#command – @nickkahler on Tumblr

Structure [warfare] according to the following five factors, evaluate it comparatively through estimations, and seek out its true nature. The first is termed the Tao, the second Heaven, the third Earth, the fourth generals, and the fifth the laws for military organization and discipline.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War, c. 450 BCE

nickkahler

[Shih can be translated as] the strategic configuration of power [involving] first, the strategic advantage conveyed by superior position, and second, the power of the forces involved. ('Power' refers to an army's overall capability in all aspects - including endurance, spirit, discipline, equipment, command, and physical condition - rather than strength in numbers alone.) ... Strategic advantage has a pronounced temporal character; therefore, it should not be confined to exploiting the advantages of terrain as usually thought. Strategic advantage is of course in essence a comparative term, not an absolute one, although a vast force will possess great power.

Ralph D. Sawyer, “Introduction” for Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, c. 450 BCE

nickkahler

If he has unconsciously destroyed the order which his father had established, and made his home a very different place, much freer, in many ways much poorer, it is chiefly because he has wanted to eliminate some of the stages between reality and himself as his predecessors tried to do. He sees the relationship in his own characteristic terms: he sees himself not as a child of God wishing to learn the parental command, not as a child of nature heeding the good impulse, but as an efficient and reliable instrument for transforming the invisible power within him into a power adapted to the world as he knows it.

J.B. Jackson, “The Westward-Moving House,” 1953

#j.b. jackson #quote #destruction #order #establishment #place #poor #chief #stage #reality #characteristic #god #command #nature #good #instrument #change #society #control #power #world

nickkahler reblogged

praxismakesperfect

class-struggle-anarchism

Whatever the pace of mechanical progress; though machines should be invented a hundred times more marvellous than the mule-jenny, the knitting-machine, or the cylinder press; though forces should be discovered a hundred times more powerful than steam, — very far from freeing humanity, securing its leisure, and making the production of everything gratuitous, these things would have no other effect than to multiply labour, induce an increase of population, make the chains of serfdom heavier, render life more and more expensive, and deepen the abyss which separates the class that commands and enjoys from the class that obeys and suffers.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, “On the Worker and the Industrial Revolution,” 1847 (via sambwmn)

nickkahler

Work like a slave; command like a king; create like a god.

Constantin Brancusi, "On Art," c. 1920

#work #slave #command #king #create #god #art #design #sculpture #constantin brancusi #modernism #quote

nickkahler

First comes the human being and then the system, or that’s how it was in antiquity. Today, however, society presumes to make prepackaged human beings, ready for consumption. Anyone can propose reform, criticize, violate, and demystify, but always with the obligation to remain within the system. It is forbidden to be free. Once you create an object, you always have to remain by its side. That’s what the system commands. This expectation is never to be frustrated, and once an individual has assumed a role, he has to continue to perform it until death. Each of his gestures has to be absolutely consistent with his behavior in the past and has to foreshadow his future. To exist from outside the system amounts to revolution.

Germano Celant, Arte Povera Manifesto, 1967

#germano celant #quote #arte povera #manifesto #revolution #system #existence #criticism #violation #demystification #consumption #production #freedom #free #art #object #human being #antiquity #command #individual