Strategy and Tactics

 

Culture War

Though we know the culture war     
We don't know what it's for but       
We've lived the southern strategy    
You know it's never  going to last     
So keep it in the past

If there is a Culture War, what are its Strategies and Tactics?

Strategy and Tactics are not the same thing.  Strategy is about winning a war.  Tactics are about winning a battle.  History has numerous examples about winning the battle, but losing the war. This is where the term Pyrrhic victory comes from, as the name for a battle whose victory is so costly that it is the cause of losing a war.

Concentrating on winning only a battle is appropriate  if you don’t believe in a future.  It seems that one side in the culture war, especially the side with a southern strategy, of supporting the existing caste system, does not believe in a future, or they would not risk everything on a single battle. Strategy is planning for a future; tactics are about winning the present.  The Ants who plan for the future may be boring, but Aesop’s fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant, suggests that it is the boring Ants who plan and believe in a future who will ultimately win over the momentarily exciting Grasshoppers who do not plan for the future.  A strategy isn’t a strategy if it does not acknowledge the future.   

There is an apocryphal story,

“A man had offended the king and was sentenced to death. He fell to his knees before the king and implored, “Oh your majesty! Spare me but for one year, and I will teach your horse to talk!” The king was amazed and granted his wish.

 

The man’s close friend and brother upbraided him, saying, “Why did you make such an absurd promise?”

The man shrugged and replied, “In a year, the king may die. In a year, I may die. In a year, the horse may talk!”

This story often features the ancient Persian Mullah Nasrudin as the man and the king is a Sultan, but the point is the same.  The question should be what is the tactical plan IF the king lives, the man lives, and the horse does not talk, because that is a more likely future.  A tactic that counts on an improbable future is  no different than not believing in the future at all.