Comparing: Order to Chaos

The Art of War 5:4.4-9

This article continues our project explaining each line of Sun Tzu’s work. The English and Chinese are from my award-winning translation, The Art of War and The Ancient Chinese Revealed. Start here for the book’s opening lines.

The two stanzas discussed in this article continue the Fourth Section of Chapter 5. This chapter explains how strategic Momentum is created by the interruption of direct actions with surprises. This Fourth Section focuses on the unpredictability of competition. The lines in these two stanzas discuss the series of psychological reactions resulting from surprises that can, if properly used, turn chaos into control. It relates the concepts of chaos, bravery, and strength.

These stanzas exhibit extreme order. These three topics are explained in only six lines. Even more constricting, these lines consist of only two Chinese characters each. It is a poetic form. Without other characters to provide restricting context, each ancient character has a wider variety of meanings than our English words. Each can be read as verbs, nouns, adverbs, adjectives, and so on. They pack a great number of possible meanings into a limited space. For this not to be chaotic, each character must be carefully chosen so each meaning offers something valuable.

In using this novel form, Sun Tzu is demonstrating an innovation in his writing. He hasn’t used this form before.

The Control of Chaos

In the previous stanza, Sun Tzu says that chaos gives birth to control. Experiencing chaos motivates us to find ways to put things into order. The necessity of chaos is the mother of invention of order.

<Rule> <disorder>,
You must control chaos.

This line reiterates that idea that, not only can chaotic situations be controlled, but that good strategy requires preparing ways to control disorder. The world of competition is chaotic and unpredictable. We may long for a stable world, but a truly stable world offers no opportunities. What we can do is create islands of stability in a sea of chaos, but this is a dynamic stability that adapts to change rather than resisting it.

Sun Tzu introduces a simple formula for accomplishing this:

<Count> <also>;
This depends on your planning.

Perhaps this would be better translated as “always be calculating.” Sun Tzu is against “planning” in the form of creating lists of pre-planned moves. He teaches planning as adapting to events that occur. This requires that we constantly analyze our positions so we are always aware of how we compare to others. Competition is comparison. We don’t know when a “battle,” a competitive comparison between us and others, will arise, so, we must always know how we match up against potential rivals.

The calculation of the relative strength of the five key factors—mission, climate ground, command, and methods—is explained from the first page of The Art of War. We think about the balance of these forces to determine who is more likely to need a surprise. If this analysis shows that we are underdogs, we must plan surprises. If our opponents are underdogs, we must expect surprises from them. The surprises will occur in areas of relative weakness and strength.

This is what controls our emotional responses to what is happening. As the balance of forces shift over time, the scales tip back and forth. In any on-going competitive contest, the situations will switch around. This must be embraced. We think about the balance of forces to determine who is more likely to need a surprise. This is what shapes our emotional response to what is happening.

The Use of Emotion

We must prepare our emotions to meet uncertainty. Everyone fears change. Even the changes arising from the surprises that we ourselves plan. We hope not to need them, that proven methods will work. We survived in the past doing what we know, we do not know what we need to do to survive in a surprising future.

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