Reading Chinese Machiavelli

Unlike all major ancient civilizations that had become part of history, Chinese civilization is the only one which went through all historical stages without any fall. The continuity of Chinese civilization is a challenge to generalized historical theories of rise and fall of civilizations. In fact Chinese civilization has all characteristics and characters of any ancient civilization. Guess what? it has also my favorite character, "Socrates". Socrates was a revolutionary figure in ancient Greek Philosophy as he turned the practice of Sophism into discipline of Philosophy. While mentioning Socrates, it is a matter of interest to note that it was Socrates' students who turned to evolve the single handed movement of their teacher into a successful "intellectual revolution" by setting up schools such as Academia by Plato in first generation and Lyceum by Aristotle in second generation.

So what we know about Socrates comes through the writings of his students especially through "Republic" of Plato that includes sketches about life, personality and dialogues of Socrates. It might be a matter of amusement to note that an identical picture comes from China. The 'Analects of Confucius" is equivalent to the "Republic" of Plato and is not written by Confucius himself but by his disciples. Although, there is a contrast between Socrates' life styles and circumstances, interests and even practices but their roles are almost similar in their respective civilizations and to me Confucius is Chinese Socrates. Confucius is well known both in East and West and his philosophy has been practiced not only in China but also in neighboring countries, what we know as East Asian countries....

If I have to grandly classify the world based on their philosophies, I would say historically there are three geo-philosophical regions (These regions are distinct in their philosophies),

Spiritual East, that includes, North Africa, Middle East, South and Central Asia, Practical Far-East that includes Eastern Asian Nations and Idealist West that include western nations...

Although Chinese philosophy has not the taste of spiritualism and idealism but its practicality makes it palatable to common instincts.

When one looks for a practical Philosopher in the Western world, Machiavelli is the most likely name to come first in his mind. Because Machiavelli's practical philosophy does not fit very well to idealistic Western Philosophy and Spiritual Eastern Philosophy so he is looked upon as a philosopher of ruling class and Machiavelli himself was looking to himself in the same way and it is perhaps why he was named his most famous book, "The Prince"... If you are familiar with Machiavelli then Sun Tzu is not an alien to you except that Sun Tzu is taller in practicality than Machiavelli..

As globalization pushing the nations closer to each other, we see the inertia in the form of new conflicts and new means of competitions to increase the spheres of influences. It is quite predictable that fear of losing is by-product of this globalization inertia. If the East is scared of decline in spirituality, the West is worried about scrambling of idealism. Even layman can sense the ad hoc responses to current challenges. While Eastern and Western Philosophies are just looking into cultural aspects of conflicts, the Sun Tzu tells us why certain regions of world are land of conflicts.. Why certain places and people faces uninvited wars and conflicts again and again?

Following is a documentary about Sun Tzu's book, "The Art of War". While, I am not interested in war but I believe that in order to understand Peace, one needs to understand war and conflicts. It is necessary to understand why certain people are victims of conflicts and why certain people are interested in war instead of Peace....
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The illusion of Power

Here I am reading the two different opinions from two close generations on the same subject, decline and transformation. Professor Joseph Nye in his article, “What is wrong with transformational leadership?” compares era of Clinton to those of Bush Junior’s era and blames Bush for ignoring reality in favor of changing it but on other hand expresses satisfaction on the power of current institutions. Umair Haque a representative of current generation in his article, “The Economic Roots of Your Life Crisis” does not blame leaders but the decline of the institutions for general “disorientations of current generation”.

Well, I am not in mood of taking sides but for me, it is really interesting to see the differences of opinions in two neighboring generations. Looking to the nature of general decline both in terms of governance and economics that is global in its nature, it would be unfair to blame individuals who were more of products of those institutions. I am reading Professor Nye’s article for long and I have noticed a big shift in his position from advocating the projection of “smart power” to currently more focusing on “leadership”. By having a look to the lists of his current articles, “When Women Lead”, “Angela Merkel’s Vision Thing”, “Charisma We Believe in” and now “What is Wrong with Transformational Leadership”, I feel that he is seeing the problem with “leadership” instead of his proposed “smart power” and still looking for some charismatic and smart leader for successful execution and strong comeback of his “smart power” (In Mideast, the goal is "smart power"......"Smart Power" ).

To me, power is the biggest illusion that people get from fall or failures of others. After collapse of Soviet Union, there were a big shift in balance of power on the world’s theatre but instead of seeing the resulting chaos, the “generation” who was involved in the struggle against Soviet Union got an illusion of power. That is a common symptom both in West and East, particularly in Pakistan that was frontline state in struggle against Soviet Union. Like Professor Nye, the Pakistani generation that was involved in struggle against Soviet Union, got an illusion of power and instead of seeing the mess they had created during their “Holy Struggle” both in Pakistani institutions and society, they tried to project their “power” to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Guess what was the “Power”? Of course, it was not something secret and mysterious. The power that was the fruit of two decades of struggle was Taliban and religious extremists groups. After two decades of projection of “Taliban Power”, the toll of destruction to Pakistani institutions and society is unimaginable. Tolerance, trust and confidence are things almost missing in the society. How our “Power generation” expect from current generation to not be disoriented? This is lost generations who have the problem of wasting too much time in understanding their situations, society and governing institutions than learning and inventing time. The time they spend wandering about their situations and governing institution is not only wasted but also waste them. This is a generation that is lost in waste. It is really unfortunate that instead of rethinking institutions, the politicians are blamed. Despite of all these, I see a hot pursuit for “Charismatic and Strong Leadership” to bring changes to Pakistan.

Let me dare to say, “Sorry, with decline of most institutions, any charismatic leadership will be just a memorable failure”. It is not time for hunting a leadership but “leaderships in all spheres” and serious rethinking about the restructuring of institutions. There is still time to come out of “illusion of power” and correcting others but instead it is time for “correcting self” and that is more of an urgency call.

As a member of current generation, I walk in same shoes as Umair Haque walks. It doesn’t fit and it hurts walking so “you” can’t blame me for not walking well while it hurts. Our problem is that change has already come (May be through technology) but we still want to forcefully resist it. Let’ see if change will force us to go for change or we will be saved just by continuing to look for a “Charismatic Leader” and blaming failed leaders for the mess.

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