Recent and forthcoming events in relation to the US "President" elections, have once again filled the mass media and blogosphere with complex, labile, incoherent "4-Dimensional Chess" explanations of what is really going-on...
We know that the official story is never true; nonetheless it's a snare to get drawn into these attempts to discover the real truth.
Not only because they are necessarily false explanations (although the truth is that we cannot ever know, because some key relevant information is unavailable to outsiders, and the insiders are all evil liars). And not only because even-if the truth was discovered, and the villains and their villainy identified, justice would not be done.
I fully accept that there are indeed many people playing 4D chess in politics; that is, adopting multi-layered strategies whereby the meaning of a "move" on one level may (or may not) mean the opposite, on another level; and where the overall strategy is only apparent by a multi-level and dynamic awareness.
And, of course, other people (and probably most of them) are merely using 4D chess explanations to cover-up incompetence, ignorance and insanity.
But complex and long-term 4-Dimensional Chess strategizing is how many of the leadership class operate; as I know from my own experiences working inside large bureaucracies such as the National Health Service, Universities Think Tanks and the like. They discuss and make such plans, and they try to accomplish them.
(The 4D strategies are always derailed by endemic dishonesty, incompetence, and corruption. They invariably end by having different outcomes from intended, and by destroying capability and efficiency. Nonetheless, there are many such plans in the pipeline and operative.)
What I am saying is that reasoning about politics on the lines of 4D chess, demonstrates that participants in this kind of strategy and analysis are on the side of evil.
In other words: regarding politics as any kind of four-dimensional chess problem, is an evil-stance on human society; because it derives from a perspective on other people that is deceptive and manipulative.
Typically, complex schemes of deception and manipulation are presented as being "in a good cause" - e.g. to defeat some evil, or in order that "we" (the supposedly good side) can win, and then do good things...
In short, 4-Dimensional Chess is a version of our old friend The Boromir Strategy - which is an ancient demonic temptation to encourage a moral separation between ends and means; to encourage the delusion that we can pursue good ends by evil means.
By contrast; when good is genuinely being pursued in politics (a rare situation, and currently absent) then means and ends are in obvious, up-front harmony; because both are clear and simple, and fit-together.
That's the only way that good is ever achieved in a top-down fashion.
What do you think about strategy "beating powerful evil with power"(Aragorn strategy perhaps?). I.e. evil gets used to dominate everything around, however forces of good outplay it strategically, crush in battles, etc. I myself as a peaceful person was always an aim for aggressors, and at some point got enough of it and decided to beat a power by power, and from then it's my current psychological state. Guess, not fits well with Tolkien's message?
ReplyDelete@P - I am not talking about power - but evil.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a pacifist (https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/search?q=pacifism), and neither was Tolkien - although Tolkien knew the sufferings and horror of war more than most.