CB,
Have you read Virginia Postrel's The Future and it's Enemies? Here framework might help you understand Sun Tzu and the folks that make similar arguments.
Every big move forward in technology and the economy transforms societies, cultures, languages, the nature of families, the definition of tribes and nations, everything. Always has and always will. For example, the modern city evolved in the early days of the industrial revolution as peasants moved from the country to be closer to the factories. During periods of great change, people wail about the 'new way' killing of the 'old way' and there must some 'evil them' out there profiting from all the nasty change.
The problem is that culture, society, economies are living ecosystems, always in a state of flux. Flux is the rule of the world, way more powerful than America.
America is the target of some people's anger but it is not the source of it. Just as the ideal America of Norman Rockwell never existed, the ideal Islamic world that globalization is killing never existed.
You are either fighting for the myth of the future or fighting for the myth of the past. One fight provides hope and prosperity and one fight provides despair, hatred and decline.
The real job is engage the people of the middle in their own fight for the future.
Paul |
