TACTICS & STRATEGY: THE POSTMODERN EUPHEMISM FOR POWER STRUGGLE

    

    Since Machiavelli produced, The Prince, politicians and philosophers have created stand-in words to to cover for ulterior intentions.  Although author Margaret Crawford claims a distancing from the post moderns, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, her champions of a returning to everyday life project their philosophy through the same Marxist lens.  Stated as such, all of human history should be seen as a power struggle between the powerful and the weak.  This viewpoint is revealed through their reliance upon the notions of Tactics and Strategy.  Viewed through this lens, strategy is a power struggle wherein people and groups in power exert their will on the weaker through the manipulation of spaces.  These same individuals view tactics as the pathway for individuals to bypass the influence of the powerful by operating outside the predictable norms of society.  I will argue that although these seem opposed to each other, they are actually a symbiotic relationship upon which the future of society is depended. 

Through this worldview, an everyman character emerges who embodies the banal rhythms of everyday life.  This persona postures themself against “the man” by outmaneuvering the oppressive structures imposed upon them.  By this I mean that whatever “super power” attempting to dominate space with order is ultimately and always sidestepped by the individual character and nuance applied to the space through the tactics of the general populous.  An example might be Richard Meir “perfectly” designing every square inch of the Getty museum, only to reel in horror when the staff members inhabit the designed offices and begin decorating them with their own pictures, quirks, and memorabilia.  

The underlying philosophy proposes that tactics should trump strategies.  These grass roots ideas are the truly important values which resonate with individuals.  There is a strong posturing insinuation that that the strategies of the “powerful” attempt to overwhelm and snuff out individuality.  As such, these two ideas are diametrically opposed to each other.  But almost all the great works of art which have moved people to greatness came from the rich, the talented, the powerful as a gift to society.  Through public parks, great cathedrals, commissioned marble statues. These could only exist in a society which accepts that strategies are net positives to society.  

I would argue that there needs to be room for both.  Society should strive for meaning above the banalities of everyday life while at the same time acknowledging the intrinsic beauty of simplicity.   Our lives need meaning.  We need music.  We need art.  We need cinema.  Strategies of greatness provide societies a sense of pride, a goal to shoot for.  But society must reject both fascism and communism.  We must allow for individuals to tactically reform the spaces created by the “powerful” while at the same time allow the powerful to create great works of art. The individual character of tactics adds spice to life which makes our life interesting, personalized, and fun.  One might say that there is objective truth, but everyone has their own subjective way to obtain that subjective truth.