help devotees are enabled to achieve their aims (eros).

Evidence from the Aeneid demonstrates that the heroic values of SI were just as foundational to Roman culture as they were to Greek culture.341 For example, deception is a key feature of theophany: just like in the Odyssey when Odysseus met his mother Athena, Aeneas also met his disguised matron Venus on the Libyan coast. In this episode Venus disguised herself as Artemis, a Greek huntress on African soil, and Aeneas called her out after seeing right through her ruse. Venus only now reveals herself when her scheme is exposed:

Her neck was glittering with a rose brightness; her hair anointed with ambrosia, her head gave all a fragrance of the gods; her gown was long and to the ground; even her walk was sign enough she was a goddess. And when Aeneas recognized his mother, he followed her with these words as she fled: “Why do you mock your son—so often and so cruelly—with these lying apparitions?342

Later in the narrative when Aeneas is on his way to meet Dido in Carthage, Venus first conceals him in a cloud that enables him to benefit from the advantage of unobserved

340 Appian, “The Punic Wars,” 2:12. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http://perseus.uchicago.edu/ perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=1&query=App.%20Pun.%2014 (accessed 27 April, 2017).

341 Everett L. Wheeler, Stratagem and the Vocabulary of Military Trickery, Leiden: E.J Brill, 1988: x.

342 Aeneid: 1.573-582, Also in Riggs Alden Smith, The Primacy of Vision in Virgil’s Aeneid, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005: 28.

133 observation. And just like the scene in the Odyssey in which Athena glamoured Odysseus to make appear god-like to Nausicaa, Venus also enhances Aeneas’ godlike characteristics: “And there Aeneas stood, glittering in that bright light, his face and shoulders like a god’s. Indeed, his mother had breathed upon her son becoming hair, the glow of a young man, and in his eyes, glad handsomeness.”343

Divine deception is a leitmotif in the Aeneid; in fact, divine deception is necessary to flesh out the tragedy of Dido. First, Venus sends Love in disguise to bewitch Dido to fall for

Aeneas, and then she schemes with Juno to consummate the union while in the cave. This, the poet tells us, “was the first cause of death, and first of sorrow.”344 This conniving led to Dido’s downfall. She “accepted Aeneas as master,” as pointed out by King Iarbus,345 and lost both her integrity and reputation.346 To add insult to injury, Aeneas uses deception once again when he schemes to leave Carthage in secret, when Dido lies to her sister about the pyre, and when Venus tricks Dido with Aeneas’ son Ascanius.347 There is also the scene in which the god Somnus, disguised as Phorbas, appears to the helmsman Palinurus and tries to make him lose focus by lulling him to sleep.348 We also recall the fascinating episode of Turnus and the Fury Allecto.

Whereas Odysseus came under the heal of Calypso, a nymph whose name means “the

343 Odyssey 6.229-235, Aeneid: 1.825-832, Also in Riggs Alden Smith, The Primacy of Vision in Virgil’s Aeneid, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005: 30.

344 Virgil, Aeneid 233.

345 Ibid., 289.

346 Ibid., 440.

347 Ibid., 673, 1.990-996.

348 Ibid., 5.1126-1132, Riggs Alden Smith, The Primacy of Vision in Virgil’s Aeneid, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 33-36

134 concealed,” Turnus encountered the Fury Allecto, disguised as an old woman named Calybe, a name derived from the same etymology.349

The leitmotif of deceit in the Aeneid was not lost on Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321 CE).

Dante imagines that Virgil resides in the first circle of the underworld. In Canto XVII Inferno of the Divine Comedy, Dante described how the monster Geryon, a figure of fraud, responded to

Virgil’s beckoning, and bore the two down to the abyss of the Circle of Fraud, the famous

Malebolge, where they meet ancient heroes, including Ulysses (Odysseus).

Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy

Boethius' (480–524 CE) The Consolation of Philosophy is a foundational text of late

Roman antiquity, and it was highly influential and widely read throughout the Middle Ages.350 In this late Roman philosophical text, we observe the worldview of SI which functions as an underlying framework that links the figure of the philosophically heroic snare-aware

(dolophrones δολόφρονες) with bondage, vision and freedom. Consolation opens with a depiction of Boethius enslaved to the illusion of worldly value, which fortune ravished:

To pleasant songs my work was erstwhile given, and bright were all my labours then; but now in tears to sad refrains am I compelled to turn. Thus my maimed Muses guide my pen, and gloomy songs make no feigned tears bedew my face… Ill is it to trust to Fortune's fickle bounty, and while yet she smiled upon me, the hour of gloom had well-nigh overwhelmed my head. Now has the cloud put off its alluring face, wherefore without scruple my life drags out its wearying delays.351

349 Ibid., 7.312-7.605. Also in Riggs Alden Smith, The Primacy of Vision in Virgil’s Aeneid, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 36-39.

350 Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans W.V. Cooper, Ex-classics Project, 2009, https:// www.exclassics.com/consol/consol.pdf (accessed 9 Feb. 2018).

351 Ibid.,

135 In essence, Boethius claims that he has been deceived. Inspired by Plato’s vision of the heroic philosopher-king, Boethius entered the chaotic world of change, only to be brought low by “Fortune's fickle bounty.” But, the Goddess Philosophy points out, this is (self) deception— the only deception involved is the deception of his true values. Recalling Hesiod’s description of the ambiguity of the muses in Theogony and Plato’s exiling of poets in the Republic, the goddess accuses the muses of enslaving his mind: “they free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them thereto.” Like the Sirens in the Odyssey, they are “seductive unto destruction!”

This ensnarement is accentuated by Philosophy when she notes ironically that he was a devotee of philosophy, having studied the eleatics and the academics: “This man has been free to the open heaven: his habit has it been to wander into the paths of the sky: his to watch the light of the bright sun, his to inquire into the brightness of the chilly moon; he, like a conqueror, held fast bound in its order every star that makes its wandering circle, turning its peculiar course.

Conversely, unlike the truly free philosophers, Boethius had enslaved himself to the false values of this world, of fame, power, and reputation rather than truth and justice: “Now he lies there; extinct his reason's light, his neck in heavy chains thrust down, his countenance with grievous weight downcast; ah! the brute earth is all he can behold.”352 In his worldly concerns,

Boethius is more like a beast than the image of God:

In what different shapes do living beings move upon the earth! Some make flat their bodies, sweeping through the dust and using their strength to make therein a furrow without break; some flit here and there upon light wings which beat the breeze, and they float through vast tracks of air in their easy flight. 'Tis others' wont to plant their footsteps on the ground, and pass with their paces over green fields or under trees. Though all these thou seest move in different shapes, yet all have their faces downward along the ground, and this doth draw downward and

352 Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans W.V. Cooper, Ex-classics Project, 2009, https:// www.exclassics.com/consol/consol.pdf (accessed 9 Feb. 2018).

136 dull their senses. Alone of all, the human race lifts up its head on high, and stands in easy balance with the body upright, and so looks down to spurn the earth. If thou art not too earthly by an evil folly, this poses as a lesson. Thy glance is upward, and thou dost carry high thy head, and thus thy search is heavenward: then lead thy soul too upward, lest while the body is higher raised, the mind sink lower to the earth.

Philosophy then provides Boethius with the therapy that restores him to true sight, a type of divine ‘foreknowledge’ by which one can evade the entrapments of the world and the contingency of the wheel of Fortune:

Let us therefore raise ourselves, if so be that we can, to that height of the loftiest intelligence. For there reason will see what it cannot of itself perceive, and that is to know how even such things as have uncertain results are perceived definitely and for certain by foreknowledge; and such foreknowledge will not be mere opinion, but rather the single and direct form of the highest knowledge unlimited by any finite bounds.

The moral of Consolation is that true philosophy is that which enables one to escape from the trap of empty values—philosophy is what makes one snare-aware and immune to the bounds of any trap. The values of this world, whether fame, glory, or riches are bound to the realm of time, and therefore not everlasting. Once one can see through the trap, one can align oneself with eternal values. Boethius’ Consolation is informed by SI: it is a strategy of escape, in which snare- awareness leads to the unbound infinity of human dignity, empowerment, and liberty.

Although the culture of late Roman antiquity came to an end around the time of the execution of Boethius by the Germanic (Ostrogoth) King Theodoric in 524 CE, it by no means marked the end of SI. Rather, SI emigrated as the Germanic and Islamic capitals north and south of the Roman-Byzantine center increasingly came to dominate their respective cultural and political ecosystems.

137 The depiction of Odysseus/Ulysses as a beggar king in the Odyssey was quite powerful for the Latin West because the figure of noble indigence articulated a complex set of concepts that centered on the very similar Latin roots for “mind,” “lie,” and “need” (mens, ment, and mend). These themes combined in interesting ways to explore necessity and contingency, poverty and wealth, fortune and freedom, and often informed the depictions of mendicant wanderers, including philosophers, beggars, and saints. Regardless of the cultural influences that led to it,353 from the perspective of SI it is quite easy to observe a genealogical link between Odysseus, Badi’ al-Zamān al-Hamadāni’s (hereafter:al-Hamadhāni) figure Abū al-Fath al-Iskandari created in the fin de siècle of the 9th century, and the picaresque novels of Renaissance Spain. Recalling that

North Africa formed the southern terminus of Greco-Roman culture, we should not be surprised that Northern African and Arabic cultural influences synthesized with those from Germanic and

Hispano-Roman societies when the Umayyads defeated the Spanish Visigothic kingdom in the

8th century CE.

The character Abū al-Fath al-Iskandari, Abu the Victorious of Alexandria, is a great example of SI in the medieval Islamic world. Reminiscent of legendary exploits of Alexander the

Great that circulated around the Mediterranean world for centuries, the heroic and noble stratagems and tricks of al-Iskandari and his contemporary Abu Zayd, are intimately linked to the maqāmāt genre, a collection of stories of the Banū Sāsān or “confraternity of tricksters.”354 The maqāmā genre made salient the problem of contingency, and focused attention on human dignity

353 J. Horovitz, “Traces of the Greek Mimes in the Orient” in Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld: the Banū Sāsān in Arabic Society and Literature, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976), 19, 96.

354 Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld: the Banū Sāsān in Arabic Society and Literature, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976), 20.

138 amidst the dire consequences of the turn of the wheel of fortune. These stories provided a “rich array of tricksters who used the Islamic religion as a cloak for their predatory ways,” and gained a “respectable niche” in medieval Islamic society.355 Most importantly for our purposes here, is that these heroic figures also functioned as a medium that transmitted the values of SI to subsequent epochs.

Al-Iskandari and Abu Zayd are masters of SI whose special talent lie in shapeshifting: throughout the stories they pose in various guises (beggar, blind and maimed, male and female elderly, mendicant sufi, young poet, refugee, exiled princely gentleman, lunatic, sheikh) in order to opportunistically exploit the unique conditions of various situations. Both of these heroes adapt themselves to the opportunities of the present, overcoming the trap of hardship with clever ingenuity and appropriate speech. Like Odysseus, Al-Iskandari is a composite character that integrates the mendacious with the mendicant, the depiction of hostile reality with the noble ability to appropriately interpret the threat and opportunity parameters of any situation, rapidly adapt and heroically deceive when necessary.

Al-Iskandari in the Maqāmā of Kufa and Poetry highlights the themes of hostile reality and the mendicant. Posing as a wandering Sufi, Al-Iskandari waxes poetic as “the envoy of night and its messenger, the defeated and hunted of hunger, a well-bred personage in the leash of misfortune and bad times; a guest who's tread is light…an exile after whose departure the fire of banishment was kindled.356 The “Maqāmā of Poetry” echoes this beautifully:

Do you not see I am wearing a thread-bare cloak,

355 Ibid., ix, 96.

356 Badí Al-Zamán Al-Hamadhání, Maqámát, trans., W.J. Prendergast, in The Maqámát of Badí Al-Zamán Al-Hamadhání, (London: Curzon Press, 1973), 38-40.

139 Borne along in misfortune, by a bitter lot, Cherishing hatred for the nights, From which I meet with red ruin, My utmost hope is for the rising of Sirius… Now this noble personage was of higher degree and his honor was of greater price… But fortune reversed my circumstances… Of my death nought remained but a memory…357

The “Maqāmā of Jurjan” complements this with the image of the Odyssean wanderer: “A traveller, mighty traverser of the earth, cast hither and thither by deserts; his hair is matted and he is dust-stained.”358 The “Maqāmā of Adharbayján” adds:

I am a mighty wanderer over the countries and a great traverser of the horizons I am the toy of time, And am continually on the road. Blame me not—mayest thou receive right guidance!— For my mendicity, but taste it.359

In the “Maqāmā of Al-Fazara,” Al-Iskandari transforms into whatever is appropriate to the situation: He replies to the question “who art thou?” with:

A counsellor if thou seeks a counsel, an orator if thou desires converse, but before my name is a veil which the mentioning of no proper name can remove. What is thy trade? I roam about the interiors of the countries in order that I may light upon the dish of a generous man. I have a mind served by a tongue, and rhetoric which my own fingers record.

357 Ibid., 29.

358 Ibid., 53-58.

359 Ibid., 50-53.

140 In the denouement of each story, Al-Iskandari is said to be a “grasping beggar, experienced in the craft, a past master of the art.”360 Deception is the highest form of that masterly art, as exemplified in the Maqāmā of the “Date,” the “Lion,” and “Isfahan.”

Spend thy life in deceiving Men and throwing dust in their eyes. I observe the days continue not In one state and therefore I imitate them…361

As the above verse shows, adaptation in the social realm is merely imitating the patterns of reality, which is fundamentally mutable. In the Maqāmā of the “Lion,” the reader observes how a fashionable young man dupes travelers by means of his good looks and earnest service, only to be tricked by them in turn.362 And in “Isfahan” Al-Iskandari panders to the hyper-pious by adapting to them: the faithful flock to him and he gains a pile of their money when he sells in front of the mosque perfumed slips of paper on which he had written the contents of a vision of the prophet that he supposedly saw while sleeping. “I wondered at the cleverness of his imposture, and his artifice to gain his living,” notes the narrator, “what set thee on this stratagem”? Al-Iskandari justified his fraud with the reply, “Men are asses, so lead them one after the other; compete with, and excel them, till thou hast obtained from them what thou desirest, then quit.”363

360 Ibid., 67-68.

361 Ibid., 32.

362 Ibid., 40-46.

363 Ibid., 58.

141 Medieval Europe

In addition to migrating south and finding articulation in the highly urbane and sophisticated Islamic world, to include that of the cultural splendor of medieval Islamic kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula, SI emigrated northward as northern European capitals increasingly dominated the political and cultural landscape. Hints of the northern emigration of

SI can be glimpsed in stories originating from folklore and legend associated with the various

Germanic and Celtic peoples who participated in the multi-century völkerwanderung, in fabliaux, and in the courtly literature at the turn of the first millennium, such as in the nugae

‘trifles’ and ridicula genres.

Elements of SI are everywhere in Germanic and Celtic heroic epics, sagas and lays; as in earlier periods explored, one may perceive that the judgement of the utility of SI depends on the values held by the author and the surrounding cultural context; SI is magical when it reverses asymmetric relationships, and treacherous when the high and mighty fall due to it. It is what defines in Machiavelli’s words “chi vuole acquistare o chi vuole mantenere,” the haves and the have-nots.364 As in earlier periods, SI is often a tool that empowers the disenfranchised, including youth and women. But one also detects an increasing resentment on the part of male writers towards the treachery of SI, especially by women in the domain of the boudoir in the practice of the arts of love (ars amatoria), a criticism made canonical by Ovid when he wrote “cheaters cheat: on the whole, they are godless. Let them fall into the traps of their own devising.365

364 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 1.5, 115.

365 Ovid, Ars Amatoria, 1.645-46: fallite fallentes: ex magna parte profanum sunt genus: in laqueos quos posuere, cadant.

142 As opposed to the majority of the male figures in the old Irish heroic saga Táin bó

Cúailnge of the Ulster Cycle, which roots may go as far back as the 8th century CE, Queen

Medb is an expression of the values of SI.366 Medb’s special talent is a knack for savoir-faire, and she is a force to be reckoned with. In order to prod her warriors to enter into what is essentially fratricide, Medb first dulls their wits through alcohol, and then goads them with promises of land, riches, and sex. To Ferdia, the foster-brother of the hero Cú Chulainn who he now opposes, she offers her own daughter Finnabair. When he refuses, she contrives a story that makes Ferdia believe that Cú Chulainn had offended honor. The tragic hero, Fergus, foster-father to his now opponent Cú Chulainn, is also not without SI: in order to avoid killing his own foster- son and offending the cultural value of honor, Fergus maintains his vow of killing three warriors by lopping off the tops of three mountains, shrewdly balancing the tension between loyalty to kin and fealty to liege.367 In another example, Medb uses her own daughter as bait: she tricks her daughter’s beloved by allowing him to return home after sleeping with her daughter. The next day, seven hundred of his warriors died while seeking revenge for the ruse. Medb attempted a similar stratagem with the hero Cú Chulainn, but the deceiver was outwitted; he saw through the ruse of the disguised jester, and promptly killed him on the spot.

There are almost too many examples of SI in Medieval texts to cite here, but I will briefly cite the better known. Beowulf defeated Grendl by trickery when he feigned sleep.368 Énide

366 Garret Olmsted, “The Earliest Narrative Version of the Táin: Seventh-century poetic references to the Táin bó Cúailnge,” Emania 10 (1992): 5-17.

367 Philip O’Leary, “Choice and Consequence in Irish Heroic Literature,” Cambrian Mediaeval Studies 27 (Summer 1994): 49. Philip O’Leary, “Magnanimous Conduct in Irish Heroic Literature,” Eigse 25 (1991): 28- 44.59. Philip O’Leary, “Verbal deceit in the Ulster cycle,” Éigse 21 (1986), 16–26.

368 Beowulf, David Wright, trans., New York: Penguin Books, 1957: 44.

143 showed her savior faire and saved her love Érec via the noble lie in Chrétian de Troyes’ (12th century) Arthurian romance Érec et Énide. After being duped by Gawain, Érec complained “Ah!

Gawain, your shrewdness has outwitted me. By your great cunning you have kept me here.”369 In

Gerbert de Montreuil’s Continuation to the Conte du Graal, after a night of bliss with Gawain,

Boiesine deceived her family through a lie, and saved Gawain’s life.370 Geoffrey of Monmouth’s

Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), completed in the 12th century, relays the story of Arthur’s conception through the trope of the bed trick: Merlin glamoured

Uthor as Gorlois, the husband of Igerna; disguised Uthor seduces Igerna, and she subsequently conceives Arthur. In the 13th-century Icelandic Laxdœla saga, the character Brynhildr is deceived into marrying Sigurðr’s sworn-brother Gunnarr, just as Guðrún is deceived by Bolli into marrying him.371 The 15th-century Sigrgarðs saga frœkna continues similar themes: when three daughters are cursed by their royal father’s concubine, a royal suitor must continually shrewdly disguise himself in order to break the spell and win their hearts. One observes similar types of deception, noble and base, in the Nibelungenlied (19-11th), Völsunga saga, and the

Prose and Poetic Edda.

Although history has documented the slick intrigue utilized by Charlemagne in aligning himself with Muslim powers (Ummayad Shiekh Haroun al Rashid) against Byzantium in the 9th century CE, La Chanson de Roland offers an alternative history in which the Saracens are

369 ‘Ahi ! Gauvains, fait il, ahi! Vostre granz sens m’a esbahi ; Par grant sens m’avez retenu.’ Chrétien de Troyes. Erec et Enide. vv. 4143-45.42.

370 Marco Prost, ‘Female cunning on the edges of chivalry in Gerbert de Montreuil’s Continuation to the Conte du Graal,’ Selected Proceedings from ‘On the Edge’, March 2015, University of Reading http:// blogs.reading.ac.uk/trm/. (accessed 7 Feb 2018).

371 Margaret Clunies Ross, The Cambridge Introduction to The Old Norse-Icelandic Saga, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 130.

144 associated with trickery, rather than the straightforward military prowess of Roland. Loyalty, fealty, honor and dignity are problematically intertwined in a period in which religious confraternity did not exactly match political gerrymandering. Charlemagne’s allies made for strange bedfellows: he allied with Muslim states in the Iberian peninsula as opposed to the

Basques, who ultimately routed him in the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778. In the world of

Roland, however, the royal uncle Ganelon is scapegoated. Ganelon, whose very name like the

Hebrew ‘Jacob’ means “deceiver,” betrays his own people by colluding with Muslims in response to an apparent maneuver by Roland in which Ganelon is ‘voluntold’ to go on a dangerous mission.372 The ambush at Roncevaux Pass would turn out to be Charlemagne’s only defeat, and subsequent ages would not forget the deception. In fact, Dante banished Ganelon to the second round of the ninth circle of the depths of the Inferno.373

Both the Bishop John of Salisbury (~1115 CE) and the courtier Walter Map (~1130 -

1210 CE) made salient the primacy of deception in life, and both of these masters of SI produced didactic texts that aimed to expose the illusions of the political life of the times. John of

Salisbury in his Policraticus, observed that the “enticement of fawning fortune” blinds eminent men to truth, which in turn is the “most dangerous situation.”374 His text, Policraticus, is a transmission of SI that intends to “offset human frailty” in a dark era in which law, fidelity,

372 From Italian inganno.

373 In Canto XXXII of the Inferno (Divine Comedy), Dante banished Ganelon (Ganellone) to Cocytus in the depths of hell as punishment for his betrayal to his country.

374 John of Salisbury, Policraticus, in Frivolities of Courtiers and Footprints of Philosophers: Being a Translation of the First, Second and Third Books and Selections from the Seventh and Eigth Books of the Policraticus of John of Salisbury, trans., Joseph B. Pike, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1938), Book 1, chapter 1, 11.

145 religion and language had been lost.375 In his Courtier’s Trifles (De Nugis Curialium), the courtier Map wrote about a variety of pranks, tricks and cons for the purpose of making people aware of the deception vicariously through the means of the story.

It is expedient for the instruction of us all that no one should live with closed eyes or ears, or with any sense inactive; he ought to be edified inwardly by outward things. By them, as we are blind to the future, some parts of the present are made plain and some of the past. Let us make speed to perceive what we did not see ourselves; what we did not hear, let us not scoff at, but submitting the future to God, let us hasten to be taught by the things which the Lord has set before us to imitate or avoid…376

It is difficult to discern to what degree this type of pronouncement is in earnest, or to what degree it had degenerated into a conventional formula that dignified vulgar stories.

Regardless, these types of formulaic conventions are the crystallization of values, the pearls of wisdom from earlier ages. I also note that this is one of the earliest sources that grounds its authority and legitimacy in the expedient rather than the metaphysical—a claim that will echo in the primers of SI provided by the masters of the Spanish picaresque.

Borrowing a line from the Roman dramaturge Terence’s play Andria, “fallacia alia aliam trudit” (trick follows trick), John of Salisbury’s text aims at enlightening through the systematic exposure of deception at court.377 This includes delegitimizing the validity of hunting, gaming, entertainers, and various types of practitioners of legerdemain and praestigium (magicians, soothsayers, prophets, astrologers, mantic artists, enchanters, dream interpreters, augurs, and interpreters of various signs and omens, supernatural and natural). The courtier Walter Map

375 Ibid., 6.

376 Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium: Courtier’s Trifles, ed. & trans., M.R. James, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 4.1, 279.

377 Ibid., Book 2, 136. From Terence Andria line 752.

146 agreed; he humorously depicted antagonistic reality as the royal court itself, which was comparable with the “Infernal regions” (infernum), bound by insecurity and instability:

‘In time I exist, and of time I speak,’ said Augustine: and added, ‘What time is I know not.’ In a like spirit of perplexity I may say that in the court I exist and of the court I speak, and what the court is, God knows, I know not. I do know however that the court is not time; but temporal it is, changeable and various, space-bound and wandering, never continuing in one state…I become a stranger to it, and it to me…it is a hundred-handed giant…a hydra of many heads…the court is constant only in inconstancy.378

Trickery is everywhere in Map’s Trifles. “Such are the tricks of the court…and the deceits of the devils”: in the story of King Herla, the good king is tricked by the fairy folk who invited him to a banquet. Upon returning, he discovers to his horror that he has been gone for ages, and he and his band became phantom wanderers “without stop or stay.”379 The King of Portugal, lured into a “snare,” murders his loving wife, who was a “second Susanna.”380 Monastics are suspect: “Monks both white and black recognize their prey, as the hawk spies the frightened lark,” and they lure knights into their abbeys. And they justify themselves by saying “we are spoiling the Egyptians and enriching the Hebrews,” Map sarcastically remarked, “as if they were the only ones whom the Lord is bringing out of darkness.”381

Map’s Third and Fourth distinctions seem to be especially set on developing snare- enlightenment in the reader. The noble lie is played out in the exemplary friendship of Sadius and

378 Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium: Courtier’s Trifles, ed. & trans., M.R. James, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 3.

379 Ibid., 1.11, 27-31.

380 Ibid., 1.12, 31-37.

381 Ibid., 1.25, 85.

147 Galo, in which one disguised friend sacrifices himself for another.382 This is contrasted by the deplorable and treacherous possibilities between people, as in the story of Parius and Lausus.

After poisoning his rival, the scheming chamberlain Parius is then entrusted with his rival’s son for rearing. Envious then of the king’s affection for the boy, Parius creates a creative scheme to sow enmity between the two: he tells the boy that he has halitosis, which is offensive to the king.

Horrified, the boy quickly distances himself so as not to offend the king, who then grieves over losing the love of the boy.383 Interestingly enough, this same story is almost exactly mirrored in the ancient Chinese scripture of SI, Intrigues of the Warring States 战国策 (300 BCE).

(Appendix A) In Map’s story about the merchants Sceva and Ollo, the envious Sceva connives with a whole village in an elaborate con designed to disenfranchise the naïve and gullible Ollo from his home and hearth, which results in his insanity and exile.384 The perfidy and unfaithfulness of Raso’s wife is contemplated when she absconds through deception with her

Muslim lover.385 The imprudent lad Eudo is tricked three times, which results in the very loss of his soul. His wealth is claimed by predatory neighbors after his wealthy knight-father passes.

Then, Satan himself helps the boy by disguising himself as Eudo and enabling him to escape.

After Satan raises his fortune, Eudo ultimately falls again into a nadir of existence when the

Christian bishop refuses to receive his repentance.386

382 Ibid., 2, 211-247.

383 Ibid., 3.3, 247-263.

384 Ibid., 4.16, 393-403.

385 Ibid., 3.4, 263-271.

386 Ibid., 4.6, 315-341.

148 The didactic value of relating these stories of trickery even made its way into medieval primers of rhetoric. For example, Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s 13th-century Poetria Nova relates the following short story as the exemplar of a rhetorical technique of abbreviation: “Her husband abroad improving his fortunes, an adulterous wife bears a child. On his return after a long delay, she pretends it begotten of snow. Deceit is mutual. Slyly he waits. He whisks it off, sells, and— reporting to the mother a like ridiculous tale—pretends the child is melted by the sun.”387

In addition to these trifles, the genre of comic tales known as ridicula is also chock full of didactic stories that relay the importance of SI. In his study Comic Tales of the Middle Ages,

Marc Wolterbeek characterized the medieval genre of ridicula as:

Sic fraus fraudem vicerat “Thus fraud had conquered fraud”—concludes the Modus Liebinc, and this “moral” of the poem characterizes the nature of the comedy found in all of the ridicula. They all depict deception, and usually the deceiver is unmasked at a climactic scene of recognition, yet often the characters’ roles are inverted—that is, the deceiver is himself deceived—and hence there is a doubling of lies, of fictions. Somebody is always caught in his own trap, whether that trap is a lie or a presumption, and the result is one character who evokes admiration through his cunning and another who provokes laughter through his stupidity. All of them reveal a fascination with man’s ability to lie, to pervert language, and most often they celebrate ars, craftiness.”388

In his illuminating study, Wolterbeek provided a gamut of examples that demonstrate that this genre also functioned as medium that transmitted the values of SI. In addition to the mendosa cantilena (lying songs), “lies are at the center of De Lantfrido at Cobbone.”389 In one anonymous 12th-century epigram, the philosopher Aristotle saves Athens by tricking Alexander

387 Marc Wolterbeek, Comic Tales of the Middle Ages: an Anthology and Commentary, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 44.

388 Ibid., 1.

389 In Marc Wolterbeek, Comic Tales of the Middle Ages: an Anthology and Commentary, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 13.

149 the Great.390 Egbert of Liège (11th century) in his De duobus venatoribus unique partientibus relayed a story of fraud between hunters, concluding that the deceiver who cannot deceive covertly does so overtly.391 The narrative of Unibos utilized a “Christian hymn structure to depict human deceit and presumption”; in this narrative, Unibos outwits social superiors and others intent on his murder, usually by identifying their vices and using this to his own strategic advantage. Because Unibos is a master of stratagem, and cleverness, he overcomes antagonistic reality and escapes poverty.392 SI is a great power that can both do good and evil: as Wolterbeek concluded “Unibos' greatest skill—his ability to trick his stupid enemies—may be the very quality that makes him inimical, for he is “magis seducens” (st. 172) and “dolosus” (st. 71).”393

The fact that these stories were presented as culture, in terms of storytelling, entertainment, as jokes and trifles, should not obscure the strategic purpose of the stories: these stories functioned as primers of SI whose goal was to sensitize the young and innocent to the snares of the world. Interpreting any given hostile situation, the young could ultimately beguile the beguiler through the sharpness of wit.394 The development of the worldview of SI in the cultural texts of the European Middle Ages formed the foundation on which early modern masters of SI produced their stunning masterpieces.

390 Ibid., 68-69.

391 Ibid., 52.

392 Master of stratagem (artificem versutiae). Cleverness (calliditas). Ibid., xiii.

393 Ibid., 33.

394 Beguile the beguiler (sic fraud framed vicerat) through the sharpness of wit (quia suo ingenio decepti fuerunt). Ibid., 52.

150 Renaissance Man’s life on earth is a militia against malicia, or malice.395 Baltasar Gracián (1601 – 1658)

From the perspective of the cultural genealogy of SI, it is crystal clear that the synthesis of classical Mediterranean (Greek, Roman, Semitic) and Germanic cultures directly resulted in the efflorescence of SI in the cultures of early modern Europe, especially those of Golden Age

Spain and Renaissance Italy. Due to the plethora of examples, I utilize prudence to scope the evidence in this chapter to the most exemplary primers of SI of the age: this section culminates by exploring six preeminent scriptures of SI, three perverse picaresque novels of Golden Age

Spain, and three dazzling dramas of intrigue from Renaissance Italy. This list includes the anonymous La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes (~1553 hereafter Life),396 Francisco de Quevedo’s

(1580-1645) El Buscón (hereafter Wanderer), Mateo Alemán’s (1547 - 1615) Guzmán de

Alfarache (hereafter Guzmán),397 Niccolò Machiavelli’s, Mandragola, Ludovico Ariosto’s

(1474-1533) La Lena (1538), and Gl’Intronati Literary Society of Siena’s Gl’Ingannati (The

Deceived 1538).398

395 Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, A Pocket Oracle, trans., Christopher Maurer (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 7-8.

396 Lazarillo de Tormes & The Grifter: Two Novels of the Low Life in Golden Age Spain, ed., & trans., by David Frye, (Indianapolis: Hackett: 2015).

397 The Rogue or the Life of Guzman de Alfarache, trans., James Mabbe (1623), (New York: AMS Press, 1967).

398 Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed., Bruce Penman (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978).

151 Renaissance: SI in Spanish Picaresque Homo hominid aerumnarum ultima? Pestis est homo homini! Man is the worst hardship man must endure? Man is the plague of man! 399 Leon Battista Alberti (1404 – 1472), Momus

The three novels of the Spanish Golden Age are extraordinary for the way in which they re-articulate the features of SI identified in Greco-Roman culture discussed earlier. Not only does the figure of the pícaro (rogue) explore the intersection of the false (mendacious) through the journey (mendicant), but the emerging genre of the picaresque anticipates the bildungsroman, a coming of age narrative in which maturity is developed through personal experience. This observation nicely dovetails with the features of SI identified in the earlier chapters: 1) personal experience as a means of sensitization to the threat and opportunity features of any given antagonistic reality, 2) this sensitization to the threat features leads to strategic vision, which is the capacity to interpret the nuances of any new environment, and 3) proper interpretation then enables appropriate adaptation and reaction, which leads to strategic advantage. The success of the pícaro in overcoming social asymmetries is directly tied to his virtuosic wielding of SI, and his ability to negotiate with ingenuity the sociocultural values of nobility, dignity, honor, and familial lineage. The voyeur is enriched vicariously both through the pícaro's successes and failures.

The author and narrators of Vida and Guzmán explicitly call out the strategic tradition by centering the narrative on the theme of seeing through, and on contingency. Like Walter Map above, the narrator of Vida claims that he is writing a “trifle,” through which he hopes to reveal

399 Leon Battista Alberti, Momus, trans., Sarah Knight (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), Book 2, paragraph 102, 185.

152 things “perhaps never before seen or heard” or long buried and forgotten.400 What the author seeks to bring to light is simply himself. This story of SI is, he tells us, comparable to the act of the first soldier to leap into battle: he does not do so because he wishes to die, but rather for honor’s sake. The issue at hand is that of value and meaning, of self-esteem. The image of the pícaro is not only “a man living through so many misfortunes, dangers, and hardships”’; he is a man who is attempting to create meaning and dignity in an antagonistic social reality that denies him both.401

In my analysis, there is a clear thematic link between Odysseus in the Odyssey, Islamic trickster beggars like Abu Fath al-Iskandai and the pícaro; king, beggar and rogue all point to the metaphorological paradigm of the strategic. Odysseus, a character who linked the concepts of lineage, royalty, honor, dignity, nobility, freedom, necessity, contingency, mutability, indigence and cunning, captured the imagination of the Western world for thousands of years—and I argue provided one model that articulated strategic heroism. But the model of the indigent king was probably less relevant to new non-aristocratic classes that emerged in early modernity than were the heroic down-and-out underdogs. The underdog represents the most classical of all journeys, the journey of descent that sets the condition for ascent, which literary pedigree derives from

Odysseus’ descent into Hades, Plato’s katabasis (descent) to the Piraeus in the opening line of the Republic, and Jesus’ harrowing of hell. When we subtract the feature of royalty from the above list, we realize that WWPD (What Would the Pícaro Do?) is as comparably informative as

WWOD?

400 Lazarillo de Tormes & The Grifter: Two Novels of the Low Life in Golden Age Spain, ed., & trans., David Frye, (Indianapolis: Hackett: 2015), 3.

401 Ibid.

153 The figure of the pícaro in the three novels of the Spanish renaissance is in my view, a bearer of SI. In fact, the anonymous author of Life hopes that the tales of the pícaro will enlighten the elite to the possibility of the greater noble heroism of the pícaro as opposed to those who have inherited nobility, so that “those who inherited the rank of nobility might consider how little they did to earn it, since fortune smiled on them, and how much more was accomplished by those who, plying the oars with strength and wits though fortune was set against them, made it to safe harbor.”402 This sentiment is paralleled in an aphorism memorialized by another master of SI, the Italian statesman and historian Guicciardini, who wrote:

In this world, no one chooses the rank into which he will be born nor the circumstances and the fate with which he will have to live. And so, before praising or censuring men, you must not look at their condition but at how they manage within it. Praise or blame must be based on their behavior, not on the state in which they find themselves. In a comedy or a tragedy we do not have higher respect for the actor who plays the part of the master or the king than for the one who plays the servant. Instead, we pay attention only to the quality of the performance.403

The Spanish master of SI Vives in his Introductio ad Sapientiam added, “what else is nobility nowadays but a chance birth into this or that gentle blood, and a reputation induced by the foolishness of an unlearned people (whose opinion of nobility itself often is acquired by hypocrisy or other unjust measures)?…how can dignities be called dignities, or honors, when they accrue to most unworthy men and are acquired by deceit, ambition, avarice, and evil

402 Ibid., 4.

403 Francesco Guicciardini, Ricordi, in Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi), trans., Mario Domandi, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972), Aphorism 216, 97.

154 machinations?”404 Machiavelli intensifies this sentiment in Book two of his Discourses, noting that deceit is actually a “necessity,” and that on the whole “men rise from low to a great position by means rather of fraud than of force.”405 This concept clearly threatens the authority and legitimacy of claims of superiority justified by the arbitrary value of lineage; if the athlete born with a silver spoon in his mouth heroically finishes the marathon, how much more heroic is it then when those handicapped by low-station also cross that finish line?—for they have run much farther!

The image of the pícaro enacts the theme of the snare-aware, and functions as a literary means by which minds can be sensitized to the threats of the world. In de Quevedo's words,

Guzmán forms part of a curriculum that seeks to enlighten his prince to the dangers of the world.

The figure of the pícaro is a revealing both of the maturation of young men and their endeavors, and how “though their eye-sight be clear, they will not see…”406 In Mabbe’s English rendition of the dedication to the prince Don Francisco De Roias, de Quevedo sought to inoculate his prince from innocence of the snares of society. For him, falsity in the form of serpentine “evil intention” and “secret malice” are like skillful hunters that lie in wait—one discovers the mortal wound without knowing how it was even incurred. Since they are like “basilisks,” the strategy to defeat these terrible monsters is constructed through knowing them vicariously through stories.

Therefore, by exposing the prince vicariously to estafas de socaliñas (impostrous graft),

404 Juan Luis Vives, Introductio ad Sapientiam, in Vives’ Introduction to Wisdom: a Renaissance Textbook, ed. Marian Leona Tobriner, (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1968), Aphorism 47, 54, 90-91.

405 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 2.13, 310.

406 The Rogue or the Life of Guzman de Alfarache, trans., James Mabbe (1623) , (New York: AMS Press, 1967), 20.

155 artimañas (artifices), trucas (tricks), and engaños (scams), the prudent prince can protect the commonwealth against “knaves of innocence” and “despoilers of virtue.” For these types of men are “predators,” from whose “subtle snares (as death traps) no person lives secure.”407

There are three features of the pícaro that clarify that this figure is a bearer of SI. These features include a common characterization of antagonistic reality and social asymmetry, a common educational process of sensitization to the realities of the world through experience, and the mastery of adaption as a means of achieving goals.

Antagonistic reality: the Asymmetry Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it.408 Men are more prone to evil than to good.409 Niccolò Machiavelli

Whereas the ancient world marveled at royal and noble mendicants like Odysseus who lost all through the sudden turning of the wheel of fortune, the early modern world explored the possibility of dignity and freedom from the starting line of misfortune. What the three pícaros of these stories share in common is psycho-social anxiety about a threat to the very mission of meaning in life: these greenhorns are handicapped from the start by their problematically mixed pedigree: they are trapped by blood, humble birth and base minds.410 In lieu of the threat of treacherous and deceptive gods and monsters of unknown lands from stories handed down from

407 Ibid., 11.

408 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 1.3, 112.

409 Ibid., 1.98, 132.

410 The Rogue or the Life of Guzman de Alfarache, trans., James Mabbe (1623) , (New York: AMS Press, 1967), 9 .

156 classical times, early modern texts highlighted the danger of the journey amongst the world’s most dangerous predator: one’s kith and kin.

For example, Lazarillo’s father was a cheat, and his widowed mother gave birth to an illegitimate boy of mixed heritage after she took up with a “dark man.” In order to maintain his family, the new beau stole from the lord, and the family came to ruin after the simple Lazarillo spilled the beans to the authorities. In Wanderer, Don Pablos’ father was a scam artist who posed as a barber: his seven year old son pick-pocketed clients as they received a shave.411 His mother hid her Jewish or Moorish ancestry under a respectable old Christian name, but she was a witch, a procuress and a loose woman who was served “buffet-style by many men,” a point of great shame for Pablos.412 Although Guzmán did not suffer from a base lineage per se, his father was a crafty merchant and his mother a two-timing cozening woman. The author revealed that “a merchant’s conscience is like a streetwalker’s virginity, up for sale whether it exists or not.

Hardly anyone in his line of work has a conscience, because they heard that your conscience will nag you over just about anything, so they started discarding theirs with the umbilical cord at birth.”413

In order to overcome the social asymmetry and achieve a meaningful life of dignity, each of these innocent protagonists began a journey with various teachers who sensitized their pupils to the ways of the world. Lazarillo studied with a of series of masters, progressing from a blind beggar, a priest, an impoverished but well-attired dissimulating squire who put on airs, a

411 Lazarillo de Tormes & The Grifter: Two Novels of the Low Life in Golden Age Spain, ed., & trans., David Frye, (Indianapolis: Hackett: 2015): 60.

412 Ibid., 63.

413 The Rogue or the Life of Guzman de Alfarache, trans., James Mabbe (1623) , (New York: AMS Press, 1967), 84, 113.

157 pardoner, a tambourine maker, a chaplain, a constable, an hombre de justicia “justice man,” and a chaplain. Although he was difficult and poor, the blind beggar is described as the “craftiest of all men ever created by God”; he ironically most enabled the innocent protagonist to survive when he served the penniless squire.414 Close to death from starvation, Lazarillo leveraged the insight given to him by the blind beggar to find food: “since I had absorbed this trade with my mother’s milk—meaning I learned it from that great teacher, the blind man—I turned out such a competent pupil that even though there was no charity in this town and this year hadn’t been prosperous, I put such cunning into it that before the clock struck four I had four pounds of bread tucked away in my body and at least two more in my sleeves and shirt.”415 He described the

Master Pardoner as the “most brazen and shameless…who had invented the ways and the means and the most cunning fabrications.”416

Hunger was the real master during his internships with the priest and the squire, and

Lazarillo, like Odysseus, faced the existential through the accursed belly, which the Odyssey relayed “many evils to men gives.” “Hunger makes the wits grow keener,” and the young pícaro engaged in a life and death contest of wits with the priest in which “it looked like we were weaving Penelope’s cloth wholesale, for whatever he wove by day I undid by night.”417 In the

414 Lazarillo de Tormes & The Grifter: Two Novels of the Low Life in Golden Age Spain, ed., & trans., David Frye, (Indianapolis: Hackett: 2015):, 7.

415 Ibid., 32.

416 Ibid., 42.

417 Ibid., 21-22.

158 end, he outwitted the priest due to “God and wits.”418 Slowly, Lazarillo climbed the social ladder as he became more sensitized to the snares of the world, and developed his capacity to adapt.

From the penniless squire he learned about the reality of false appearances: “Deep are the secrets, Lord, that You keep and that the people never learn! Who wouldn’t be fooled by his elegant air and that respectable cloak and shirt?” The irony is that the penniless squire was a fancy man who appeared to all as a gentleman, but in reality he had not eaten in more than a week.419 Not only is the episode of the squire entertaining, it is also enlightening; the value of honor ironically was killing him. The squire’s great ambition was to become a sycophantic private secretary to a gentleman so that he could obtain the good life:

I’d know how to lie to him as well as the next man, and make him happy as you please. I’d laugh at all his jokes and capers, even if they weren’t the best in the world. I’d never tell him anything that would upset him, even if it would do him good…And I’d chew out the servants where he could hear me so he’d think I was taking pains to make sure he was well served...I’d dig into other people’s lives, trying to find out all about them so I could tell him, and do so many other lovely things of this nature, which are all the fashion now at court. And that’s what the noble courtiers like—they don’t want to find people of virtue in their houses. In fact, they detest and despise them, call them fools, and say they aren’t men of the world or people that a nobleman can relax around.420

Honor then, is nothing but an illusion, and the honorable and noble are revealed to be a trap

The didactic goal of the text as a primer is also underscored by Alfarache’s English translator, who commented on the innocence of youth: “but it is, and ever will be the fashion of young fellowes, to cast themselves awayheadlong, upon their present pleasures, without having

418 Ibid., 17.

419 Ibid., 31, 35.

420 Ibid., 39.

159 an eye, or any regard in the world to their future hurt; or the harme that will follow after.421 Like

Lazarillo, Guzmán also learns from masters, including a poet, a mendicant hermit-friar, a sexton, and a hidalgo who “had opened my eyes to many things and inspired me to follow a life of vapidity,” and a group of grifters.422 Wit, made sharp through the suffering of hunger and experience, made all of the difference in the world; in fact, a “a sharp wit is the philosopher’s stone, turning everything it touches into gold.”423 One should “give great thanks “to God” for his gift of cunning, and having a sharp mind is “liberal,” and “saves us” both from getting caught and physical punishment.424 Guzmán is educated stragegically: he learns to adapt himself by serving the scion of a rich lord; he ultimately transforms into an exemplary prankster, “a rascal among rascals” who is almost able to pass as anybody he wished to be.425

Most importantly, the result of this sensitization to the threat features of any given antagonistic reality is the ability to overcome through awareness and adaptation. This ability to be sensitive is what makes one human. The linkage of aesthetic knowledge (savoir vivre), sensitivity, and enlightenment is underscored in the following passage in which Guzmán is the only one who realizes that what the crafty innkeeper offered them was donkey meat, not veal— an example of “coozening tricks which hosts put upon poor travelers.”

421 The Rogue or the Life of Guzman de Alfarache, trans., James Mabbe (1623) , (New York: AMS Press, 1967), 106.

422 Ibid., 126.

423 Lazarillo de Tormes & The Grifter: Two Novels of the Low Life in Golden Age Spain, ed., & trans., David Frye, (Indianapolis: Hackett: 2015): 122.

424 Ibid., 128, 61.

425 The Rogue or the Life of Guzmán de Alfarache, trans., James Mabbe (1623) , (New York: AMS Press, 1967), 84-85.

160 For my Companion, there was no care to be taken for him, all meates were alike to him; for he was borne amongst Savage people, and bred up by brutish Parents, whose palate was seasoned from the cradle with a clove of Garlicke; and your rude rusticall Clownes, (as a thing not belonging to their either goodnesse, or cleanliness) in matter of taste can seldome distinguish ill from good. To most of them there is a want of perfection in their Senses; and albeit they see, yet do they not see that, which they ought to see: and though they heare, yet do they not heare that which they ought to heare…But these kindes of unnurtured people are like unto Dogs…426

All three of our roguish heros of SI are able to shift their identities nearly as easily as one changes socks. Don Pablos, for example, flourishes as a servant, an actor, a professor and a gentleman caller of the petit bourgeousie before he became the “rabbi of ruffians,” which he describes as a way of life better than any he had known previously.427 Similarly, Lazarillo apprentices and masters the trades of beggar, acolyte, page, and water-peddler. He reckons that he makes it big time when gets the government jobs of man of justice, and town-crier.

One certainly may draw the moral lesson that strategic sneakiness always ends badly. For example, Lazarillo ends up as a husband cuckolded by an archpriest who has married Lazarillo to the priest’s maid. One can imagine how 17th-century elite Spaniards, with their highly exclusive cultural values of honor and lineage, would have mocked smug Lazarillo. But Lazarillo appears perfectly content; who cares about honor if nobody mentions dishonor to his face? As the preface explains, honor is empty when separated from truth. There is in this threat a subtle expression of social anxiety on the part of the elite: one can not entirely account neither for the honor nor for the pure lineage of one’s ancestors. Honor derived from lineage then is a shaky foundation on which to build a cultural myth that explains social superiority. When we remember that Don

426 Ibid., 125-126, 129-130.

427 Lazarillo de Tormes & The Grifter: Two Novels of the Low Life in Golden Age Spain, ed., & trans., David Frye, (Indianapolis: Hackett: 2015): 179.

161 Pablos was nearly successful in marrying into the elite class, we recall another feature of why adaptability is so threatening; if one can appear the same and sound the same as the elite through sheer effort or trickery, then there is no ultimate foundation on which to ground a system of exclusion. The system is revealed to be arbitrary, and potentially illegitimate, unjust and invalid.

Should the fact that Don Pablos ultimately ends up as the ‘rabbi of the ruffians’ and the best of scalawags compel us to conclude that SI has led him along the wrong path? I would say no; SI is both a framework and a tool for discerning action. It always defies the simple dualistic classifications of good or bad, of heroes or villains. The quality of SI can only be discerned in how well it is used. Like all arts, it must be continually practiced until one absorbs its quintessence, as will be clarified in the masterpieces of SI from the Italian Renaissance.

Renaissance: SI in Italian Renaissance Drama Vivere…militare est To live is to fight.428 Seneca (4 BCE – 65 CE)

It matters then little to a general along which road he travels, provided he has virtuosity.429 Niccolò Machiavelli

Nothing becomes a general more than to anticipate the enemy’s plans.430 Niccolò Machiavelli

Enosh hu shinnujim vekammah tebhaoth haf Man is a living creature of varied, multiform and ever changing nature. Pico Della Mirandola (1463 – 1494 CE)

428 Seneca, Epistles Morales 96.5.

429 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 3.21, 463.

430 Ibid., 3.18, 455.

162 The virtuosic strategist always wins the prize in the three 16th-century Italian

Renaissance dramas purveyed here, Machiavelli’s (1469-1527) Mandragola, Ludovico Ariosto’s

(1474-1533) La Lena (The Procuress, 1538), and Gl’Intronati Literary Society of Siena’s The

Deceived (Gl’Ingannati, 1538).431 Rather than analyzing these texts as others have previously, as social satire, political allegory, or as stories that extol libertinism, important clues in the texts show that these stories are really primers of SI. I do not think it an exaggeration to characterize these stories, which focus on underdog generalissimos of the strategic arts, as a celebration of human ingenuity and hope. And because they take as their primary theme SI in the realm of day- to-day life, the student of SI is benefitted much more quickly than through perusing the conventional and tedious treatises of SI in the domains of military strategy and political theory.

What these stories articulate is the gospel of SI: subtle stratagems enable the practitioner to achieve one’s heart’s desire, against all odds. These primers dramatize the ancient worldview of SI through the cunning deeds (solaria durum facta) of strategic generalissimos who utilize planning (consilium,) foresight (providentia), and right timing (occasio).432 The generalissimo of

SI is one who orchestrates and outmaneuvers by interpreting the social landscape and leveraging the vulnerabilities of his co-gamers. His or her prowess, what Machiavelli would call virtù, is directly proportional to his or her ability to put into force what one ancient called the “first wisdom” (πρώτη σοφία), that is to say, victory without the use of force. 433

431 Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed., Bruce Penman (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books), 1978.

432 Everett L. Wheeler, Stratagem and the Vocabulary of Military Trickery, (Leiden: E.J Brill, 1988), 1.

433 Ibid., 7.

163 The plots of all three dramas are indebted to models provided by ancient Roman comedy.

To excavate the SI from the texts, we must both acknowledge the meaning of the model in

Renaissance Italian society, and move beyond it to what is truly being displayed on stage. The bed trick was still just as relevant to patriarchal Italy as it was to Spain because it challenged the authority and legitimacy of familial lineage and honor. The trope of the bed trick threatened the status quo: the possibility of reversing one’s fortune by getting one’s cock in a greater man’s henhouse, figuratively speaking, delegitimized this system of cultural authority. Shifting weight to prowess (virtù) held important ramifications for self-esteem as underdogs could still be heroic even if they had not been blessed by fortuna and lineage. Machiavelli accentuates this theme in

Mandragola by juxtaposing fortune and nature in a zero-sum game, through the mouth of the slick servant Ligurio who says about the elder noble Nicia: “I don’t believe there’s a sillier man than that alive in the world today; and yet how fortune has heaped her favors on him!”434 In essence, the trope of the bed trick framed reproduction as an ultimately agonistic arena in which one’s excellence could be manifest.

The idea that one could undermine the legitimacy and authority of the patriarchy through imposture was apparently very titillating, but it was hardly novel. The basic plot synopsis of each of these love stories is actually quite boring, and largely interchangeable with the next: boy desires girl, boy and girl desire each other, girl desires boy. I argue that the love story provides the conventional backdrop against which the drama of exemplary, innovative and sophisticated stratagems were shown off. For example, the young noble Callimaco in Mandragola schemes to obtain the wife of the elder noble Nicia; Flavio & Licinia both contrive against her father in La

434 Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola Act 4, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 20.

164 Lena; and Lelia outwits both her father and her elderly intended in The Deceived. What is really fascinating about young love in these stories is the juxtaposition of virtù, necessità and fortuna— that is to say, the heroic capacity (virtù) to do what is necessary (necessità) to bend antagonistic reality to one’s will (fortuna), for fortune favors the brave.435 To achieve their aim, which is depicted as a life-or-death proposition, they must (necessità) employ the full range of strategic concepts inherited from the classical Latin past, including plans (consilium), tricks (dolus), deceit

(fraus), calculations (ratio), and craftiness (artificium).436 The lesson of these stories is that hope for young love lies in ingenuity.

Hope is threaded through these narratives, explicitly and implicitly. The highest form of hope is through a good ruse which will enable the protagonist to escape the trap of despair. For example, “the idiocy of Nicia… gives Callimacho grounds for hope” in Mandragola, and he is desperate for release: “But there’s no way out. If I can’t find a plan that’ll give me some degree of hope, I shall die anyway… I shall grasp at any course of action, no matter how crazy, cruel or infamous it may be.”437 His servant Siro comforts him with the possibility of subterfuge: “you won’t find many cases so desperate that there’s no loophole for hope.”438 To understand the mechanics of hope-as-stratagem in these stories, one must understand the strategic competition of two stock character types, the pater familias (senex) and the sly servant (calliditas).

435 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 55-62.

436 Everett L. Wheeler, Stratagem and the Vocabulary of Military Trickery, (Leiden: E.J Brill, 1988), 56.

437 Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola Act 1, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 20-21.

438 Ibid., 17.

165 Hope for the underdog is constructed on the vulnerability of the pater familias, who can be manipulated if the strategist can clearly see his weakness. Nicia, Ilario, Fazio, Gherardo and

Virginio all function as the image of authority, legitimacy and power, but in name only since they lack prowess (virtù). They are described as foolish, silly, imprudent, stingy, stupid, inexperienced, book-smart, insensible, gullible, naïve, and obsessed with honor. As the master of

SI, the Jesuit priest Gracián, pointed out:

Understand the characters of the people you are dealing with in order to penetrate their intentions…439 A person of sharp observation and sound judgement rules over objects and keeps objects from ruling him. He plumbs the greatest depths, and studies the anatomies of other people’s talent. No sooner does he see someone than he has understood him and judged his essence. With rare powers of observation he deciphers even what is most hidden. He observes sternly, conceives subtly, reasons judiciously: there is nothing he cannot discover, notice, grasp, understand…440 Find each persons’ ‘handle,’ his weak point. Size up someone’s character and then touch on his weak point. Tempt him with his particular pleasure, and you’ll checkmate his will.441

Nicias in Mandragola is the best example of this: the sly servant Ligurio uses Nicia’s desperation to have a child as the leverage point that compels Nicia to willingly cuckold himself and whore out his pious wife.442 Nicias presents himself as worldly, on guard against all types of trickery, and yet he allows himself to be “led by the nose,” to get “trapped in the soup,” and to trust the predator “like a child trusts his mother.” Recalling the story of the deceiving Hebrew patriarch Jacob above, imprudent Nicias revels in his horns, aggressively advocating for “Israel

439Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, A Pocket Oracle, trans., Christopher Maurer (New York: Doubleday, 1991), Aphorism 273, 154.

440 Ibid., Aphorism 49, 28.

441 Ibid., Aphorism 26, 15.

442 Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 28.

166 to enter Egypt” (for Callimacho to enter his wife), which makes her “more blessed than the blessed, more saintly than the sainted.”443

The true masters of SI in these Renaissance stories are not the progeny of the nobility who hope to get laid.444 Rather, the slick servants of each of the three dramas, Ligurio, Corbolo, and Clemenzia, are the exemplary generalissimos of SI who orchestrate and implement the strategic plan, outmaneuvering their opponents through sophisticated ruses. This is called out explicitly by Corbolo in La Lena:

What’s needed here is the sort of cunning servant I’ve sometimes seen on the stage, who’d know how to tap the old boy’s purse for a sum like that with a few well-thought-out tricks. Ah well, I may not be Davus or Sosia—I may not have been born among the Getae or the Syrians—but oughtn’t I still to have a bit of cunning in this ugly old head of mine? Can’t I set up some audacious plot, in which Fortune will take a hand as well, since she’s supposed to favor the brave?”445

There is no doubt, these stories are battles of wits; this is made explicit by Ligurio who humorously juxtaposes cuckoldry with warfare: “I’ll be the general, and dispose the army in an order of battle. The right wing, or shall we say horn, of our formation, will be commanded by

Callimaco. I shall take charge of the left horn. Messer Nicia will stand here between the two horns, and Siro will be the rearguard, and lend his support to any contingent that gives ground.

443 Ibid., Act 4, 56.

444 With the exception of Lelia in The Deceived who proactively disguises herself as a page to get the object of her desire. Gl’Intronati Literary Society of Siena, The Deceived (Gl’Ingannati), in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed., Bruce Penman (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978).

445 Ludovico Ariosto, La Lena, Act 3, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed., Bruce Penman (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978).

167 Our watchword will be St. Coucou.”446 The cunning servant Corbolo in La Lena echoes this military strategy:

Corbolo: Then take up your stations! you stay here and watch out carefully; if the carts go past that way, you can run over to them in a moment. And you watch the other road over there. Well, that’s the artillery properly posted on the flanks! Just now my lies were in full retreat, defeated and broken; but now they can make a stand, launch a counterattack, and put their main pursuer, Ilario, to flight. But here he comes. My lies are going to have a hard struggle to begin with, but if they survive that, victory is certain.447 …The army of my lies is going to be victorious in the end—in spite of Fortune, which did its best to defend the contents of Ilario’s purse from me.448

All of the stealthy servants are master tacticians that orchestrate multi-pronged strategic campaigns. The generalissimos of Mandragola dramatize the strategic arts of generalship that

Machiavelli described in his Discorsi: the master of SI analyzes the details of the circumstances just like a virtuosic general that knows both the “lay of the land,” and the “nature of the country,” a skill which is honed through hunting, the most warlike activity.449 Ligurio carefully analyzes the situation and identifies all of the leverage points of people’s weaknesses; his genius is manifest by the manner in which he distributes agency across the carefully woven web of intrigue and conspiracy, for as Fra Timoteo notes, “when a thing concerns a lot of people, there’ll be a lot of people trying to make a success of it.”450 Ligurio entraps Nicias by enlisting the help

446 St. Coucou was the patron saint of adultery. Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola Act 4, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 49.

447 Ludovico Ariosto, La Lena, Act 5, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 100.

448 Ibid., 105.

449 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 3.39, 510-512.

450 Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola Act x, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 47.

168 of Nicias’ mother-in-law Sostrata, who ironically becomes a procuress, and the confessor of

Nicias’ wife, Fra Timoteo. Ligurio traps Fra Timoteo by opportunistically leveraging the friar’s greediness—greed similarly characterizes Lena’s weakness in La Lena. Sly servants practice all of the strategic arts451: they help the ‘protagonists adapt to opportunity,452 lay traps,453 catch birds,454 use words of enchantment,455 weave threads into hunting nets,456 entangle their prey,457 and play dirty tricks.458 They even defraud each other; for example, the strategic servant lures the pedant to a certain inn because he knows that the pedant is a sodomite.459 Ligurio tricks Fra

Timoteo in order to feel him out, a strategic act that parallels what the Jesuit master of SI

Gracián, described as “floating a trial balloon,” and “testing others.”

Float a trial balloon: to see how well something is accepted and received, especially when you doubt its popularity or success…maximum foresight in asking, wanting, and ruling. 460

451 Ludovico Ariosto, La Lena, Act 3, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 110.

452 In Mandragola, Ligurio disguises Callimacho as a doctor, Act 1 “Just follow my line of talk and adapt yourself to what I say.” 22, 26 Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola Act 4, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 22, 26.

453 Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola Act 3, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 73; Lena 73.

454 Ludovico Ariosto, La Lena, Act 3, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 78.

455 Ibid., 86.

456 Ibid., 87.

457 Ibid., Act 3, 100. Also Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola Act x, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed., Bruce Penman (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978) 28.

458 Ibid., Act 3, 110.

459 Gl’Intronati Literary Society of Siena, The Deceived (Gl’Ingannati). Act X, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 238.

460 Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, A Pocket Oracle, Christopher Maurer, trans, (New York: Doubleday, 1991), Aphorism 164, 93.

169 Know how to test others…it takes great powers of judgement to measure someone else’s. It is more important to know the qualities and temperaments of people then those of stones and herbs. This is one of the subtlest things in life. Metals are identified by their sounds, and people by their speech. Words demonstrate integrity, and deeds even more so. Here is where one needs extraordinary care, profound observation, and critical power.461

In addition to testing, the nuns deceive Lelia’s father by disguising her as a boy, and Fra

Timoteo tricks his spiritual daughter to “receive the mystery” of adultery through the story of Lot and his daughters who “sinned not in intention.”462 The furtive servant Pasquella in The Deceived even prays a special prayer of trickery:

Pasquella: Ghostly spirit, ghostly spirit, That wanders night and day! With tail upright you came to haunt me, With upright tail you’ll go away. We’re birds of a feather, You’ve run into dirty weather; You thought you’d snatch me, And now you can’t catch me. Amen.

Giglio: I not understand your prayer…By all the holy martyrs, I believe that this miserable old bawd have cheated me!463

What is most extraordinary about these stories of heroic strategy is that each resolves itself with a scene of requited love. In Mandragola, Callimacho obtains the object of his desire, his beloved benefits from the prowess of younger lover, and Nicias the elder presumably gets an heir. In Lena, the young lovers successfully get together, and the vengeful procuress Lena is reconciled to her lover Fazio. In The Deceived, the brother and sister pair both turn their trysts

461 Ibid., Aphorism 291, 163-164.

462 Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola Act x, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 39.

463 Gl’Intronati Literary Society of Siena, The Deceived (Gl’Ingannati), Act 4, in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed. Bruce Penman, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 261.

170 into a respectable marriage. And here the voyeur is again confronted with the paradox: the best hope that humanity has to offer, its ingenuity, is also the nadir of human behavior. It is quite simply despicable. Paradoxically, human ingenuity as hope is both comic and tragic—we are compelled to laugh, cry, and rage.

Although I discontinue excavating the cultural genealogy of the values and worldview of

SI in Western Civilization at this point in the 17th century, it by no means disappeared. Rather, the themes and motifs of SI have been taken up in every cultural domain up to the present time.

SI is present in Pico Della Mirandela’s 15th-century Oration, when he describes the great trick to be akin to “Circe’s wiles” and man’s metamorphosis into beastiality rather than achieve his God- like destiny:

Who then will not look with awe upon this our chameleon, or who, at least, will look with greater admiration on any other being? This creature, man, whom Asclepius the Athenian, by reason of this very mutability, this nature capable of transforming itself, quite rightly said was symbolized in the mysteries by the figure of Proteus. This is the source of those metamorphoses, or transformations, so celebrated among the Hebrews and among the Pythagoreans…This is why Evantes the Persian in his exposition of the Chaldean theology, writes that man has no inborn and proper semblance, but many which are extraneous and aventitious: whence the Chaldean saying:"Enosh hu shinnujim vekammah tebhaoth haf—"man is a living creature of varied, multiform and ever-changing nature.”464

John Milton in Paradise Lost “attributes intelligence of the highest order to the devil.”465

Thomas Hobbes, in his 17th-century classic Leviathon, claimed that equality is only possible because Nature has neutralized stronger bodies with quicker minds: “for last to the strength of

464 Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola, “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” trans., A. Robert Caponigri, http:// www.martinshaven.com/Resources/Pico%20Della%20Mirandola%20- %20Oration%20on%20the%20Dignity%20of%20Man.pdf (accessed 20 Jan. 2018).

465 John Erskine, "The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent,” in The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent and Other Essays, (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1921).

171 the body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger as himself…the power of a man…is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.”466 We must deal elsewhere with René

Descartes’ ‘evil genius’ who is “summe potens" and “callidus” (ultimately powerful and cunning).467

I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity…

Immanuel Kant demonized the illegitimate deception of tradition that he referred to as the

“the oldest of all fictions, the religion of priest-craft.”468 Friedrich Nietzsche thought that moderns had been deceived historically by a transvaluation of moral values motivated by the ressentiment of prey.469 Martin Heidegger constructed a grand narrative based on the withdrawal and self-concealment of Being. Ludwig Wittgenstein thought that philosophy was the domain in which flies were liberated from the self-imposed trap of the fly-bottle. Jean-Paul Sartre and the existentialists articulated the possibility of self-deception as “bad faith” (mal fides/ mauvaise foi), and Sigmund Freud and the psychoanalytic tradition contended that the human is often deceived by irrational impulses arising from the subterranean realm of the psyche. Perhaps nowhere has the cultural model of the snare-aware been so clarified as in the French Sociologist of

466 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 13, in Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy, ed. Steven M. Cahn, 2nd ed., (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 391, 387.

467 deus deceptor (French dieu trompeur.

468 Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans., Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper, 1960), 15.

469 See ‘herd instinct (p11), beast of prey (p. 22, 90), lambs and bird of prey (p 25), Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans., Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen (Indianapolis: Hackett), 1998.

172 Knowledge Michel Foucault’s analysis of Immanuel Kant’s 18th-century essay What is

Enlightenment? (Was ist Aufklärung?): for Foucault and Kant, enlightenment (aufklärung/

Lumières) is “a way out: a sortie from immaturity.”470 Kant’s famous charge sapere aude! (dare to know) is then, also a moral imperative of escape; it is the re-secularized soteriology of the snare-aware.

SI refuses to be boxed in; it always insists on hope. As the most notorious master of SI in modern times Machiavelli pointed out:

Men may second their fortune, but cannot oppose it; that they may weave its warp, but cannot break it. Yet they should never give up, because there is always hope, though they know not the end and move towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored; and since there is hope, they should not despair, no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves. 471

For the enlightened snare-aware dolophron (δολόφρονες), hope is a continuous and radical opening of possibility. These values and worldview are so compelling that SI has been a cultural dominant in Western Civilization since the dawn of history, and has been invested with the highest forms of authority and legitimacy. No matter to what degree culture, language, and ways of life have evolved, the values of SI embedded in cultural products have been continuously transmitted. Although SI itself is cunningly deceptive, often presenting itself as mere shallow entertainment, it is, in fact, a consistent worldview of values, and a general approach to the threat of any given antagonistic reality.

470 Foucault, Michel. "What is Enlightenment?" in The Foucault Reader, ed., Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 32-50.. Qu'est-ce que les Lumières?

471 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick, trans., Leslie J. Walker, (London: Penguin, 2003), 2.29, 372.

173 CHAPTER VI CHINESE STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE

任術以求成，運數以求匿者，智也 He who seeks success through craft, and the hidden in fortune: is wise.472 Wáng Bì 王弼 (226–249) on the Dàodéjīng

弱之⾁，强之⾷ The weak are meat, the strong do eat. Hán Yù (768 - 824) 473

The preceding pages traced the cultural genealogy of the values of SI in Western civilization. My analysis of historical visual and textual evidence has demonstrated that the strategic is a heroic attribute common to both divinity and humanity. The ancients observed that the strategic was just as common to some animal species, and many moderns agree, pointing to dolphins as an exemplar of strategic thinking.474 This chapter considers the degree to which the root metaphor of the strategic might be operating in other cultural legacies, the ways that it has been expressed, and the possibility of recovering the global pedigree of strategic rationality. In particular, after gesturing to the strategic in other cultures, I introduce in depth a modern source that has become a cultural phenomenon in China, Lǐ Zōngwú’s Theory of the Thick and Black

(1911, hereafter Theory). My argument is simple: narrated through the cultural metaphors and images provided by the Chinese cultural legacy, the metaphor of the strategic looms large in

Theory, and is indicative of a metaphorological paradigm.

472 Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 77.

473 Hán Yù 韩愈 “送浮屠⽂畅师序.”

474 Anuschka de Rohan, “Why Dolphins are Deep Thinkers.” The Guardian. (July 2, 2003). https:// www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jul/03/research.science (accessed 20 Jan. 2018).

174 In this chapter we travel east to sketch a baseline for the cultural genealogies of SI in other Eurasian cultures. After establishing Theory as a cultural phenomena in contemporary

China that is indicative of the metaphorological paradigm of the strategic, I very briefly contextualize the text in late Qīng and 1990’s cultures in light of cultural trauma, and as an articulation of strategic hope for a disordered, unjust world.

In this chapter, I hope to accomplish the following three goals: 1. emulate the history of meaning approach taken by the famous scholar of religion Karen Armstrong, who in her book the

Battle for God demonstrated the manner in which counter-cultures develop as a highly creative response to contested values associated with rapid cultural evolution; 2. propose a method of reading that searches for meaning and values in literary products (as opposed to the types of analysis usually utilized by scholars of Chinese literature); 3. demonstrate to students of Chinese strategic thought that one needs to go beyond Sunzi’s Art of War if one intends to understand

Chinese strategy.475 For the purposes of this thesis, what is salient is that Lǐ’s Theory explores the meaning of the heroic strategic as an existential life and death contest in uniquely Chinese cultural metaphors. In lieu of strong cultural consensus as a legitimizing force for human meaning, Lǐ shows that hope, as individual strategic advantage, can only be built through a kung- fu type of regimen of cultivated social manipulation.

Towards a Global SI

A quick survey of the foundational sources of other Eurasian cultures reveals the intriguing existence of heroic SI that parallels its descent in Western civilization. In the Islamic

475 Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, (London: Harper Perennial, 2004).

175 ,cunning, foxy, sly‘ (ﻣﺎﻛﺮ) tradition, Qur’ānic lore often praises divinely heroic SI as makir scheming’:

• Can they remain secure against the plan of God? Only they feel secure against the plan of God who are certain of being ruined. • Remember, when the finders contrived to make you a prisoner or to murder or expel you, they plotted, but God also planned; and God’s plan is the best. • Say: “God is swifter at contriving,” for Our angels record everything you plan.” • Surely those who had gone before them had also plotted; but God’s is all the planning…”476

In addition to the stories of al-Iskandari and Abu Zayd in the Arabic middle ages discussed earlier, images of strategic tricksters occur in a descent in Islamic cultural sources in

Iranian and Turkish dominated forms, indubitably enabled by historical processes of cultural diffusion in venues such as the Silk Road. In Ferdowsi’s (940 CE- 1020) epic poem Shahnameh

(Book of Kings), a text that has been described as “the essence of Iranian nationhood,” primeval conflict is engendered when the evil Ahriman hatches a plot with his son Khazuran against the new king Kayumars. Later the king Zahhak is repeatedly tricked by devilish plots, and the hero

Rostam can only slay the dragon and witches through cunning strategy.477 This is mirrored by many stories of trickery and strategy in the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk’s (1018 – 1092),

Siyasatnama (Book of Government), such as when Nushirwan the Just exposes the religious chicanery of Mazdak.478 Arabian Nights is an extended ruse on the part of the raconteur who continues to tell stories every night in order to stave off execution, and the Conference of the

Birds, by Farid Ud-Din Attar (1145 – 1221 CE), is written as a beneficial deception that intends

476 Qur’ān 7:99, 8:30, 10:21, 13:42.

477 Firdawsi, Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings, trans., Admad Sadri, (New York: Quantuck Lane Press, 2013).

478 Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings (The Siyāsat-nāma of Siyar al-Mulūk), trans. Hubert Darke, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), chapter 44.

176 to lead the Sufi neophyte into Enlightenment: the quest for the elusive Simorgh is ultimately a journey towards self.479

The figure of the cunning magician (ayar ऐयार) is one of the ways that SI has been articulated in the cultural products of Islamic Asia, such as the tales of Amir Hamza narrated in the Hamzanama, a text which roots have grown out of the cross-fertilization of Iranian and

Indian cultural traditions.480 The sly Amar is the chief of the tricksters, the ‘general’ over a hundred thousand others. Like Sword and the Stone, the contest of ingenuity is displayed in the numerous magical competitions, with tricksters competing to outwit their competitors though ever more ingenious snares and traps. The root metaphor of entrapment/liberation is operative in the Hindu tradition as well. In Hinduism and Buddhism alike, humans are trapped like Odysseus in the great wandering (saṃsāra संसार) of appearances (māyā माया), seeking for a strategy of escape (mokṣa मोक). The Vedic depiction of the deity Indra appears to provide a metaphysical foundation for deception: Indra is a type of trickster god who used a magic net (indrajala

इनजाल) to snare his enemies. This net simultaneously refers to darkness, magic, deception, illusion and sorcery. In subsequent Mahayana doctrine, the metaphor of Indra’s net was extended to signify infinite interpenetration of an object and reflection. In India, the law of the jungle has been rendered as the law of fishes (matsya nyaya मत नाय), and the values of SI are also expressed through divine, human and animal figures.481 For example, the figures of Krishna in

479 Farid ud-din Attar, The Conference of the Birds, (London: Penguin Books, 1984), 16.

480 Hamid Dabashi, “Introduction,” The Adventures of Amir Hamza, Lord of the Auspicious Planetary Conjunction, trans., Musharraf Ali Farooqi, (New York: The Modern Library, 2007), xvi.

481 I am indebted to Ariel Glucklich for this insight.

177 the Mahabharata and Hanuman the monkey-deity in the Ramayana exemplify the godly; most of the women in the Mahabharata, whose SI is seen in their secret and expedient liaisons with lovers, articulate the human (the character Manthara, the hunchback, is a particularly great example of the female strategist), and many of the animals in Buddhist Jataka stories and in the

Panćatantra express SI in a similar way to the aphoristic Aesop’s Fables, albeit in an extended frame narrative.482 Translated into English as “Fables of Bidpai,” and “The Morall Philosophie of

Doni of the auncient sages,” 16th-century English intellectuals correctly understood that the

Panćatantra was a cultural medium that bore the values underlying a cohesive moral and political philosophy.483 Indeed, the political philosophy articulated through Kautīlya’s

Arthaśāstra (4th century BCE) made of SI a high art in the employ of the state; SI is the tool of espionage practiced by messenger diplomats, apostate monks, spying nuns, disguised ascetics, faking farmers, merchants, orphans, poisoners, and double-agents.484

A Brief Genealogy of Chinese Strategic Rationality

Although dried up, the ocean bed revealed, 海枯終⾒底， In death man’s heart lies e‘er concealed.⼈死不知⼼.485

A comprehensive genealogy of SI in Chinese civilization still needs to be researched and documented, but for our purposes here it will have to suffice to call out some of the more intriguing exemplars as a means of situating Theory within a line of cultural descent. Lisa

482 Visnu Śarma, The Panćatantra, trans, Chandra Rajan, (London: Penguin Books), 1995.

483 Sir Thomas North, (London, Ballantyne Press 1570), 42. HathiTrust Digital Library, https:// catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100654063, (accessed 20 Jan. 2018).

484 Aradhana Parmar, Techniques of Statecraft: A Study of Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra, (Delhi: Atma Ram & Sons, 1987), 231-242.

485 ⾃古⼈⼼難測，⾯從背達，知外⽽不知內，知內⽽不知⼼，正所謂“海枯終⾒底，⼈死不知⼼。 Xǔ Zhònglín 许仲琳, Romance of the Investiture of the Gods 封神演义, (Hong Kong: Zhōnghuá Shūjú 中华书局, 1976, chapter 21.

178 Raphals has done an superb job of teasing out the complexity of SI in intellectual discourse, tracing the use of words and attitudes in intellectual and cultural contestation over the long course of Chinese history. In addition to Raphals’ exploration of words as used in classical and

Míng dynasty sources, I envision that a cultural genealogy of SI in Chinese civilization has to take into consideration its articulation in multiple cultural domains, figures, and metaphors.

To the long list of strategically intelligent martial heroes that have been valorized throughout the long evolution of Chinese culture (Jiāng Ziyá 11th BCE), Sūn Wǔ (~500 BCE),

Zhūgé Liàng (181–234 CE), Hán Xìn (201 BC – 196 BC), Zhāng Liáng (186 BCE), Xiāo Hé

(206-196 BCE), Sīmǎ Yì (179 – 251 CE), Cáo Cāo (155 – 220 CE ), we can broaden our understanding of Chinese strategic rationality by recovering the strategic values expressed by figures in the culturally foundational genres of myth and legend, and in subsequent fiction and drama.486 For example, stories of strategic values inform the figures of deities and the legendary founders of misty pre-history; the Lord-god of the Granary is a figuration of the “resourceful hero” who outwitted the trickster Goddess of Salt River. 487 Cháng'é was a deity that stole the drug of immortality from the gods—in return she was banished to the moon and transfigured into a toad.488

A possible ressentiment driving the SI and worldview of calculating Chinese intellectuals can be excavated from a sensitive reading of the figures of classical founder-heroes of the

Chinese legendary past, an insight implicit in Sarah Allan’s The Heir and the Sage: Dynastic

486 Jiāng Ziyá 姜⼦⽛, Sūn Wǔ 孫武, Zhūgé Liàng 諸葛亮, Hán Xìn 韓信, Zhāng Liáng 張良, Xiāo Hé 蕭 何 206-196, Sīmǎ Yì 司马懿, Cáo Cāo 曹操.

487 Anne Birrell, China Mythology: An Introduction, (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1993), 179, 204-205.

488 Cháng'é 嫦娥. Ibid., 11, 144.

179 Legend in Early China.489 Like the texts discussed in the Western cultural trajectory, as Allan pointed out, the basic human problem of social asymmetry was expressed in Chinese culture in political concerns about legitimate succession. But there is a more fundamental issue at stake that is expressed in the mythopoetic: the conflict between royal blood and merit— of the virtù of the masters of culture (⽂ wén), is also an exploration of the cultural foundations of justice and order.

This contest was an existential values conflict for meaning itself: by undermining the authority and legitimacy of the concept of hereditary royal succession as a cultural foundation, the calculating class (the have-nots) simultaneously enabled the possibility of their own self- actualization. In place of bloodlines, the new foundation was grounded on worth, the worth of the worthies, the sages of historical Chinese culture. 490

The legendary rulers, Shùn the Great and Yǔ the Great are legendary hero-rulers from misty pre-history who both used a strategic, calculating intelligence to achieve their aims; both were strategic heroes because they were commoners who broke the tradition of hereditary succession.491 As myth, they function as cultural models that express the hope of ultimate self- actualization of the have-nots, and were therefore heroes to the scribal class. Due to his supposed sagacity, although he was a commoner, Shùn became heir to King Yáo and married his two daughters.492 Although later moralists tried to depict him historically as the icon of filial and brotherly piety, we can recover an earlier mythic depiction of Shùn’s SI; his biological father

489 Sarah Allan, The Heir and the Sage: Dynastic Legend in Early China, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016).

490 Worthy is usually translated as sage: xián 贤.

491 Shùn the Great ⼤舜, Yǔ the Great ⼤禹.

492 King Yáo 尧, commoner pǐfū 匹夫.

180 Blind man and half-brother Xiàng tried to burn Shùn alive in a granary and bury him alive in a well; in both cases the tricksters were out-tricked by the exemplary SI of Shùn’s two female consorts, the Xiāng river goddesses É Huáng and Nǚyīng, who saved him with a ruse each time.493 A similar tradition exists for Yǔ the Great, who, some ancient sources claimed, “desired the throne.”494 In contrast to Confucian moralist interpretations, Yǔ’s SI can be clearly observed in his reaction to the murder of his father Gǔn by King Yáo. Yáo executed Gǔn because Gǔn was not able to manage the floodwaters, even after he had illicitly snatched the “expanding earth" from the gods.495 Rather than escaping, Yǔ continued to serve Yáo, even though this was a clear violation of filial piety.496 This invulnerability to shame, I conjecture, is the locus classicus of the metaphor of “thickened face” discussed in Theory, and resonates in the conflict of King Wén discussed below.497

The strategic plotting and snatching of the have-nots is common to both classical heroes and villains.498 Tāng plotted against his liege, and Yīyǐn posed as a servant in the harem in order to influence the king.499 Like the strategic genius of Jiāng Ziyá, who has subsequently become a saint in East Asian folk religions, the grand master Preceptor Father Wàng (Tàigōng Wàng) was

493 Blind man Gǔsǒu 瞽瞍, Xiàng 象, Xiāng river 湘, É Huáng 娥皇 , Nǚyīng ⼥英. Ibid., 43-50; Birrell 104.

494 贪位, Ibid., 68.

495 Gǔn 鯀, expanding earth 息壤; Anne Birrell, China Mythology: An Introduction, (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1993), 80.

496 Yǔ the Great’s strategy of ‘governing the waters’ ⼤禹治⽔. Birrell: 146-147; Allan: 69.

497 Thickened face: hòuliǎn 厚脸.

498 Plotting: móu 謀. Snatching: duó 奪. Allan, 73, 90-93.

499 Tāng 湯, Yīyǐn 伊尹, Preceptor Father Wàng 师尚⽗, Tàigōng Wàng 太公望, occult: 奇, secrecy: 潜.

181 an “unorthodox magician” who practiced the occult and secrecy. 500 He correctly interpreted omens and aided in overthrowing the Shāng dynasty.501

The strategic values articulated through all of these cultural models would be manifest again thousands of years later in the “small tradition” of vernacular fiction.502 The hero Sūn

Wùkōng, a magic-egg turned stone-monkey-king from the 16th-century novel Journey to the

West, gains eternal life through the illicit snatching of the peaches of immortality, jade liquor and

Lǎozi‘s golden elixir of immortality.503 Taking up the ancient story of King Wén (1152 – 1056

BCE) of the Zhōu dynasty, the legendary king gifted with foresight and the originator of the ‘I

Ching” hexagrams, the 16th-century vernacular novel Romance of the Investiture of the Gods demonstrates King Wén's inheritance of SI from the model provided by Yǔ the Great.504

Although he sees through her wicked plots, Wén’s son Bó Yìkǎo is ultimately unable to escape the trickery and predatory web of the fox spirit that possesses the queen’s body.505 Steadfast against her lustful advances, she then responds with a vow to dice him up and serve him to his father Wén in a mince pie.506 In addition to being a form a revenge designed to “vent her resentment,”507 it is also a display of what the text describes as his majesty’s “humane virtue of

500 Allan, 98.

501 Shāng 商 dynasty. Allan, 107, 153, 167.

502 The term “small tradition” xiǎoshuō ⼩說, is used to mean ‘fiction.'

503 Sūn Wùkōng 孫悟空, Journey to the West 西游记.

504 King Wén ⽂王 . Xǔ Zhònglín 许仲琳, Romance of the Investiture of the Gods 封神演义, (Hong Kong: Zhōnghuá Shūjú 中华书局, 1976, chapters 19-23).

505 Bó Yìkǎo 伯⾢考, trickery: 法, web: 羅網.

506 粉⾻碎⾝.

507 消恨.

182 not being murderous,” and a test of Wén’s strategic foresight as he is known to have great ability reading portents.508 It is a moment of identity-defining crisis for Wén, nothing less than Wén’s personal heroism is at stake: he is a threat to the king if he foresees the ruse; he is truly a worthless commoner if he does not.

Being trapped between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis, Wén’s response is remarkable for the way in which he strategically displays forbearance to insult, provocation, and shame in the present in order to obtain long-term strategic advantage. Alerted to the ruse through astounding sensitivity (he perceived a ‘murderous sound’ 殺聲 emanating from his zither), Wén saves his own life expediently: he eats three of the mince-pies in order to outwit his enemy and expediently save himself, and only vomits them up after he leaves court so as not to incur more suspicion. This strategy of covering your light by remaining in the shadows, of conceal, not reveal, is the quintessence of strategic rationality.509 Truly unfathomable is the hidden heart, notes the novel: “tho’ he appears loyal on the surface, one can never know the inner heart, as the saying goes, although dried up the ocean bed revealed, in death man’s heart lies e’er concealed."510 What Would Wén Do? (WWWD?) By strategically seeing through the ruse, accepting short term shame, and adapting, what we nowadays call sucking it up, Wén outtricks the trickster, getting his revenge in the long term by toppling the tyrant.

508 Humane virtue of not being murderous: 不殺之仁. Reading portents: 明禍福, 善識陰陽.

509 Covering your light by remaining in the shadows: tāoguāngyǎnghuì 韬光养晦; conceal, not reveal: yǐncáng bù lù 隐藏不露.

510 ⾃古⼈⼼難測，⾯從背達，知外⽽不知內，知內⽽不知⼼，正所謂“海枯終⾒底，⼈死不知⼼。 Chapter 21.

183 In addition to ancient sources of SI that express court and inter-kingdom intrigue

(Intrigues of the Warring States, Commentary of Zuǒ (Zuǒzhuàn), Spring and Autumn Annals, fictive and dramatic sources (The Orphan of Zhao, Snatching Tiger Mountain by Strategy) remind us of other types of figures that express the values of a SI.511 The 18th-century masterpiece featuring another sentient stone, the Dream of the Red Chamber/Story of the Stone, which can be summed up in one of its most famous lines: “when the false is taken for true, then the true is also false,” reminds one of the primacy of illusion.512 Countering this elegant novel of manners, Chinese literary history resounds with the adventures of strategically heroic deplorables, such as cunning-folk and masters of arts, prognosticators, shamans, fox spirits, and rogues “of the lakes and rivers.”513 Strategic rationality is just as central to the Robin Hood type hoodlums in Chronicle of the Water Margin as it is for other lowlifes, such as the oil peddler from Míng dynasty author Féng Mènglóng’s (1574–1646) story, The Oil Peddler Alone Claims the Flower Queen, a morality tale in which the lowly protagonist acquires a high class courtesan through the savior faire strategy of “courteous accommodation.”514

511 Intrigues of the Warring States Zhànguócè 战国策. Commentary of Zuǒ Zuǒzhuàn 左传. Lǚshì Chūnqiū 吕⽒春秋. The Orphan of Zhao Zhàoshì Gū’ér 趙⽒孤兒. Snatching Tiger Mountain by Strategy Zhìqǔ Wēihǔshān 智取威虎⼭.

512 Jiǎ zuò zhēn shí, zhēn yì jiǎ 假作真时真亦假. Hónglóumèng／Shítou jì (紅樓夢/⽯頭記).

513 Cunning-folk and masters of arts: fāngshù ⽅術;⽅⼠. Shamans: wū 巫. Fox spirits: húlíjīng 狐狸精. Rogues “of the lakes and rivers: zǒu jiānghú ⾛江湖.

514 Chronicle of the Water Margin Shuǐhǔ zhuàn ⽔浒传. Courteous accommodation: bāngchèn 帮衬). Féng Mènglóng 冯梦龙 冯梦龙, Tales to Awaken the World Xǐngshì Héngyán 醒世恒⾔) 卷三《Màiyóuláng Dúzhàn Huākuí 卖油郎独占花魁》

184 It can be imagined that illicit ‘snatching’ is the operative term underlying the concept of ravaging often used by Chinese philosophers.515 The Robber Zhí section of the Daoist text,

Zhuāngzi (~400-200 BCE) is one of the earliest exposés that delegitimizes Confucian values as an authoritative foundation for society, and a progenitor of Theory.516 In it, ancient figures and metaphors valorized by Confucians for articulating core values such as empathetic response, reciprocity, trustworthiness are unmasked as pure artifice.

Zizhāng asked Mǎn Gǒudé: 'Why not practice the way [of empathetic response 任 and just reciprocity 義]? One lacks trustworthiness without the way, lacks office without trustworthiness, and lacks wealth without office. For those who esteem reputation and value wealth, verily it is so. If you disregard reputation and gain and seek it in the heart, can a scholar do without the way for even one day?

Mǎn Gǒudé replied: The shameless become rich and sycophants become prominent: so, shamelessness and slavishness are the mechanisms of greatest fame and gain. From the perspective of reputation and the reckoning of gain, this is the truth of trustworthiness. If you seek it in the heart and disregard fame and gain, (you will realize that) the scholar on the Way embraces the heavenly [within himself].517

In essence, this section juxtaposes two foundations for human value: the external realm of wealth and reputation is opposed to a sense of human dignity derived from within; they represent two opposing and irreconcilable strategies that are fundamental because one’s sense of self- esteem and identity must be grounded on one or the other.

515 Theft: zéi 贼.

516 Zhuāngzi 莊⼦, “Robber Zhí” Dào Zhí 盜跖.

517 ⼦張問於滿苟得⽈：「盍不為⾏？無⾏則不信，不信則不任，不任則不利。故觀之名，計之 利，⽽義真是也。若棄名利，反之於⼼，則夫⼠之為⾏，不可⼀⽇不為乎？」滿苟得⽈：「無恥者富，多 信者顯。夫名利之⼤者，幾在無恥⽽信。故觀之名，計之利，⽽信真是也。若棄名利，反之於⼼，則夫⼠ 之為⾏，抱其天乎！ Robber Zhí (Dào Zhí 盜跖) section of the Zhuāngzi. “Chinese Text Project” http://ctext.org/ zhuangzi/robber-zhi? (accessed 20 April 2016)

185 Zizhāng said: Jié and Zhòu both were honored to be the emperor and enjoyed the realm’s wealth. But, today’s commoners would be mortified if you said that their behavior resembled them as they are now held in contempt even by the commoners! Although Confucius and Mò Dí were poor commoners, their behavior was so noble that even the Prime Minister would protest if you compared him to them! Therefore, the position of the sovereign is not necessarily noble and the poor and common are not necessarily base: the difference in noble and base is in good and evil behavior.

Mǎn Gǒudé replied: Small thieves get caught and great ones become lords--and that is where one finds the loyal (義 yì) scholars! In ancient times, Duke Huán murdered his older brother and usurped his wife and yet Guǎn Zhòng still became his minister. Tián Chéng...committed regicide and seized power and still Confucius accepted gifts from him. They criticized them verbally, but only demeaned themselves in their vassalage. This irrational contradiction in their words and behavior reflects the perverse conflict in their own hearts. And thus we are told: “Who is good and who is bad? The winner is the head and the loser the tail.”518

In the following section, the Daoist Mǎn Gǒudé goes for the jugular, so to say, by attacking the core heroic metaphor of Confucianism, family affection:

Zizhāng asked: “If you do not practice the way, ignoring the ethics of family relations, the proper reciprocity of noble and base, the precedence of elder and younger, and the order of the five cardinal relations and six roles, then what do you use to discriminate?

Mǎn Gǒudé replied: Did Yáo and Shùn observe family ethics when one killed his eldest son, and the other banished his half-brother? Did Tāng and King Wǔ regard the reciprocity of the noble and base when the former deposed Jié and the latter overthrew Zhòu? Did King Jì and the Duke of Zhōu respect their elders when the former took his older brother’s place and the latter murdered his? Are the five

518 Ibid. ⼦張⽈：「昔者桀、紂貴為天⼦，富有天下，今謂臧聚⽈『汝⾏如桀、紂』，則有怍⾊， 有不服之⼼者，⼩⼈所賤也。仲尼、墨翟，窮為匹夫，今謂宰相⽈『⼦⾏如仲尼、墨翟』，則變容易⾊稱 不⾜者，⼠誠貴也。故勢為天⼦，未必貴也；窮為匹夫，未必賤也。貴賤之分，在⾏之美惡。」滿苟得 ⽈：「⼩盜者拘，⼤盜者為諸侯，諸侯之⾨，義⼠存焉。昔者桓公⼩⽩殺兄⼊嫂⽽管仲為⾂，⽥成⼦常殺 君竊國⽽孔⼦受幣。論則賤之，⾏則下之，則是⾔⾏之情悖戰於胸中也，不亦拂乎！故《書》⽈：『孰惡 孰美？成者為⾸，不成者為尾。』」

186 cardinal relations and six roles discriminated in Confucian hypocrisy or Moist love? 519

By undermining the interpretation of these heroic cultural models, Mǎn Gǒudé suggests that not only does Confucian morality have no valid basis in history, but that Confucian vassals make themselves complicit by their support of illicit snatching. This dialogue exposes the ultimate grounds for Confucian values by undermining their culturally validated heroes. The greatest heroes ironically turn out to be the greatest thieves—they paradoxically decrease society

(and themselves) even as they materially increase themselves—a theme that will echo two millennia later in Theory.

Thick and Black Theory 厚⿊学 in China

I invite my reader to imagine the wonder they might feel in discovering, upon browsing the shelves of a given bookstore, more than a thousand books written in the last fifteen years that include the term übermensch (superman) in their title. Quickly glancing across the shelves in our imaginary bookstore, one finds titles such as The Übermensch of Sex: Transcending Limits, The

Übermensch of Raising Children: Master or Slave?, Be an Übermensch! Making a Killing in

Business, Übermensch and the Art of War, and even Übermensch in the White House: Secrets the

519 Ibid. ⼦張⽈：「⼦不為⾏，即將疏戚無倫，貴賤無義，⾧幼無序，五紀六位將何以為別乎？」 滿苟得⽈：「堯殺⾧⼦，舜流母弟，疏戚有倫乎？湯放桀，武王伐紂，貴賤有義乎？王季為適，周公殺 兄，⾧幼有序乎？儒者偽辭，墨者兼愛，五紀六位將有別乎？且⼦正為名，我正為利。名利之實，不順於 理，不監於道。吾⽇與⼦訟於無約，⽈：『⼩⼈殉財，君⼦殉名。其所以變其情，易其性，則異矣；乃⾄ 於棄其所為⽽殉其所不為，則⼀也。』故⽈：無為⼩⼈，反殉⽽天；無為君⼦，從天之理。若枉若直，相 ⽽天極，⾯觀四⽅，與時消息。若是若⾮，執⽽圓機，獨成⽽意，與道徘徊。無轉⽽⾏，無成⽽義，將失 ⽽所為。無赴⽽富，無殉⽽成，將棄⽽天。⽐⼲剖⼼，⼦胥抉眼，忠之禍也；直躬證⽗，尾⽣溺死，信之 患也；鮑⼦⽴乾，申⼦不⾃理，廉之害也；孔⼦不⾒母，匡⼦不⾒⽗，義之失也。此上世之所傳，下世之 所語，以為⼠者正其⾔，必其⾏，故服其殃，離其患也。」

187 Republicans Don’t Want You to Know.520 Many will vaguely recall the Nietzschean figure of the

übermensch and his will to power, and this recollection may lead one to wonder about the extension and popularization of this critical term in titles spanning multiple domains--literature, politics, culture, psychology, childhood education, and even business management and entrepreneurship. The sensitive consumer may question: what is it about the figure of the

übermensch that has captured so much of the cultural marketplace? And, in extending its insights to a plethora of self-help strategies, what makes it so compelling? How has it become a form of hope that one book title describes as a “way of success for a chaotic world?521

With this analogy I hope to both contextualize the phenomenon of thickblackology (厚⿊

学 hòuhēixué) in contemporary China which has galvanized the cultural scene since the 1990s, and highlight the importance of the metaphorical as a means of articulating human reality.

Written during the fall of the Qīng dynasty (1644 -1912 CE) by Lǐ Zōngwú and then subsequently suppressed, Theory exploded on the cultural scene in the 1990s. Closely aligned

520 All titles are meant to be suggestive of the originals: Liú Qīngléi, (劉青雷), Science of the Thick and Black of Love: Love Actually is Just a Type of Deception (Àiqíng Hòuhēixué: Àiqíng, Qíshí zhǐshì yīzhǒng Piànshù 愛情厚⿊學 : 愛情, 其實只是⼀種騙術). (Táiběi: Shuǐpíng Shìjì Wénhuà Chūbǎn, 2001). Yú, Bīn (余斌), “Children’s Science of the Thick and Black” (Yù'ér Hòuhēixué 育⼉厚⿊学), Childhood Education (Yòu'ér Jiàoyù 幼⼉教育)(7), 17 - 17-17. 2015. Chu, Chin-ning. Thick Face Black Heart: The Path to Thriving, Winning and Succeeding. Beaverton, OR: AMC Publishing, 1992). Zhōu, Yōugēn 周優根, Thick and Black Art of War: the Way of Success for a Troubled World (Hēi Bīngfǎ: Luànshì Chénggōng zhī Dào 厚⿊兵法 : 亂世成功之道). Táiběi: Sānchóngshì Sìzhītáng Shūfáng Chūbǎn, 2000); also: Chu, Chin-Ning, and Wei-yu Huang, The New Science of the Thick and Black Sunzi Art of War (Xīn Hòuhēixué zhī Sūnzi Bīngfǎ 新厚⿊學之孫⼦兵法). 1, 1. Táiběi: : Lianjing, 2005). Chén Pòkōng 陈破空, Zhongnanhai Science of the Thick and Black: Secrets the Chinese Communist Party Won’t Reveal Zhōngnánhǎi Hòuhēixué: Zhōnggòng bùnéng Shuō de Mìmì 中南海厚⿊学: 中共不能说的秘密, (Táiběi: Contemporary Collection Yǔnchén Culture Affairs Ltd. Corporation Dāngdài Cóngshū “Yǔnchén Wénhuà Shìyè Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī 当代丛书(允⾠⽂化事业股份有限公司, 2009.

521 Zhōu, Yōugēn 周優根), Thick and Black Art of War: the Way of Success for a Troubled World Hēi Bīngfǎ: Luànshì Chénggōng zhī Dào 厚⿊兵法 : 亂世成功之道), (Táiběi: Sānchóngshì Sìzhītáng Shūfáng Chūbǎn), 2000.

188 with the re-emergent genre of officialdom literature, Lǐ’s biting sarcasm resonates with contemporary readers because it speaks truth to power, enabling moral criticism from an underlying values framework.522

Outside of a few short references, Theory has gone unnoticed by most Western scholars of Chinese culture.523 Amongst Chinese speakers, although most have not read the text itself, everyone has heard of Theory, which indicates its pervasive influence in culture. New big data capabilities exist that enable us to quantitatively track the proliferation of the concept of the thick and black across disparate cultural domains, to at least anecdotally evaluate its significance in

Chinese culture. Interest in Theory in contemporary China is clearly growing, as evidenced from my quantitative analysis of the data presented here. Based on a metadata analysis of co- referenced terms from data in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure’s (CNKI) China

Knowledge Resource Integrated Database, and a keyword search in WorldCat, I discovered more

522 Officialdom literature 官场⽂学 guānchǎng wénxué.

523 Notable exceptions include Xuezhi Guo, The Ideal Chinese Political Leader: A Historical and Cultural Perspective, (Connecticut: Praeger, 2002), 134-135; Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China, (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1994), 109; Geremie R. Barmé, In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); and “The Greying of Chinese Culture.” China Review, 13, (1992):1-52. Fang, Tony. “Negotiation: The Chinese Style.” The Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, 21: 1 (2006): 50-60. Wenshan Jia, The Remaking of the Chinese Character and Identity in the 21st Century: the Chinese Face Practices, (Westport: Ablex Publishing, 2001).

189 than 6,959 articles in which Lǐ’s concept occurred, and ~1,500 related monographs respectively.524

FIGURE 6. Hòuhēi in the PRC Intellectual Ecosystem

Political, Military, Legal (G) Education and Social Science (H) Electronic and Information Science (I) Economics and Management (J) News (N) Literature, History, Philosophy (F) Although the most dramatic increases occurred in the fields of Literature, History and

Philosophy (F), Figure 6 displays the distribution of thick-black in the fields of Education and

Social Science (H) as well as in Economics and Management (J), with 0-1500 representing the total number of documents per academic field. Whereas the expansion of these terms in the fields of Literature, History and Philosophy (F) is logical since these fields are traditionally bellwethers

524 China National Knowledge Infrastructure, “China Academic Journals Full-text Database,” http:// eng.oversea.cnki.net/kns55/brief/result.aspx?dbPrefix=CJFD (accessed Nov-Dec 2015). The database, which consists of over 9,305 full-text journals, purportedly accounting for ~90% of China’s journals, holds 53,709,243 records in total, some holdings reaching back to 1949 and 1915. In particular, I performed a lexical co-location query for a syndrome of terms that can only be derived from Lǐ’s Science: this syndrome included: hòuhēi (‘thick- black’ 厚⿊), heihouxué (Science of the Thick and Black) and lizongwu. I also performed collocation queries for four combinations of terms that were collocated within paragraph limits:1. liǎnpí hòu-xīnhēi (‘thickfacedness’ 脸⽪ 厚 and ‘heartblackedness’ ⼼⿊) 2. liǎnpí hòu-hēixīn (‘thickfacedness’ 脸⽪厚 and ‘blackheart’ ⿊⼼), 3. hòu liǎnpí- xīnhēi (‘thick-faced’ 厚脸⽪ and ‘heartblackedness’ ⼼⿊) and 4. hòu liǎnpí-hēixīn (‘thick-faced’ 厚脸⽪ and ‘blackheart’ ⿊⼼). My queries across multiple databases (Literature/History/Philosophy (F), Political/Military/Legal (G), Education and Social Science (H), Electronic Technology and Information Science (I), Economics and Management (J) and news (N) articles published since ~2000) discovered over 6,959 articles.

190 of culture change, the rapid proliferation of these terms in the fields of Economics and

Management (J) points to an interesting utilization of Lǐ’s concepts for strategy and tactics in the world of business and commerce.525

FIGURE 7. PERCENTAGE CHANGE/INCREASE PER DOMAIN

89-94

94-99

99-’04

04-’09

09-’14

-4.5 0 4.5 9 13.5 18

Political, Military, Legal (G) Education and Social Science (H) Electronic and Information Science (I) Economics and Management (J) News (N) Literature, History, Philosophy (F) Figure 7 demonstrates the rate of change of documents per domain diachronically. For example, from interest in Lǐ’s thought was significant as a proportion of the total number of

Economics and Management sources from 1989-1994; we also observe a significant increase in the proportion to the whole in Political, Military and Legal sources from 1994- 1999. And the explosion of interest in Lǐ’s thought in the Political, Military and Legal fields (G) in the 1990s is salient in light of cultural production after the Tiān’ānmén Square Incident of 1989, discussed below. The greatest rate of proportional increase occurred in Economics and Management (J), a trend that may mark a transition of interest in Theory from the perspective of morality and

525 See Chu, Chin-ning, Thick Face Black Heart: The Path to Thriving, Winning and Succeeding. Beaverton, OR: AMC Publishing, 1992. Also Fang, Tony. “Negotiation: The Chinese Style.” The Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, 21: 1 (2006): 50-60.

191 political subjectivity to its usefulness in making money and gaining power as China continues to

“rise” in the globalist system.526

Based on the data, I conclude that interest in Lǐ’s strategic system has been expanding across the mainland Chinese intellectual ecosystem since the 1990s, and has made a big cultural impact. In addition to the analysis of academic journals and newspapers above, an analysis of data derived from a brief survey of monographs published from the early 20th-century to 2015 shows that 92% of the titles associated with Lǐ’s concept of the thick and black have been published since the 1990s, a clear indicator that Lǐ’s thoughts are influential in Chinese culture.

But it does not explain why.

The Late Qīng Cultural Context

In contrast to some academics who have examined late Qīng cultural trends in terms of its modernity, what drives my analysis is that the dominant themes of late Qīng culture align with the global cultural trauma of the 19th-early 20th centuries, a period in which traditional cultural values were rapidly undermined, and systems of meaning-making threatened.527

Fredric Jameson characterized Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” as “a canonical expression of the great modernist thematics of alienation, anomie, solitude and social fragmentation and isolation, a virtually programmatic emblem of what used to be called the age

526 "China rising” 中國崛起 Zhōngguó juéqǐ is a term of art.

527 Lǔ Xùn 魯迅, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, trans. Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1976). A Brief History of Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Xiǎoshuō Shǐlüè 中國⼩說史略. Reprinted- (Hong Kong: Qingwen shuwu, 1972). Liu, Ts’un-yan, “Introduction: ‘Middlebrow’ in Perspective,” in Ts’un-yan Liu, ed. Chinese Middlebrow Fiction: From the Ch’ing and the Early Republican Eras, (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1984), 1-40. Doleželová-Velingerová, Milena, ed. The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 1980. Patrick Hanan, Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth & Early Twentieth Centuries, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004); David Der-wei Wang’s monograph, Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qīng Fiction, 1849-1911, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). Yáng Chūmíng 杨出明, Late Qīng Fiction and Socioeconomic Transformation Wǎnqīng Wénxué yǔ Shèhuì Jīngjì Zhuǎnxíng 晚清⽂学与社会经济转型, (Shànghǎi: Dōngfāng Chūbǎn Zhōngxīn 东⽅出版中⼼), 2005.

192 of anxiety.”528 In Europe, existential anxiety was reflected in Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and

Trembling (1843) and Sickness unto Death (1849), the urban ruin and ennui in Charles

Baudelaire’s in Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), the eruption of hell on earth and the breakdown of justice in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times (1854) and Bleak House (1852), the terrifying probability that life is nothing but physical objectification and debasement as vicariously experienced through Marquis de Sade’s Justine (1791), and the remark made by Feodor Dostoyevski’s Grand

Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov (1879) that everything becomes lawful in the absence of

God. In the aftermath of the Great War and the meltdown of European civilization, the French existentialists also explored these themes; Albert Camus expressed anomie and alienation through his protagonist Meursault in the existentialist novel The Stranger (1942), and the specter of infirmity and death in his The Plague (1947); Jean-Paul Sartre compelled a sense of the modern wretchedness of freedom in his Nausea (1938).

The sense of despair and cultural trauma that I sense in late Qīng culture is even more pronounced than I perceive in post-war Europe, and for good reason. China was devastated by a hundred years of violence induced by civil war, foreign invasion, colonial imperialism, internal factionalism, warlordism, rampant opium addiction, millenarian revolt, rebellion, and plague.

Provinces were eviscerated, some experiencing significant population loss.529 Approximately ten million mouths were silenced due to starvation during the Great North China Famine

(1876-1878) following three consecutive years of drought--in some cases almost 70% of

528 Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” http://www.sok.bz/web/ media/ video/JamesonPostmodernism.pdf (accessed 28 April 2016): 61.

529 Carol Benedict, Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-Century China, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 1, 39.

193 villagers were wiped out.530 Pneumonic plague also affected Manchuria in the last years of the empire, killing between forty-five and sixty thousand people.531

The Treaty of Nanjing (1842), signed at the end of the First Opium War, resulted in unimaginable transformation across the breadth of the Qīng empire. Within fifty years, trade moved to the Chinese coast, and the port city of Shànghǎi simultaneously exploded with commerce, increased urbanization, industrialization and a new international cosmopolitanism that radically impacted the expansion of this once county seat into a capitalistic megalopolis. The

Chinese, especially in Shànghǎi, were exposed to the contingency and ambiguity of the present in which the “simple purity” of a generation ago had become a “bandit’s lair of instability, sinister and deceitful.”532 Under the onslaught of western secularizing philosophies (Marxism,

Freudianism, Nietzscheinism, Darwinism, Spencerianism, Vitalism, Positivism, Scientism,

Nationalism), Chinese traditional culture was so effaced that it lost its ability to impart meaning and repress the terrible ambiguity of human existence. Modernist reformers abolished the imperial examination system in 1905, depriving the gentry-elite of their most-cherished heroic credentialing system, and denuding them of the meaning-making architecture of self-expansion; the imperial order gave up the ghost soon after in the Xīnhài revolution of 1911, and from the

530 Henrietta Harrison, The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man’s Life in a North China Village 1857-1942, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 30.

531 Carol Benedict, Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-Century China, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 155. William C. Summers, The Great Manchurian Plague of 1910-1911: The Geopolitics of an Epidemic Disease, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 1.

532 Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈, Uncanny Reality Witnessed over Twenty Years Èrshínián Mùdǔ zhī Guài Xiànzhuàng ⼆⼗ 年⽬睹之怪現状, (Běijīng: Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Xīnhuá Shūdiàn Běijīng fāxíngsuǒ fāxíng, 1959), 1-6.

194 abyss arose a predatory trickster culture populated by cannibalistic shysters, hustlers, con-men and grifters.533

In contrast to previous analyses that characterized late Qīng culture in terms of grotesque, decadence, and excess, I see much of it in terms of cultural trauma.534 “Emotional excess” is not just a literary motif--in late Qīng culture as elsewhere, it is rather the symptomatic articulation of life in extremis, hysterical laughter and sobbing being the only appropriate response to an absurdly antagonistic reality. The titles of many late Qīng cultural products reveal cultural trauma: Sea of Regret (1906), a History of Pain (1903-06), The Last Days of the World, World of

Folly (1906), Bamboozled (1904), Flower in a Sea of Sin, The Despicable History of Recent

533 Trickster culture: piànzi wénhuà 骗⼦⽂化.

534 David Wang, “Abject Carnival: Grotesque Exposés” Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qīng Fiction, 1849-1911, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997): et passim.

195 Society (1909-10), After the Holocaust (1907), and Living Hell (1904-06).535 If “art is the collective dream of a period” through which we can “trace the physiognomy of the time most clearly,” as one philosopher noted, then these writings clearly reveal Chinese reality as a nightmare, especially seen through the lens of author Wú Jiǎnrén (1866–1910 CE).536

The dominant images and metaphors of the period depict a society in duress, and many intellectuals contested the foundations of culture by exposing the vapidity of one of traditional society’s most cherished heroic role: officialdom. For example, late Qīng officialdom literature described the legal system as fundamentally unjust: it was a jungle full of “voracious tigers,

535 Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈，Sea of Regret Hènhǎi 恨海. Compendium of Modern Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Jìndài Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 中国近代⼩说⼤系, (Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌 市: 江西⼈民出版社:经销江西省新华书店 1988), 1-88. The Sea of Regret: Two Turn of the Century Chinese Romantic Novels, trans., Patrick Hanan, (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1995), 101-205. Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈, History of Pain Tòngshǐ 痛史 in Compendium of Modern Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Jìndài Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 中国近代⼩说⼤系. Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌: 江西⼈民出版社:经销江西省新华书店 1988), 7-264. Bāo Tiānxiào 包天笑, The Last Days of the World Shìjiè Mòrìjì 世界末⽇纪. In Compendium of Late Qīng Fiction Wǎnqīng Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 晚清⼩说⼤系, (Táiběi: Guāngyǎ chūbǎn yǒuxiàn gōngsī 光雅出版有限公司), Vol. 14:1-8. Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈, World of Folly Hútú Shìjiè 糊涂世界 in Compendium of Modern Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Jìndài Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 中国近代⼩说⼤系, (Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌: 江西⼈民出版社:经销江西 省新华书店 1988), 411-561. Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈, Bamboozled Xiāpiàn Qíwén 瞎騙奇聞. In Compendium of Modern Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Jìndài Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 中国近代⼩说⼤系, (Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌: 江西⼈民出版社:经销江西省新华书店 1988), 411-478. Flower in a Sea of Sin (Nièhǎihuā 孽海花 1904). Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈，The Despicable History of Recent Society Zuìjìn Shèhuì Wòchuòshǐ 最近社会龌龊史, also called 近⼗年之怪现状 in Compendium of Modern Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Jìndài Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 中国近代⼩说⼤系, (Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌: 江西⼈民出版社:经销江西省 新华书店) 1988), 5-138. Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈， After the Holocaust Jiéyúhuī 劫余灰 in Compendium of Modern Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Jìndài Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 中国近代⼩说⼤系, (Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌 市: 江西 ⼈民出版社:经销江西省新华书店 1988), 89-222. Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈, Living Hell Huó Dìyù 活地狱. In Compendium of Modern Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Jìndài Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 中国近代⼩说⼤系, (Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌: 江西⼈民出版社:经销江西省新华书店 1988), 315-572.

536 William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy, (New York: Doubleday & Anchor, 1962), 24-41.

196 rapacious raptors” and sadistic hell demons spreading terror and torture amongst the populace. In place of the Daoist “joy of fish swimming freely” was a Darwinian realm of species-conflict in which “big fish eat small fish and small fish eat the shrimp.”537 And why shouldn’t officials skim off the top, one author wondered. It is only natural that one would “eat off the mountain when on the mountain and drink from the water when near the stream.”538

Officialdom scared people to death: emerging from his shamanistic nightmare, one fictive character in a famous novel about officialdom reported that he had been haunted in his dream by rapacious and wild demon-animals on a mountaintop who would swallow prey as quickly as they were spotted. The only thing he could do to avoid their violence was close his eyes and hide:

Hiding in the woods, the beasts could not see me, but I could see them distinctly and crystal clear, with the so-called discerning eyes. The mountain was not just inhabited by all kinds of wolves, jackals, tigers and leopards: there were also innumerable other types, including cats, dogs, rats, monkeys and weasels, pigs, goats, and bulls. How could such a world of beasts tolerate humanity in it? The rats were expert drillers boring holes throughout the mountain. They bore wherever possible and will bore ever more obsessively if it hits a patch of impenetrable rock. The dog bit anything it saw, except the tiger: it would pathetically lower its head and wag its tail when it saw the the tiger. The worst was the cat, that would jump up into the tree when it saw a tiger or leopard and return when they left. The monkey does “monkey see--monkey do.” The weasel neglects its rear for its front: it merely farts when being chased and escapes. In addition, there are foxes disguised as beautiful women that dally on the

537 ⼤鱼吃⼩鱼，⼩鱼吃虾⼦.

538 Lǐ Bóyuán 李伯元, Living Hell 活地獄 Huó Dìyù, inCompendium of Modern Chinese Fiction (Zhōngguó Jìndài Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 中国近代⼩说⼤系, (Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌: 江西⼈民出版社 : 经销 江西省新华书店, 1989). 1. “Joy of fish” zhīyúzhīlè 知⿂之樂: “The fish swim about so freely--such is the happiness of fish!” Tiáoyú chūyóu cóngróng, shì yúzhīlèyě 知⿂之樂:鯈⿂出遊從容，是⿂之樂也.

197 mountain seducing men to death. The pigs and goats were by far the most useless. Though the bull was large, but only in appearance.539

These empty-hearted officials are a “Shànghǎi specialty,” engaged in all types of unprecedented intrigue, deception and trickery.540 Even reformers were suspected of actually only being in the game of getting rich: they were “dog-come-monkeymen” without a sense of

“human dignity” in a rapidly shifting era in which officials secretly saw reform as an “elixir of immortality.”541 The truth about the family, long sacrosanct in Confucian ideology, came out: kith and kin were the very source of the pathology; family became cannibals in broad daylight, and neighbors “disregarded the value of empathetic response in order to get rich.” In an age of cannibalistic capitalism one “only had face if one had wealth.”542

Chinese intellectuals could no longer be described as a majestic crane amongst chickens, a phrase traditionally used to celebrate the victor of the imperial exams, or like the most famous

539 Lǐ Bóyuán, The Record of the Revealing (of the Reality) of Officialdom 官場現形記: Guānchǎng Xiànxíngjì, (Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌: 江西⼈民出版 社 : 经销 江西省新华书店, 1989). 1106-1112. Another translation at Officialdom Unmasked, trans, T.L. Yang, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001), 620-634.

540 Ibid., 民⾵涥朴的地⽅，变了个轻浮險詐的逋逃藪. ⼿頭空泛的，空着⼼⼉，也要充作⼤⽼官...空 ⼼⽼⼤官

541 Elixir: xùmìngdān 續命丹. Human dignity: réngé ⼈格. Rén shì hóuzi biànchéngde, hóuzi shì gǒu biànchéngde ⼈是猴⼦變成的，猴⼦是狗變成的). Record of Officialdom Reformed Guānchǎng Wéixīnjì 官場維 新紀), in Chinese Popular Fiction Masterpieces Zhōngguó Tōngsú Xiǎoshuō Míngzhù 中國通俗⼩說名著/世界⽂ 庫), 四部刊要 Shìjiè wénkù. Sìbùkānyào, (Táiběi: Shìjiè Shūjú 臺北 : 世界書局), 1-69.

542 Pathology: Yàng: 恙. Cannibalism in broad daylight: Píngbái dì qù chī rén 平⽩地去吃⼈. . 此刻世界上，有了銀⼦，就有⾯⼦. Getting rich: Wéifùbùrén 為富不仁. Citation from Mencius《孟⼦·滕⽂ 公上》：“為富不仁矣，為仁不富矣.” . Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈, Uncanny Reality Witnessed over Twenty Years Èrshínián Mùdǔ zhī Guài Xiànzhuàng ⼆⼗年⽬睹之怪現状, (Běijīng: Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Xīnhuá Shūdiàn Běijīng fāxíngsuǒ fāxíng, 1959), 139.

198 paragon of heroic victimage Qū Yuán, as a raptor that does not flock like common birds.543 They were now the prey, having been reduced to mere survival. Characters in late Qīng novels have names like Escaped Alive.544 In one, the character named Nine Lives informs his reader:

I’m a good person--my whole life I’ve never suffered calamity or great obstacles, and no one has ever put out 100k as a reward to capture me. So why do I hide my good name and call myself Nine Lives? Because in the last twenty years of scraping by, I reckon that I’ve only met three kinds of things: the first is snakes, bugs, rats and ants; the second is wolves, wildcats, tigers and panthers; and the third are goblins, trolls, ghouls and bogies. I lived amongst them for twenty years and have never been nibbled by the first, gobbled by the second, or captured by the third. So, I’m Nine Lives by virtue of having evaded them my whole life and this name is a commemoration of myself.545

Another described his paralysis as a psychological complex:

Dear reader, I really am one who does not like to read books. If you must know the reason why, all of those books and poems that feature incidents of risings and downfalls have given me a complex since my youth. Fretting over the ancients' worries and discussing risings and downfalls always result in a few days of discomfort, and because of this I have put aside all books. I used to go out all for diversion to relieve my nerves. But if I happened to catch sight or sound of the ‘survival of the fittest’ with its “now its alive and now its perished,” things that fly, that walk, that swim that plant--they were all so appalling to see that I had to return home feeling quite devastated. So, for the last year I haven’t read books or gone

543 Crane amongst chickens: hèlìjīqún 鶴⽴雞群. Raptor that does not flock like common birds: Zhìniǎo zhībùqúnxī 鸷鸟之不群兮, from Qu Yuan’s Lí Sāo 離騷.

544 Escaped Alive: 死⾥逃⽣: Sǐlǐ Táoshēng.

545 Nine Lives: 九死⼀⽣ Jiǔsǐyīshēng. Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈, Uncanny Reality Witnessed over Twenty Years (Èrshínián Mùdǔ zhī Guài Xiànzhuàng ⼆⼗年⽬睹之怪現状, (Běijīng: Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Xīnhuá Shūdiàn Běijīng fāxíngsuǒ fāxíng, 1959), 1-6.

199 out, but simply stayed at home meditating on the inevitable demise of everything.546

In my analysis, all of these images and metaphors of victimage are indicative of cultural trauma—by which I mean that the cultural apparatus had been sufficiently effaced to the degree that Chinese people lost consensus about their orientation in the cosmos and human meaning.

Sincere Confucians no longer had a valid path to self-actualization, leading lives of deeply-felt disappointment, shame and frustration about their failure, which sometimes resulted in severe mental illness.547 Others transformed their alienation into art, using literature to “vent their ressentiment.”548 In the preface to his novel The Despicable History of Recent Society

(1909-10),549 author Wú Jiǎnrén described how he sublimated his:

I discovered when I entered the professional world that the learning I acquired in my youth was useless. I had no choice but to consider making a go of writing in order to express myself as a means of repressing my great grief. However, what would I write about? I was hardly capable since Neoconfucian metaphysics bears no relation to life and practical studies are no help with economics. Shameless, I was like a man who absentmindedly picked lice out of his clothes while others

546 Chén Tiānhuā 陈天花, The Lion Roars Shīzi Hǒu 狮⼦吼. In Compendium of Late Qīng Fiction Wǎnqīng Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 晚清⼩说⼤系, (Táiběi: Guāngyǎ chūbǎn yǒuxiàn gōngsī 光雅出版有限公司), Vol. 14, 1-80. 看官，⼩⼦是⼀个最不喜欢读书的。须知道⼩⼦不喜欢读书的缘故，那诗书 上每每讲些兴亡事件，⼩ ⼦⾃幼⽣就⼀种痴情，好替古⼈担犹，讲到兴亡 上，便有数⽇的不舒快，因此把⼀切书都谢绝了。终⽇之 出外逛耍，陶写性 情。又只见飞的，⾛的，潜的，植的，⽆⾮‘⾁弱强⾷’四字，忽⽽有，忽⽽ 滅，所接与 ⽿，所触与⽬的，⽆⼀不是伤⼼惨⽬的事，又每每痛苦⽽返。因 此不读书，也不出游，冥⼼独坐，万念皆 灰，如是半年。

547 Henrietta Harrison, The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man’s Life in a North China Village 1857-1942, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 21-82; 87, 107, 163.

548 Fāfèn 发愤.

549 Wú Jiǎnrén 吳趼⼈，The Despicable History of Recent Society Zuìjìn Shèhuì Wòchuòshǐ 最近社会龌 龊史, also called 近⼗年之怪现状 in Compendium of Modern Chinese Fiction Zhōngguó Jìndài Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 中 国近代⼩说⼤系, (Nánchāng: Jiāngxī Rénmín Chūbǎnshè: Jīngxiāo Jiāngxīshěng Xīnhuá Shūdiàn 南昌: 江西 ⼈民 出版社:经销江西省新华书店 1988), 5-138.

200 watched on. Alas! How could this have been the original intent of learning? Being thus, I was willing to begin from my own experience by encapsulating my extreme dejection and malcontent, depression and reproach in my writing. I am incapable of writing heroic stories full of knight errants, mountain shakers and demon subduers; and I don’t care for children’s literature such as animal fables, fairy tales, and sentimentalist, romantic fiction. Yet my cynicism profoundly deepened.550

Others, like Liáng Qǐchāo and Bāo Tiānxiào gave themselves over to the fantastic world of the hyper doomsayers, creating translations of Camille Flammarion’s La Fin du Monde (1891) that had been first translated into Japanese.551 Bāo’s novel The Last Days of the World starts with the contemplation of apocalypse:

After a hundred million years, we hear talk of the sudden destruction of the sun and the planets. They say that moving at the speed of light, it will reach the world in an instant. Alas! Where will the peoples of the world go when the sun is destroyed? All the people who previously inhabited the world will contemplate where will I live? How can I live well? Everyone will have fallen into a situation of terrorizing misery, and the shock to the most sensitive will be so great that life will cease.552

550 Ibid., 4-5. 吾⼈幼⽽读书，长⽽⼊世，⽽所读之书，终不能达⽤。不得已，乃思⽴⾔以⾃表，抑 亦⼤可哀已。况乎所谓⾔者，于理学则⽆关于性命，于实学则⽆补于经济，技仅雕⾍，谈恣扪虱俯视⼈ 前，不⾃颜汗。呜呼!是岂吾读书识字之初⼼也哉。虽然，落托极⽽牢骚起，抑郁发⽽叱咤⽣，穷愁著书， 宁⾃我始。夫呵风云，撼⼭岳，夺魂魄，泣⿁神，此雄夫之⽂也，吾病不能。⾄若态⾍鱼，评⽉露，写幽 恨，寄缠绵，此⼉⼥之⽂也，吾还不屑。然⽽愤世嫉俗之念，积⽽愈深…

551 Liáng Qǐchāo 梁启超, Bāo Tiānxiào 包天笑.

552 Bāo Tiānxiào 包天笑, The Last Days of the World Shìjiè Mòrìjì 世界末⽇纪. In Compendium of Late Qīng Fiction Wǎnqīng Xiǎoshuō Dàxì 晚清⼩说⼤系, (Táiběi: Guāngyǎ chūbǎn yǒuxiàn gōngsī 光雅出 版有限公 司), Vol. 14:1-8. 经⼀亿万年⽽后，忽闻有太阳即各⾏星將绝灭之⼀说。此说如电光之速，瞬息达于全世界。 鸣呼!太阳灭亡，全地球之⼈类归于和所?凡仆缘⼤地者， 咸思我之住所何在?我之运命何繁?⼈⼈陷于恐怖 悲惨之⼀境，其神精过敏者，触此警电，殆⽆⽣⽓。 蓋殊不番渺渺宇宙，归墟乃何地，依宗教家之⾔，天 堂乃有极乐，或又谓⾃ 太阳系统之外，⾏星何限?恒星亦何限?以⼈之聪明⼒，(⼧⼼⽤)不能救 此浩劫，於 其坐待滅亡之悲運，不如⾛此廣漠之天空，以謀更造新世界也.

201 In this meaningless "era of terror,” the sensitive soul could not but fantasize about escape.553

All things in the universe, even the tiniest mote, are constantly in the process of evolving. Although the world we currently reside in is about to perish, this is just one evolutionary phenomenon, shedding the old for the new. How much more can we say about the indestructibility of our physical bodies--our inner selves will not be destroyed, much less our spirits. The heavens are so vast, surely there is a place where our spirits can lodge: and recalling this, how could it possibly increase our misery?554

Indeed, how could it be any worse?

Other novels and short stories, such as The Colonization of the Moon, (1904) written by the Old Angler of the Desolate River, and A Flight to Jupiter, and Travels to Utopia, authored by

Desolate Frustration, all explore similar themes.555 These examples demonstrate that the loss of authoritative and legitimate foundations at the end of the Qīng shaped the expression of hopelessness, ennui, and rage. The loss of traditionally validated morality framed man’s finitude in terms of an infinitely ambiguous, violently threatening, and chilling cosmos. It truly was the end of a world.

These are the dominant images and metaphors of the cultural milieu in which Theory came into being.

553 Era of terror: kǒngjù shídài 恐惧时代

554 宇宙万物虽微尘纤芥，⽆⼀秒钟不含其进化之点者。今吾⼈所处之世界，虽 云灭亡，然不过进 化之⼀现象，蜕旧曷新⽽已。矧以物体不灭则⾔之，即吾 ⼈内体，亦不灭亡，遑论精神。渺渺天空，宁⽆ 寄我精灵之地，⼀念及此， 又何⽤增其悲怀耶?

555 The Colonization of the Moon ⽉球殖民地 by Old Angler of the Desolate River Huāngjiāng Diàosǒu 荒 江钓叟; , A Flight to Jupiter 飞访⽊星, Travels to Utopia 乌托邦游记 by Desolate Frustration Xiāorán Yùshēng 萧 然郁⽣.

202 Theory of the Thick and Black (Hòuhēixué 厚⿊学)

Ever victorious in battle, long hail your name! 百戰威名已早揚， Years of martial valor in the wilds your fame! 頻年秉鉞在岩疆。 Long renown your war and covert craft, 素知果勇兼韜略， Strategically gave those imps the shaft. 應著弘圖肅⿁⽅.556 Kāngxī Emperor（1654 —1722）

It matters little whether it was a Confucius-sized or revolution-sized gap left by the paradigm shift of the post-imperial era or the post-revolutionary period: Lǐ ’s Theory of the Thick and Black offered a new basis for the cultural values of a life grounded in the principles of naturalistic competition, and in the natural capacity of the individual. This is indubitably compelling and attractive to a people who have grown weary of the redemptive claims of orthodox ideologies, and who must by necessity adapt to the historical reality of the new competitive environment of global capital. Articulated through traditional cultural metaphors and images, Lǐ’s depiction, originally meant to be a hyperbolic satire, has been received by many as an accurate characterization of reality, and a form of enlightenment about the technical means necessary to successfully navigate it. Theory undermines the foundation of orthodoxy, including the moral security of traditional Chinese values with its knowable universe and loving relationships, and revolutionary aspiration, with the insecurity and necessity of the masterfully strategic grounded in the only relevant ground for human meaning: the self-expansion of the individual, a kind of deadly countermeasure to a Foucauldian biopouvoir (biopower). In other words, like Nietzsche, Lǐ grounded human reality in naturalism and power, albeit expressed in the cultural metaphors of Chinese civilization. Whereas Nietzsche identified the genealogy of

556 Composed for Lord Protector Sāngé 赐护军统领桑格.

203 power in terms of a transvaluation of values compelled by the millennia-old strategy of the prey,

Lǐ grounded the heroic in the morally ambiguous strategic heroes of the Romance of the Three

Kingdoms. In a disordered world, humankind’s strategic rationality is its greatest hope and its greatest despair. SI is simply the grounds of culture.

Theory is brilliant for the way in which Lǐ juxtaposed the heroic and the world of officialdom, and the authority and legitimacy of scientific knowledge with the secret lore and esoteric techniques transmitted by various cultural-religious orthodoxies. In a powerful parody,

Lǐ both irreverently undermined and assumed for himself traditional authority by re-interpreting the very genres and philosophical and religious categories of the dominant tradition, and he sacrilegiously replaced critical value-terms in the texts with thick and black. Articulated in terms of theory, metaphysics, and the practical-technical of the neo-Confucian legacy, Lǐ’s rhetorical use of hyperbolic excess inspired by the Intrigues of the Warring States, along with witty sarcasm, cutting irony and devastating satire, all function to make sense of a world in duress.557

Theory is a mirror of antagonistic reality that compels us to update our philosophy of culture and philosophical anthropology based on the primary experience of a nasty humanity, and the necessity of the strategic.

In Theory, thick and black are metaphors that transform deeply held, age-old convictions about how one is legitimately human and morally humane. The traditional Chinese worldview enabled human dignity through identity; in a hierarchically-ordered society that emphasized sociopolitical harmony, a clear conception of one’s identity enabled dignity, respect and honor

557 Cultural theory: xué 學. Metaphysics: jīng 經. Practical-technical: Chuánxílù 傳習錄. Intrigues of the Warring States: Zhànguócè 戰國策.

204 through appropriate and reciprocal interpersonal relationships. In essence, both one’s social status and self-esteem (face) and the self-esteem of the other are both ritually enabled and implicated through courtesy, deference, accommodation and self-control. One was morally responsible to behave with propriety both towards superiors and inferiors; both sides theoretically could lose face in any given interaction, which amounted to shame.

Social networks and face are Chinese cultural metaphors that express both values and means of practical living: Wenshan Jia even suggested that the metaphor of face may define the true nature of Chinese communication, culture, and character.558 As Lǔ Xùn pointed out in his

1934 essay On Face, face behavior as a form of self-respect is incredibly complex because dignity, social status and shame are entangled with social relation-based perspectives, and the maintenance of self-esteem was constructed on top of sensitivity to a cultural ecosystem composed of complex social hierarchies. Lǔ noted that a poor laborer was held to different behavioral face standards than a rich man, and he also pointed out that it was conventionally believed that one’s status could be raised by leveraging the charismatic power of someone with a higher face status. For example, Lǔ recounted the irony of face-raising: rather than feeling like his self-esteem was lowered when the rich man told the beggar to get lost, the beggar proudly boasted of his newly raised social status, which was a result of the interaction with someone with higher face status.559

The metaphor of the black-heart is much more understandable to a Western audience. In

Chinese culture, the heart-mind is the moral center of humanity, the structure that enables dignity

558 Jia Wenshan, The Remaking of the Chinese Character and Identity in the 21st Century: The Chinese Face Practices, (London: Ablex Publishing, 2001), 2.

559 Lǔ Xùn 魯迅, “On Face,” (Shuō Miànzi 說⾯⼦), 1934 http://www.saohua.com/shuku/luxun/qjtz/ 017.htm (accessed 20 April 2016).

205 and human flourishing. Since the dominant metaphors utilized by Confucianism expressed their values in terms of family, the heart is the place that generated empathetic response (rén 仁), rightly ordered relationships (yì 义), and brotherly (tì 悌) and filial (xiào 孝) affection. Under the influence of the new science of psychoanalysis, however, Lǐ interpreted self-control and deference to other in terms of an unnatural psychological repression: the metaphor of thick face therefore signifies indifference to reciprocity and deference, and thus invulnerability to shame. A blackened heart means that one should attend first to self-interest (sī 私): only those who successfully expand their self-interest will be able to lead exemplarily heroic lives.

Theory is a philosophical anthropology in the best tradition of Chinese philosophy, in that it takes the understanding of human nature as its primary area of analysis. Like Nietzsche, Lǐ’s recounting of personal embodied life experience confounds traditional epistemology and morality—the value of the new orthodoxy is founded on what has been clearly experienced by all.

First Lǐ questioned the cultural legacy:

Exactly what is human nature?--I wanted to thoroughly investigate this. And so I explored books from the Sòng to the Qīng dynasties. I tossed them all out after discovering that their moral explanations were farfetched, incoherent and incomprehensible--most vexing! Only after using the methods of physics to investigate psychology was I able to discern that mechanics and psychology are connected. We cannot discern if human nature is inclined towards good or evil just like we cannot posit the good or evil nature of water and fire.

After years of study, it was only after meditating on the strategic heroes of the

Three Kingdoms that Lǐ attained satori-enlightenment:

Ever since I began to read I have always wanted to become one of the greatest heroes of history. I searched the Four Books and Five Scriptures as well as the

206 philosophers of the Hundred Schools and the Twenty-four annals--all to no avail whatsoever. I thought that the heroes of old must have had an esoteric secret. Perhaps because my disposition was doltish, I simply could not discover it. Forgetting to eat and sleep, I went all out to seek it out…later, however, I achieved spontaneous enlightenment while ideating about the characters from the Three Kingdoms period: the secret of the most accomplished of ages past was nothing more than their thickened face and blackened heart.

For Lǐ, the primary antagonists of the Three Kingdoms, Cáo Cāo and Liú Bèi, were exemplary heroes and role models because of their strategic rationality:

Of the heroes of the Three Kingdoms, the exemplar is Cáo Cāo, whose excellence consisted of heart blackening. After killing Lǚ Bóshē, Kǒng Róng, Yáng Xiū, Dǒng Chéng, and Fú Wán, he then murdered the empress and the prince. He then boldly pronounced, “Better to strike first than be struck!” As for blackened hearts, truly his had reached the highest pinnacle. With such a capacity, of course he is hailed as the greatest hero of the age.

The next to be considered is Liú Bèi, whose excellence totally consisted of facial thickening: he depended on Cáo Cāo, Lǚ Bù, Liú Biǎo, Sūn Quán, and Yuán Shào, scuttling all over the place living under their patronage with no sense of shame. He was adept at crying--whoever wrote Romance of the Kingdoms really described him well, like when he cried himself out of a hairy situation and transformed failure into success. And so the saying goes, Liú Bèi’s lands were won through tears. He is also an example of a hero with great capacity.

Conversely, Lǐ severely criticized the traditional brawny hero Xiàng Yǔ for his “womanly empathy” that results from a “a heart that has not been blackened,” and for his quick temper, which results from insufficient face thickening. For Lǐ, it is absurd to claim, as Xiàng Yǔ did, that his death was due to heaven (天 tiān)— his failure and impotency was actually due to his own neglect of self-expansion, which is accomplished through the SI of thickening and blackening.

207 Lǐ preached that the seeds of heroism are intrinsic to our humanity: we all can be heroic if we allow ourselves to develop as natural human beings and follow the categorical imperative of the will to power—if we all snatch what we naturally desire:

Zōngwú said: “The thick and the black are not extrinsic to me, but intrinsic. Nature produces people with the thick and the black, and it is what they like. This can be verified: go ahead and find a mother who is eating while coddling her child. That child will try to grab the bowl from the mother’s hands and the bowl will be broken if one is not careful. He will also try to grab the cake from the mother’s hand. He stretches out his arm to grasp it as soon as he sees it and he will pop it in his own mouth. If the mother does not give it to him, he will stretch out his arms and try to snatch it out of her mouth to put it in his own. Or, a child being breastfed or fed while in his mother’s arms will push and hit his older brother when he sees him coming towards him. All of these are examples of unlearned behaviors that occur before thought and therefore are examples of innate knowledge and behavior. Those who can leverage and expand this type of innate knowledge and behavior can accomplish great things. Emperor Tàizōng killed his older brother Jiànchéng and his younger brother Yuánjí, and then murdered their sons and usurped their concubines. He also forced his own father to yield the realm to him. These behaviors were nothing more than leveraging and expanding on childlike innate knowledge and behaviors, such as snatching the cake from the mother’s mouth, or pushing away or hitting his older brother. While ordinary people have this type of innate knowledge and behavior, they do not leverage and expand on it like Táng Tàizōng did, and so he became the world’s greatest hero.

Thus, human greatness is inherent, but it still must be nurtured. Humorously inverting

Mencius’ famous passage, Lǐ thought that self-actualization was denuded of possibility by the repression compelled by moralism:

He who ravages his thickness and blackness is just like the lumberjack to the trees. Cutting it down day by day, his thickening and blackening will not survive, and it will therefore be insufficient to become a hero. This results in people thinking that they cannot be heroic because they had the thick and the black: but can this be reckoned as their original propensity? So, the thick and black will flourish if you cultivate it and wither if you do not.

208 Lǐ asserted that self-interest is the core of strategic rationality. Since much of traditional

Chinese philosophy and religion characterized human excellence as the result of a process of self-cultivation, often of esoteric practices transmitted throughout the generations by initiated masters, it should be no surprise by this point that Lǐ too subverts this type of authority by using it to practically discuss how to manipulate others while strategically guarding oneself from external manipulation. Like the martial arts, neophytes of the thick-black as a Chinese form of SI become virtuosic as they master the three degrees of increasing invisibility: the most sublime are those masters who appear totally virtuous. Lǐ’s two mantras, of the Six Characters for Seeking

Officialdom and Six Characters for Being an Official, and the Two Marvelous Arts for Taking

Care of Business expose a strategically rational logic of social manipulation that is learned through the cultivational arts.

To understand Lǐ’s regime of cultivation, one should imagine that the cultivation of the art of social manipulation is akin to the cultivation of kungfu techniques. For example, leisure

(kōng 空), worming in (gòng貢), bragging (chōng 沖), flattering (pěng 捧), threatening (kǒng

恐), and bribing (sòng 送) are all techniques that one may utilize to gain strategic advantage.

These esoteric techniques must be wielded with sensitivity and tact if one is to be successful.

Knowing how and when to use them is a sign of one’s interpretation of the particular dynamics of any given situation.

The mastery of threatening (kǒng 恐) is especially subtle, and tricky to wield:

This means to intimidate, it is a transitive verb. The principle of this character is very profound, so I will say something about it. Official position is a priceless thing, how can one lightly give it away? Some people totally focus on pěng

209 (flattering), but to no avail--and this is because they lack the art of kǒng. All important officials have a soft spot; if you can identify and lightly press on the vital spot, then he will become alarmed and an official position will be conferred. The disciple should know that the characters kǒng and pěng are used together. For kǒng adepts, even pěng is imbued with kǒng: for example, although bystanders think one is toadying up in front of leadership, he actually is secretly pushing the vital spot, and the senior official will break out in a cold sweat when he hears him speak. Pěng adepts use a pěng imbued with kǒng. While bystanders see an unyielding spirit criticizing their superiors, actually the superior is so pleased that he goes weak in the knees. Seekers of office must carefully experience this, [as the sayings attest]: Investigate it yourself before you can and the master craftsman can only transmit the technique, not the ability. Most importantly, the character kǒng must be appropriately used. If it is overused, then people’s shame will flare up into anger and opposition; is that not contrary to the aims of the office-seeker? So, why bother? Do not lightly use kǒng unless you are have no other recourse.

Although Lǐ meant to provide a fun critique, what is unnerving is that these practices are not just theoretical; many of us have experienced just these types of situations in China. In fact, in order to get ahead in a cut-throat competitive environment, many Chinese college graduates are now studying Lǐ’s thick-black techniques, and there exist a great quantity of books that teach people to be socially manipulative. 560

For the purposes of this thesis, what is salient to me is that the trope of reveal and conceal in Theory aligns with the Western articulations of strategic rationality discussed earlier. The strategic is a hidden, esoteric technique. The adept of the thick and black knows that the secret of success is enabled by concealing one’s selfishness with morality, in this case of “empathetic response” (rén) and uprightness (yì).”

560 “Recommend College Students Establish a ‘Career Thick-black Theory’ Class” 建议⼤学开设“职场厚 ⿊学”课, 17 Nov 2010：红⽹ http://job.chsi.com.cn/jyzd/zcht/201011/20101117/141644034.html; https:// m.sohu.com/n/483649721/?wscrid=95360_2 (accessed 22 Jan. 2018).

210 Lǐ advised that disciples of the thick and black should never admit to having read Theory, and should always conceal and adapt themselves to the values and ideologies of others:

Especially when you meet Confucian experts of the ethics of empathetic response (rén) and uprightness (yì). When you meet friends who discuss sexuality, there is no point in bringing up the ethics of empathetic response (rén) and uprightness (yì) with them, is that not but inviting their disinterest? Instead, you should cover it with the words sacred love. If you meet Marxists, cover it with class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat and he may even call you comrade.

Lǐ’s Theory is a clear example of strategic rationality at work in culture. Expressed through uniquely Chinese cultural metaphors, Lǐ presents the strategic as a process of kungfu like cultivation in which the adept progresses in three degrees from being “black as coal,” to

“glossy blackness,” and to ultimate invisibility as “insubstantial thickness,” and “hueless blackness.” Since at least the time of the classic of covert martial craft, The Six Sheaths (~500 -

200 BCE 六韜), conventionally believed to be the masterwork of the legendary master of SI

Jiāng Ziyá, this strategy of cunning concealment has been valorized in culture as tāolüè (韜略).

As Lǐ preached:

This ultimate mastery is an attribute of the most exemplary great sages and worthies of the past. Confucian and Buddhist texts both claim that the mark of mastery is invisibility: some people ask, “how can this type of learning be so profound”? I reply, “the Confucian text Focusing the Familiar teaches that one cannot exhaust the way until one understands the ‘soundless and the odorless.’561 Buddhists must understand ‘there is no wisdom tree, nor a stand of mirror bright’ before they can attain the buddha nature.’562 How much more so for the arts of the

561 “The affairs of nature continue, soundless and odorless.” Zhōngyōng 33 (詩經·⼤雅·⽂王)：“上天之 載，無聲無臭。”Also see Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, trans. Focusing the Familiar: A Translation and Philosophical Interpretation of the Zhōngyōng, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i, Press, 2001, 115.

562 ⾝为菩提树，⼼为明镜台。时时勤拂拭，勿使惹尘埃。 菩提本⽆树，明镜亦⾮台。本来⽆⼀ 物，何处惹尘埃。"There is no wisdom tree; nor a stand of a mirror bright, Since all is void, where can the dust alight?" In as sense it says "There is no Buddha." At least there is no object within you, called your Buddha-mind, which is mirror-like, and which must be wiped clean. I have been unable to identify the source of this translation.

211 thick and black which are occult secrets to success of the ancients! Clearly the final stage cannot be attained without achieving ‘formlessness and odorlessness.”

If concealment is the root (běn 本) of life and the foundation of social life, then she who strategically conceals her true intentions and capacity is best postured to attain strategic advantage.563 So, “cover your face with a layer of whatever suits those folks at any given time and place,” suggested Lǐ. “Even if you do not wish to practice the thick and black, you still must know it in order to protect yourself against others who would use it against you.” As a primer for the nasty game of life, Theory is a form of strategic hope that is grounded in historical experience and transmitted esoterically in culture. “From the Three Dynasties to the present, of the countless successes of nobility, generals, heroes, and sages--there is not one that did not originate from this! It is in all of the books and the reality of it can not be denied. If the reader is able to follow the path of my instruction, then go investigate for yourself. Naturally you will find this inexhaustible source everywhere, as clear as day.”

As the figures in this chapter demonstrate, Lǐ’s Theory continues to be transmitted in culture, often eliciting very visceral reactions, and characterizations of it as a type of “chicken soup for the soul” or “extreme social pathology.”564 In my view, it is paradoxically both. Like the cultural data explored in the previous chapters, Theory clearly traces strategic thought back to embodied experience and the human engagement with mystery. Theory as a form of hope is paradoxical because the human species is itself a paradox. Theory, as a form of meaning, is only possible because of a pre-existing existential threat to self-identity, and to the possibility of

563 This phrase was most famously used by Dèng Xiǎopíng (1904 - 1997) to articulate an international relations strategy in which China would “bide its time” until it was powerful enough to confront the West.

564 Personal communication, Professor James Millward, Georgetown University, April 2018. Chicken soup for the soul: ⼼灵鸡汤; extreme social pathology: 极端病态.

212 devaluation and loss of identity and human meaning for a creature that yearns to be immortal.

Strategic Intelligence everywhere is thus potent, and paradoxically ultimately impotent.

213 CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION

We really seek intelligence not for the answers it may suggest to the problems of life, but because we believe it is life. John Erskine (1879 – 1951) 565

Far from being an unprecedented phenomenon, the values of the strategic worldview that

I call SI have descended historically over time as a core set of civilizational values which in fact function as the “heroic truisms on which civilization is built.”566 Invested with the highest forms of authority, the continuous transmission of the values of SI provides evidence for the authority, legitimacy and potency of this ancient system of meaning as a way to achieve human dignity, freedom, and ambition.

Mathematical Structuralism made good sense in an era in which empirical and objective scientific method was king; in that paradigm, knowledge products were valuable to the degree that the complexity of human consciousness could be reduced to structures marked by +/-.

However, a new cultural synthesis is required after the dethronement of the authority of empirical science à la Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and the introduction of post-modern thought. In lieu of the rationalism-mentalism, universalism, foundationalism and reductionism of Structuralism, this study, which uses a cultural genealogy to excavate the strategic at the level of meaning and human values, seeks to understand the mētic- strategic in terms of the values of naturalism, the existential-phenomenal, the historical-cultural, the metaphorical, the axiological, and in its primary relation to life-force itself. To account for

565 John Erskine. "The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent, in The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent and Other Essays, (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1921).

566 G.K. Chesterton, “A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls,” (From The Defendant published in The Wayfarer's Library by J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, London, 1901) http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/penny- dreadfuls.html (accessed 1 May, 2017).

214 the unceasing transmission of the values of the strategic over the course of human civilization, I used the tools of hermeneutic philosophy and philosophical anthropology to prioritize image and metaphor as an irreducible level of analysis that appropriately expresses the complexity of human consciousness.

The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg (1920 - 1996) pioneered philosophical metaphorology; he believed that metaphors functioned as a primary means of illustrating an aspect of reality and a form of understanding. Metaphors for him were the perceptual mechanism arising from embodied experience that enabled human orientation in the universe, as well as informing thought and action. In the axiological ontology that I offer, analysis of imagery and metaphor enables us to excavate the original values-experience of humanity because embodied human experience (positive and negative) is synthesized through the process of imagination.

Imagination articulates its experiential values, that is the value that the human assigned to various experiences, in images and metaphors; these in turn function as shared cultural values.

Values articulated through shared images and metaphors then operate as a priori models of action that promise hope and transcendence in an insecure environment. The term strategic culture is redundant: all culture is strategic to the degree that it provides resources strategically to the human by conveniently bundling past experience into a schema that is useful for interpreting the threat features of the known and the unknown. Our culturally, historically, linguistically and axiologically conditioned metaphors then are the basis of our cultural legacy, and the means by which we transmit and create human meaning.

The strategic may indeed have been undervalued by some and treated as a partie honteuse, but this study shows that it has never been absent as a cultural force. By broadening

215 our conception of mētic intelligence as a particular expression of the strategic as a metaphorological paradigm, I excavated from the long cultural record a variety of images and metaphors that pointed to the primacy of deception in reality. In the cultural genealogy of strategic rationality presented here, it can be seen that culture has always obsessed about the reality of illusion, deception, and the meaning of heroically strategic human cunning. The values of heroically strategic cunning have been passed down in a direct cultural line of descent from the earliest centers of power onward. From its birth in the misty pre-history of Mediterranean and

Chinese civilizations, SI evolved as the center of power and culture shifted historically. This thesis shows that the values of strategic rationality have always been present in diverse cultural products—not just in the domains of statecraft and warcraft. By focusing on its heroic aspect, I show that strategic rationality has always been invested with the highest forms of legitimacy and authority that were meaningful in any given era, and that sources in which images of SI occurred served as primers that taught people the virtue of winning in the game of life.

These images and metaphors of SI present in various historic genres in our cultural heritage have also adequately equipped us to deal with the present. In an era of insecurity, terror, weakening institutions, injustice, global disintegration, radicalized culture wars and seemingly universal victimage, SI offers strategic advantage to its practitioner because it takes all of these phenomenon as the norm. The cultural tradition has repeatedly oriented us to this covert aspect of reality so that we may successfully attain meaning. The foundation of human culture is paradoxically the lack of foundation: everything at base is strife, all is deception. ‘Shared’ values as cultural ideals such as equality, fraternity, privacy, self-actualization, and justice, while useful, are all exposed eventually as tentative fictions. In the worldview of SI, human meaning, self

216 actualization, dignity, freedom—these things can never be given—they can only be won. And we are all complicit: Main Street stupidly elects Wall Street immediately after occupying it, and we watchers are consumed by the self-serving spectacle of the battle between Wall Street and the

Media. In this philosophical anthropology, we are all both Harvey Weinstein and #metoo, linked in a great chain of exploitation.

There is hope, however. Hope for the practitioner of SI lies in the development of increasing sensitivity that leads to strategic vision, which enables appropriate action and strategic advantage by truly viewing the real that is operating underneath illusion. Sensitization to reality is a painful process, cultivated and honed through personal, practical experience. Pain informs memory even as it compels the acquisition of foresight. Strategic advantage in life is won through the acquisition of foresight, when the hero can see through and anticipate, thereby properly interpreting the threat in order to rapidly adapt to it. Homo Ludens, Gaming Man, is made victorious against the insecurity of unanticipated threat because her strategic foresight, of

“seeing through,” and anticipating tactics and strategies, may even legitimately incorporate subterfuge, deception and deceit. Although the true master of SI may use victimage as a ruse, true victimage is impossible for the virtuosic master of SI: she is always redeemed from within.

Girded with the sword of sight and the wondrous shield of concealment, the heroic and virtuosic master of cultivated strategic intelligence will always dominate the unanticipated.

217 APPENDIX A

An ancient story of intrigue from the Chinese text, Intrigues of the Warring States.567

The King of Wei sent a beautiful woman to the King of Chu. The King of Chu enjoyed her. Queen Zheng Xiu knew that the king enjoyed the new woman, and she favored the new woman deeply. Be it clothes or trinkets--she picked out whatever she liked and made it hers [i.e. the concubine's]. Be it chambers or furniture--she picked out whatever she thought good and made it hers. She favored her more deeply than the king. The king said, "A woman serves her husband with sensual gratification; but jealousy is her emotion. Now Zheng Xiu knows that We enjoy the new woman; she favors her more deeply than We do. This is the way a filial son serves his parent, the way a loyal vassal serves his lord. "

Zheng Xiu knew that the king did not think her jealous, so she said to the new woman,

"The king favors Your beauty! Still, he hates your nose. When You go to see the king,[You] must cover your nose.” The new woman saw the king, and covered her nose. The king said to Zheng

Xiu, “Why did that new woman cover her nose when she saw Us?"

Zheng Xiu said, "I know."

The king said, "Though it be bad, you must say it."

Zheng Xiu said, "Oh! It seems she hates to smell the king’s stench! "

The king said, "Shrew! " He ordered, "Cut off her nose. Let there be no opposition to this command.”

567 Paul Rakita Goldin, “Miching Mallecho: The Zhanguo ce and Classical Rhetoric,” Sino-Platonic Papers, No. 41, 1993, 23-24. http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp041_zhanguoce_intrigues.pdf (accessed 26 January 2018). From 5.23bf.; 17.815f.; 200.

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