I’ve been working on a new project that requires a good deal of reading in classical Chinese texts. These texts are classics for a reason and this quote in particular was an amazing defense of preemptive war that everybody should read:
Even a tree so big that it shields the sky was, at its beginning, only as thick as the base of a tree sprout: easy to get rid of. But once it has fully manifested itself, a hundred people using hatchets and axes are unable to fell it!
When flames first arise, they are easily extinguished. But once it has gotten to the point where the Yunmeng and the Mengzhu swamplands are aflame, then even with the help of the whole world ladling out the waters of the Jiang and Han rivers, one will still be unable to save the situation!
The “beginnings of misfortunes” are like flames and tree sprouts: easy to stop. But then they are neglected and become great matters, then even worthies like Kong Zi [Confucius] and Mozi will be unable to save the situation!
When a house burns and someone saves it, then we know their virtue. But the elderly who daub chimney cracks to guard against fire, thereby living their whole lives without the misfortune of stray flames causing a fire: their virtue remains unknown!
When they enter a jail or prison to relive one who has suffered difficulty [by bailing him out], then his relatives are held to be acting virtuously toward him. But those who would teach him with goodness, propriety, parental love, and sibling concern so that his whole life will be without such difficulty: no one considers this to be virtue!
Misfortunes also have chimneys and if worthies were to travel the world to aid in daubing them, then the world would have no military suffering, yet none would know their virtue. There it is sad: ‘Safely people rectify things when they are yet spirituous [or forming]; stupid people contend with things after they have become obvious.
The two relevant ideas I found are that it’s easy to solve a problem before they become big, and there is little thanks in doing so but it is still the right thing to do. George W. Bush was attacked viciously and compared to Hitler, and his supporters were called many names to include warmonger, Nazis, propagandists and even insane anti-Christs.
But the world is a better place with an active and interventionist America. When problems become obvious to the American people it is usually only after a devastating sneak attack with thousands of casualties like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. But some presidents have the foresight and courage to at least try and deal with problems when they are small and more manageable. Yet the very fact that they are small means that many people end up thinking military solutions are unnecessary and the president is being a warmonger.
Hence, presidents who proactively deal with problems are given little credit for nipping them in the bud. George Bush saw a danger in rogue regimes using weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) or supplying them to terrorists. Of the three countries he listed in his Axis of Evil, Iraq still has problems but has not been ruled by a dictator sharing WMDs with non-state actors. While the other two, North Korea and Iran, are dangerously closer to having them and have created giant headaches for multiple presidents.
Bush should receive far more credit for his wisdom in dealing with a problem before it became too costly to stop. As Shizi says, and with application to all sorts of problems from the debt to refugee crisis, only “stupid people contend with things after they become obvious.” Given the current debate, Americans might want to ignore those who fling insults, and instead deal with problems when they are yet forming.
There is a bit of irony here as Shizi later quotes a passage from Mozi which condemns offensive warfare, but he provides an argument earlier in his text that perfectly defends it.
