Self-Interest: Sun-Tzu And Thucydides

Professor Mack
Comparative Government (POLS 1220.32)
13 December 2011
The Art of Self-Interest: Sun-Tzu and Thucydides “Being fond of the truth, I am an admirer of antiquity,” writes Confucius. (Kaplan, 40) The past contains lessons that apply to the future, because while time, place, individuals and creed change, people as a whole do not. The motivations are always the same. “Thus, as Aron notes, while our ideals have usually been peaceful, history has often been violent. Though this should be obvious, it bears repeating given the triumphalist tone of public discourse in the aftermath of the Cold War. Somehow the collapse of an overly centralized Soviet state…has been greeted as evidence that civil society is on the horizon across the
globe.” (Kaplan, 50) Humanity, insofar as all factions are in competition, will always be in conflict. By this measure there is no such thing as a “good” or “evil” state, nor can there ever be such a thing as eternal global peace. Recognizing that good and evil are usually false dichotomies for states, Raymond Aron writes (again, echoing Thucydides and Sun-Tzu) that criticism of idealism “is not only pragmatic, it is also moral,” because “idealistic diplomacy slips too often into fanaticism.” Indeed, the acceptance of a world governed by a pagan notion of self-interest exemplified by Thucydides makes statesmanship likelier to succeed: it curtails illusions, reducing the scope for miscalculation. (Kaplan, 51)
By this measure the idealism that would paint one side as “good” and the other as “bad” could actually prove harmful to both parties involved. A ruler or senator who believes in the stark generalization that comes with casting an entire state as having all desirable qualities or all undesirable qualities if likely to delude himself further; it is not even necessary to see the effects of decisions made in such a mind to see this. Even a democratic country must occasionally side with the communist, as the greater Allied powers did with the Soviet Union during World War II. Treating the game of international relations as some sort of battle between good and evil is a pitfall the likes of which has snared the United States in more than one unnecessary conflict. Better to see with a clear head and a cool eye to make the pragmatic, rather than idealistic, decision.
Whatever we may think or profess, human behavior is guided by fear (phobos), self-interest (kerdos) and honor (doxa). These aspects of human nature cause war and instability, accounting for anthropinon, the “human condition.” The human condition, in turn, leads to political crises: when physis (pure instinct) triumphs over nomoi (laws), politics fails and is replaced by anarchy. The solution to anarchy is not to deny fear, self-interest, and honor but to manage them for the sake of a moral outcome. (Kaplan, 47) Those lines were written by Thucydides, a Greek general and historian. Though separated by more than two thousand years, his words are similar to those recorded by Friedrich Nietzsche in an essay on Irrationalism. “At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul…The noble soul accepts the fact of his egoism without question, and also without consciousness of harshness, constraint, or arbitrariness therein, but rather as something that may have its basis in the primary law of things: -if he sought a designation for it he would say: ‘It is justified.’” (Nietzsche, 269) These men recognize that people are fundamentally self-interested, and that to deny this is folly. Ego is closely tied with self-interest, and it is important to make the distinction between the care for one’s own body and mind and greed and selfishness. Such vices are putting yourself over others at their exclusion, while self-interest is simply a healthy maintenance of your own desires. The pinpointing and examination of these qualities in radically different cultures across large spans of time should provide strong evidence of their truth in being. Thusly are these wise men. There is an agreement on the principle of the thing across the ages. “Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowards, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you.” (Machiavelli, 220) These are byproducts of that self-interest inherent to every person, which Machiavelli writes about in The Prince “Concerning the Things for which Men, and Especially Princes, are Praised or Blamed.” (219) He too saw past the façade some would wish to construct in front of humanity to the true inner nature. Both Thucydides and Sun-Tzu were heavily invested in warfare, Thucydides in his brief time as a general before he was blamed and banished for a defeat and in his texts written afterwards, and Sun-Tzu as revealed in his great work The Art of Warfare. Here is seen a contrast between the philosophy of a premier intellectual in the realm of warfare and those thinkers who came after him.
The battles of the Warring States period involved archers, chariots, and foot soldiers who formed lines hundreds of miles long through mountains and swamps. Campaigns featured tens of thousands of men, both conscripts and professional warriors. The suffering was extraordinary. So if some of Sun-Tzu’s advice, particularly what he says regarding spies, sounds extreme, it is because he knows from experience that extreme measures are often necessary to avert war without dishonoring oneself. (Kaplan, 41) Contrast this to the beliefs of later fascist thinkers. To Sun-Tzu, the true goal of any war is peace. To the fascists, however, war is invigorating, revitalizing, and a way to test their national might in the other contest that matters. Peace eternal is to be avoided at all costs. Georg W.F. Hegel elaborates on the meaning of war in one of his essays:
There is an ethical element in war. It must not be regarded as an absolute ill, or as merely an external calamity which is accidentally based upon the passions of despotic individuals or nations, upon acts of injustice, and, in general, upon what ought not to be…The transient and negative nature of all things is transformed in the State into an expression of the ethical will. War, often painted by edifying speech as a state in which the vanity of temporal things is demonstrated, now becomes an element whereby the ideal character of the particular receives its right and reality. War has the deep meaning that by it the ethical health of the nations is preserved and their finite aims uprooted. As the winds which sweep over the ocean prevent the decay that would result from its perpetual calm, so war protects the people from the corruption which an everlasting peace would bring upon it. History shows phases which illustrate how successful wars have checked internal unrest and have strengthened the entire stability of the State. (Hegel, 239)
War, Hegel says, is a moral component to the State just as any other action, not merely a necessary evil. It is not the domain of evil dictators carrying out slaughters of innocent people and the nations that fight them exclusively, because that is not the only kind of war that can be justifiably engaged in. Ethics and morality is not decided in this way. Instead it is “an element whereby the ideal character of the particular receives its right and reality” meaning that might literally makes right. The victor, through his strength, may dictate the terms of what is and is not acceptable, and his will must be obeyed by virtue of his triumph.
There is another element to warfare: The prevention of stagnation.
Hegel compares this to a body of water in motion, as opposed to that which is still. A sea with currents and froth is constantly changing, adapting and clearing out the old to make way for the new, as a nation must as it progresses. But a sedentary pool stays the same and quickly becomes full of dirt and waste, fit only for scum; that would be the fate of a nation suffering from eternal peace. A certain broil is necessary to keep things fresh. By the same token war can put down strife within a nation. A country full of squabbling factions may unite against a common enemy, providing for order within the ranks of the State. Minor rebels and dissenters recognize the value of the institutions that make up the nation when confronted by a greater foe. In this way war can be used to the advantage of a country wracked by internal struggle. Thus it is a tool for the utilization to the advantage of the state like any
other.
Sun-Tzu explains that in war the “highest excellence” is never having to fight, for the commencement of battle signifies a political failure. War, as Clausewitz would repeat 2,300 years after Sun-Tzu, is an unwanted yet sometimes necessary extension of politics. Sun-Tzu notes that the best way to avoid war –the violent result of political failure- is to think strategically. The strategic pursuit of self-interest is not a cold and amoral pseudo-science, but the moral act of those who know the horrors of battle and seek to avoid them. (Kaplan, 41-42) To Sun-Tzu, war was very much the sometimes necessary evil it is commonly regarded as today.
He recognized that conflict could be used to stabilize and strengthen the state, but ultimately avoiding, rather than engaging, in warfare and using other kinds of power to complete objectives was the greatest victory that could be won. This would be a self-interested and yet moral way of securing national interests. Agreeing with Confucius, Sun-Tzu asserts that a true commander is never swayed by public opinion, for virtue can be the opposite of fame or popularity. (Plutarch, who considered “popularity” and “tyranny” and “same fault” insinuated that one led to the other.) Sun-Tzu’s example of a virtuous commander is one “who advances without any thought of winning personal fame and withdraws in spite of certain punishment” if it is in the interest of his army and people. (Kaplan, 42) Machiavelli, for one, disagrees. “It is necessary,” he says, “for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.” (Machiavelli, 219) Acting against virtue might not be the best course of action for an army, but if it is in the best interest of the prince then he should do it. This is where the philosophy of Sun-Tzu and many fascist thinkers diverge. Virtue is a must for Sun-Tzu, but for many others, it is optional at
best. It is necessary for him to be sufficiently prudent that he may know how to avoid the reproach of those vices which would lose him his state; and also to keep himself, if it be possible, from those which would not lose him it; but this not being possible, he may with less hesitation abandon himself to them. And again, he need not make himself uneasy at incurring a reproach for those vices without which the state can only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is considered carefully, it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; while something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity. (Machiavelli, 219) Here Machiavelli says that the prince must act in his own best self-interest in order to secure his sovereignty and state. Even that which appears to be selfish or self-serving things are open to him, as long as he can convince others that they held the state persevere. The prince is to look after himself, first and foremost, not his people. To Machiavelli, people are tools and assets, to be played against each other in the game of running a state. His ideal prince is not Sun-Tzu’s ideal general. Thucydides wrote The Peloponnesian War detailing the history of a war between the Greek city-states after the defeat of the Persian Empire. With it comes insight into the politics at play between the various Greek nations acting against each other.
The Peloponnesian War may be the seminal work of international relations theory of all time. It is the first work to introduce a comprehensive pragmatism into political discourse. Its lessons have been elaborated upon by such writers as Hobbes, Hamilton, Clausewitz, and, in our own era, Hans Morgenthau, George F. Kennan, and Henry Kissinger. In contrast to Sun-Tzu and Cicero, whose works are rich in maxims, Thucydides is a military man, whose philosophy emerges naturally from his descriptions of violent events. While Thucydides’s persistent focus on self-interest may be offensive to some, his notion that self-interest gives birth to effort, and effort to options, makes his 2,400-year-old history of the Peloponnesian War a corrosive to the extreme fatalism basic to Marxism and medieval Christianity. (Kaplan, 45-46) There are examples of fascist-like thought and action in Thucydide’s accounts. For example, during the war Athens and a number of friendly states were facing off against Sparta and her own allies. The following occurred during the conflict: Thucydides’ harshest example of how power and self-interest motivate our calculations is the so-called Melian Dialogue. Melos is a neutral island in the central Aegean, militarily vulnerable to Athens. The Athenians land a force on the island and arrogantly tell the Melians: …since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. (Kaplan, 48) In essence, the Athenians told the Melians that they could do what they wanted to them because they were powerful and the Melians were not. Had the Melos been a power equal to Athens then they would have warranted some respect and negotiation, but Melos was not in a position where they could effectively fight back against the Athenians. Indeed, though the Melians resist the Athenians, the conflict ended when the Melians surrendered; all their men were executed, and their women and children enslaved. The fascists and the men they draw their philosophy from do not disagree with this sort of action. As stated by Friedrich Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil:
To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one’s will on a par with that of others: this may result in a certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary conditions are given (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals in amount of force and degree of worth, and their co-relation within one organization). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle more generally, and if possible even as the fundamental principle of society, it would immediately disclose what really is –namely, a Will to the denial of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation: -but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purposes has been stamped? Even the organization within which, as was previously supposed, the individuals treat each other as equal –it takes place in every healthy aristocracy- must itself, if it be a living and not a dying organization, do all that towards other bodies, which the individuals within it refrain from doing to each other: it will have to be the incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavor to grow, to gain ground, attract to itself and acquire ascendency –not owing to any morality or immorality, but because it lives, and because life is precisely Will to Power. On no point, however, is the ordinary consciousness of Europeans more unwilling to be corrected than on this matter; people now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of society in which “the exploiting character” is to be absent: -that sounds to my ears as if they promises to invent a mode of life which should refrain from all organic function; it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life. –Granting that as a theory this is a novelty –as a reality it is the fundamental fact of all history: let us be so far honest towards ourselves! (Nietzsche, 266) Nietzsche is saying that it is natural for human beings to attempt to shape, control and dominate each other. To believe otherwise is folly. In small groups it is possible for us to live together in peace and harmony, but as soon as it is applied to a larger organization of people it all falls apart. Furthermore, it is not a question or morality or immortality, Nietzsche says, but one of interest –self-interest. There is what he calls a Will to Power, which motivates all people to seek power individually and collectively. This leads into the Will to Life, a will to live. These are all things that are evidently true.
Central to the philosophy of Thucydides and Sun-Tzu is the idea that war is not an aberration. Elaborating upon the ancient Greeks and Chinese, the mid-twentieth-century French philosopher Raymond Aron and his Spanish contemporary Jose Ortega y Gasset both observe that war is inherent in the division of humanity into states and other groupings. Sovereignty and alliances rarely occur in a void; they arise from differences with others. Thus, as Aron notes, while our ideals have usually been peaceful, history has often been violent. (Kaplan, 50)
At their core, Sun-Tzu and Thucydides don’t view war as the exception, but as the rule. As conflict is a part of the human condition, with the above “appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation” so is war. Though it is the pitting of one state against another, it is also like two people fighting, but in this case it is many people to make up a whole. Strife is the natural condition of things. We may strive for peace, but our reality is war.
Because humanity, as Thucydides shows, is divided into groups that are in incessant competition with each other, the central characteristic of all states is their maneuverability: rarely can states be categorized as strictly good or evil. Instead they tend to act good for a while and bad for a while, or good on one issue and bad on another, as they endlessly navigate for advantage. That is why the term “rogue state,” although occasionally appropriate, may also expose the idealistic illusions of its user: since it misjudges the nature of states themselves. (Kaplan, 51) Again comes the issue of good and evil, and how they cannot be applied to states. No government has a monopoly on good or evil, not even the most fascist, totalitarian dictatorship or the most open and liberal democracy. States are amalgamations of people, who likewise cannot be painted in such broad strokes. There is only self-interest and the Will to Power.
Recognizing that good and evil are usually false dichotomies for states, Raymond Aron writes (again, echoing Thucydides and Sun-Tzu) that criticism of idealism “is not only pragmatic, it is also moral,” because “idealistic diplomacy slips too often into fanaticism…” Indeed, the acceptance of a world governed by a pagan notion of self-interest exemplified by Thucydides makes statesmanship likelier to succeed: it curtails illusions, reducing the scope for miscalculation. Historically grounded liberalism recognizes that liberty did not arise from abstract reflection, moral or otherwise, but from difficult political choices made by rulers acting in their own self-interest. (Kaplan, 51) So a recognition and understanding of the vitality of self-interest in foreign relations and to states is paramount to the continued stability of the world. No one, especially rulers, can allow themselves to be blinded by idealism and strict morality when the world demands otherwise for them to survive. Self-interest should be their mantra, as it had been before in centuries past. This should not be viewed as something cold and cynical; as has been stated, self-interest is not amoral, but simply truthful. Nor does it breed only selfishness and pain.
“As the Danish classicist and historian David Gress notes, liberty grew in the West mainly because it served the interest of power.” (Kaplan, 51)

Works Cited:
Cohen, Carl. Communism, Fascism, and Democracy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997. Print.
Kaplan, D. Robert. Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos. New York: Random House, 2002. Print.