As so many have, I’ve found former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon’s HBO Series The Wire, biting and insightful. In its gritty portrayal of how people in crises act—both for good and ill—it frequently resonates with the Sun Tzu, the Art of War.

In a section of the Art of War about the vital importance of knowing (not knowledge, which is fixed and static, but knowing, which is dynamic and emergent), it says:

In seeing victory, not going beyond what everyone knows is not skillful.

The double negative can trip you up. I always have to re-read this one (which is not the worst thing in the world when it comes to something subtle). But here’s what it’s saying: in order to see our way through a challenge (to see victory), we have to go beyond the expected, what automatically appears to us (what everyone knows). The very fact that it talks about “seeing” victory is a clue to how this approach goes against our habitual grain. So often, we want to just go out and get victory, get it over with. We want to impose victory. We miss the vital role of sensing the environment that victory can arise from.

In the fourth season of The Wire, Roland Pryzbylewski, who just left the police force to become an eighth grade teacher in the inner city, has just made it clear in a meeting that he’s mentally battling his students every minute. As the meeting wraps up, a veteran teacher pauses on the way out and looks at him with intimate knowing. “You need soft eyes,” she says.

Several episodes later, veteran homicide detective Bunk Moreland is showing detective Kima Greggs, who is new to homicide, how to approach a scene. Bunk advises her on another facet of soft eyes. “You got soft eyes you can see the whole thing. You got hard eyes, you staring at the same tree, missing the forest.” She mocks and dismisses his “zen shit,” which is a nice touch (it never helps to get too self-spiritual about one’s insight), but he meant it and the point stands.

From the Sun Tzu perspective, you see victory with soft eyes: soft eyes that  don’t shoot daggers at “the enemy,” those who may resist your direction; and soft eyes that take in the whole, that see the focal point and the soft hazy bits at the edges and the parts of the scene that may send you a little message about the lay of the land—about where victory may be found.

Barry Boyce

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Knowing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.