Oct 02, 2008 22:14
In this day and age wars are fought across the seas and at home with guns and bombs. In the old days it was swords and shields, catapults and arrows.
But today's post is not about physical war, but a more insidious and dividing war. A war using semantics, metaphors, and hidden meanings. In the corporate world a physical war is too banal and pedestrian. Lies, deceit, and double meanings are the tools of czars and kings (or should I say kingpins). The unwitting pawn, hoping to help out and all the while help himself, ends up getting caught in the middle of the feuding between the current liege and the usurper to the throne. If the usurper was really intelligent, he would gain the trust and respect of the pawns he wishes to use. But what happens when the usurper underestimates the seemingly unwitting pawn? What happens when offense is given first once, and then twice with heightened effect?
In the Machiavellian world, if one gives offense, he must make sure that he does so with such intent that there is no fear of retribution. Otherwise the offense festers like an open sore and grows with infectious display, seething under the surface of the seemingly dull pawn.
It's a good thing, therefore, that we no longer live in a world where Machiavelli is paid any heed by those foolish usurpers who wish only for their own gain and fail to take care of business as should be done. It is also good that often a kind and happy demeanor can lull one's opponents into a foolish carelessness. For we still live in a world of kings and pawns, only now the pawns can become more than that. We have education, abilities, and freedoms not known by our ancestors. We can bide our time and wait for the opportunity to strike - a luxury typically only afforded to those ancestors with large amounts of assets and allies. And when we strike, it can be with either small insidious bites or the smiting forces of ages. Either way the usurper can and will fall while our gracious liege still remains in power or is replaced eventually by a similar liege that deserves the same amount of respect.
Either way...whether it is 900 B.C. or current day, it is still a game of Kings and Pawns