14 January 2006 | Draft
Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patternsreframing the scope of the "martial arts" in response to strategic threats- / - Introduction Conventional attributes of haiku Semantic and epistemological potential of haiku Experiential focus of poetry Haiku and the martial arts Strategic potential of haiku Catalytic role of haiku in kairotic time Existential quality of life-and-death decisions Haiku and strategic decision making Natural cognitive templates offered by haiku Cognitive configuration of haiku -- and dimensions of strategic engagement Configuring the pattern that connects Strategic potential of cognitive commonalities between poetry and music Beyond knowledge -- to wisdom? Conclusion References Published in Journal of the Interdisciplinary Crossroads,
Volume 2, No. 3, December 2005 [text]
IntroductionThe General Assembly of the World Academy of Art and Science (Zagreb, November 2005) had as its theme the Future of Knowledge (Evolutionary challenges of the 21st century). The meeting was accompanied by an invitational NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Security in Knowledge-based Society (Developing resilience in societies at risk and threatened by terrorism). Some participants attended both events. As was pointed out by Pieter Drenth (All European Academies), the distinction between "art" and "science" in English is bridged and encompassed, in some other European languages at least, by variants of the single German term "wissenschaft". This can be well translated by "ways of knowing". With regard to any distinction between art and science, it was also pointed out that the military and security preoccupations of NATO strategists and tacticians can also be understood in terms of "martial arts" -- notably as articulated in classical texts on strategy favoured in western military academies (cf Sun Tzu, The Art of War; Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings: the classic guide to strategy). In this particular sense the "arts" were well represented on that occasion in the NATO event, whether or not the aesthetic dimensions were considered by participants in the WAAS event as meriting as much attention by the "sciences" -- despite the aesthetic qualities characteristic of the most fundamental theories extolled by scientists. One particular WAAS workshop was however devoted to the "organization of knowledge for human benefit" in which the aesthetic dimension was emphasized as fundamental to the comprehension and organization of complexity, and the mnemonic requisites of its communication and memorability in policy-making (cf Union of Intelligible Associations: remembering dynamic identity through a dodecameral mind, 2005). The following argument endeavours to draw together these various cognitive threads through an exploration of the Japanese art of haiku, notably in the light of references to it by Swedish Ambassador, Kai Falkman, who participated in both the WAAS and NATO events. Falkman, President of the Swedish Haiku Society, focused on the interest in this art form of Dag Hammarskjöld, a writer of haiku, who during his mandate as Secretary-General of the United Nations, was especially preoccupied with security issues. UNESCO, one of the funders of the WAAS gathering, featured haiku through the website of its Italian National Commission, in collaboration with the World Haiku Club, on the occasion of World Poetry Day in 2002. Conventional attributes of haikuThe following comments on haiku benefit notably from the insights of Kai Falkman (The String Untouched, translation of En Orörd Sträng, Ordfront, 2005). Haiku is essentially a very short poem depicting a specific experience in nature or in a human context. It is contrasted with a related form, senryū, which tends to be about human foibles while haiku tend to be about nature -- senryū are often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku are serious. The traditional Japanese rules for haiku require the use of 17 syllables grouped into three lines composed of respectively 5-7-5 syllables. These rules are applied in a multitude of languages by a worldwide "haiku movement" (cf World Haiku Club; Haiku International Association) [more]. The emphasis is clearly placed on succinctness and appropriateness, requiring extremely careful consideration of the pattern of words used and the effect they together create. The superfluous is excluded. In the words of Antoine de Saint Exupery, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Non-Japanese haiku poets have explored an even more abbreviated 3-5-3 form of haiku, as explained by Keiko Imaoka (Forms in English Haiku) in discussing the linguistic circumstances that necessitate shorter English haiku to be more loosely structured than Japanese haiku:
The core feature of haiku is an experience described in a concrete image designed to evoke the same experience in the reader. A good haiku is not simply a static description. Three valued attributes are:
Stress is placed on the concreteness of the images. Purely abstract or intellectual concepts are not considered valid haiku -- irrespective of their conformity with the formal rules or the value of the experience they may engender. Meaningful insights overtly expressed are considered as an imposition, potentially alienating to the reader. This is an implicit aesthetic that is discovered by a receptive sensitivity rather than an invasive technique. A degree of detachment or distance is valued. Although the concrete images may be anchored in the immediate or distant past -- perhaps specifically associated with a season -- the effect sought is an experience in the present moment, the immediate here and now (cf Kate Hall, Mirroring the Moment, 2001) In discussing a related art form, haiga, Susumu Takiguchi (Haiga: this delicious cocktail of art, poetry and calligraphy , World Haiku Review, Vol. 3, Issue 2: December 2003) provides the aesthetic framework for haiku:
This true-to-life sincerity of haiku is called makoto. Semantic and epistemological potential of haikuIn reviewing current approaches to haiku, A.C. Missias (Contemporary Haiku: Origins and New Directions) notes that:
Masako K. Hiraga ('Blending' and an Interpretation of Haiku: A Cognitive Approach, 1997) has explored the function of haiku in relation to conceptual blending. This is described as:
Dag Hammarskjöld was especially struck by the semantic and mnemonic role of haiku as he noted in his first haiku poem (1959):
Beyond the merits of aphorisms or epigrams (cf VSM de Guinzbourg, Wit and Wisdom of the United Nations: proverbs and apothegms on diplomacy, 1961), a haiku might be understood to be a form of semantic catalyst. From a learning perspective it might be understood to be in a class similar to a koan or a mantra in spiritual education. It is a trigger for surprising experiential insight through evoking an unfamiliar pattern of associations to sustain the emergence of such an insight. Zen writer R H Blyth defined a haiku as “the expression of a temporary enlightenment in which we see into the life of things”. This philosophical or spiritual emphasis is highlighted in the words of one web commentator:
According to his disciple Doho, Basho would "enter into the object, the whole of its delicate life, feeling as it feels. The poem follows of itself." (cf Takahashi, Shinkichi, Afterimages: Zen Poems, 1972). The approach to "seeing the pattern", emphasizing direct and immediate experience without defining the way things are, was notably developed by Ch'eng I (Cheng Yi), a scholar of the Sung Dynasty (c.1033-1107 AD) who saw the pattern as unitary, its divisions being multiple. For him: "The pattern does not define what things are, the pattern refers to the ways things function and interact." [more] Experiential focus of poetryJ.W. Hackett (The Way of Haiku, 1969) writes with the conviction that:
In discussing meaning beyond reason, Timothy J Munson (Technologies of Sin and Salvation: capital, communication and human experience in this age of the perpetual innovation economy) argues that:
This accords with a particular understanding of western poetry as articulated by Alice Oswald (Wild Things, Guardian, 3 December 2005) in contrasting "nostalgia" with "immediacy", notably as exemplified by the poetry of Ted Hughes:
The challenge of the sheer present is that faced by any strategy that is required to deal with the urgent challenges of the moment, typical of the preoccupations of the martial arts -- but hopefully also of all those locked tragically into other kinds of life-and-death situations. Hence the relevance of poetry-making as a template for policy-making in the face of emergencies (cf Poetry-making and Policy-making: Magic, Miracles and Image-building, 1993). Haiku and the martial artsSakusen is the Japanese term for the art of military strategy. Daisetz Suzuki (Zen and Japanese Culture, 1970), in his description of Zen, illustrated its surprising role in the philosophy of the samurai, and subtly portrayed in the relationship between Zen and swordsmanship, haiku, tea ceremonies, and the Japanese love of nature. Seamus Mulholland (Philosophy and the Martial Arts, 2004) highlights the aesthetic quality of eastern martial arts:
Similarly it is stated elsewhere that:
Another study endeavours to demonstrate that martial arts should be rethought as a rightful part of the forms of artistic representation (Short study of the artistic question in the martial arts and kenpo karate; see also Suresh Awasthi, Martial Arts and Performance Tradition, 2005). Most martial arts schools, especially the more modern, sport-oriented, competition-based programs, fail to blend in a philosophical curriculum. Traditionally, however, the fiercest samurai also trained in brush painting, flower arrangement, haiku writing, and solving conundrums that foster a positive ethic. [more] The 17th century samurai Yamamoto Tsumetomo (Bushido: The Way of the Samurai, 2001) was the author of a key text (Hagakure: the Book of the Samurai, 1979) in the early training of samurai in the Bushido code of the "Way of the Warrior". Its circulation was long restricted to an inner circle prepared for death at any moment in the unquestioning service of their masters. The author had a long-standing interest in poetry and a recent translation is prefaced by two of his haiku. The role of the Hagakure might be compared in a modern context to a set of guidelines developed by the Pentagon's PsyOps program at Fort Bragg as psychological input to the training provided by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (previously the School of the Americas). Other parallels, relating to the "Way of Bush", and "Bush-I-Do", have been the subject of extensive satirical commentary (cf Evan Eisenberg, Bushido: the Way of the American Warrior, New Yorker, 7 June 2004; Alan Bisbort. Bushido and Bushito: Our new fatal code of conduct, American Politics Journal, 2003). The insistence of American foreign policy under George Bush on the binary logic that "You are either with us or against us" [more more more], nevertheless has a strange resonance with the principle enunciated in the Hagakure that:
However, the modern "armchair warrior", so ably described by Eisenberg, makes his "quick choice" in relation to the death of others, rather than to any honourable personal sacrifice in a higher cause -- a modern perversion of the Bushido code of honour (cf Honour Essential to Psycho-social Integrity: challenge of dishonourable leadership to the nameless, 2005). The perversion is all the greater in that the armchair warrior only engages in such killing, from on high, through the protection of virtual or procedural interfaces -- however real the killing perpetrated. The relation between the martial arts and haiku is further clarified by Bruce Ross (Liveliness in Japanese and American Haiku, World Haiku Review, 2002) as follows:
Strategic potential of haikuKai Falkman comments on one of Hammarskjöld's haiku:
Falkman focuses on the sense of necessity to find life in words and thus counteract the death that men wreak with their weapons -- even while they are being used. Hammarskjöld would seem to have recognized the importance of the haiku in disciplining his own thinking to evoke appropriate strategic insight -- even though this was a discipline he applied in private and unknown to others at that time. In what may be one of the most extreme ironies of the times, and an illustration of the dysfunctional potential of haiku, as a devotee of language the US Secretary of Defense (and therefore the principal representative of the leading member of NATO), Donald Rumsfeld is known to insert haiku into press briefings, as noted by Hart Seely (Pieces of Intelligence: the existential poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld, 2003):
There is an experiential reality intuitively recognized at the core of the martial arts through the risky juxtaposition of life and death. Haiku constitutes a communication modality for essential understanding of its nature and quality. That understanding points to the dynamic opportunity of the transformative potential of the shifting patterns in such moments -- the aesthetic immediacy essential to paradigm change. Haiku effectively attune the mind to surprises. From a martial art perspective it might well be considered to be the strategic antithesis of a "zero-sum game" typical of much strategic thinking (but see Tom Czerwinski, Nonlinearity and Military Affairs: a working bibliography, 1999; Terrorism, Nonlinearity and Complex Adaptive Systems: Links to online papers). This is a situation in which a participant's gain (or loss) is exactly balanced by the losses (or gains) of the other participant(s). Stealth is of course a vital component in deploying an effective strategy against a deadly enemy. It is therefore to be expected that the insights emerging from the gathering as a whole regarding the strategic role of haiku as a pattern language should have a hidden dimension -- consistent with the organization of the NATO event unbeknownst beforehand to those in the WAAS gathering not invited to it. A variety of covert agendas were played out by various factions. As noted above, haiku has the ability to hold multiple levels of meaning regarding its transformative implications in a manner somewhat reminiscent of conventional levels of secrecy and security classification. Consistent with this perspective, haiku is associated with "disappearing" according to Gabriel Rosenstock (Haiku: the gentle art of disappearing, 2004) -- especially in the case of haiku that are not superficial and unmemorable due to the intrusion of the grosser aspects of thinking [more]. He compares the condition with that of flow as identified by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life, 1998). Rosenstock recognizes that the concatenation of events triggering haiku moments make of them a singularity (as discussed below). Such indications suggest that the nature of the "strategy" most appropriately associated with haiku may well be that otherwise associated with the Tao as both transcendent yet immanent, manifesting itself most powerfully through the forces of wu-wei ("nonaction") and yu-wu ("nonbeing"). It is such insights that are most valued in the traditional martial arts (cf Key Sun. How to Overcome without Fighting: an introduction to the Taoist approach to conflict resolution, 1995). As is frequently stated, wu-wei -- the principle of "nonaction" -- is not inactivity. As described by Alan Watts (Tao: The Watercourse Way, 1977), wu-wei is the right action of letting nature take its course, namely a minimalist way of finesse rather than force. Strategically it is a way to roll with the punch, to swim with the tide, to go with the flow. Thus wu-wei is not so much the absence of effort as it is right effort, effort used wisely, such as in the martial arts. It is poetry in motion -- as with haiku -- in which balance is not static. Classic haiku may indeed be associated with the quality of water (cf Sam Hamill.The Sound of Water: Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa and Other Poets, 1995). This emphasis on the logic of flow and water has been explored by Edward de Bono (Water Logic, 1993; I Am Right-You Are Wrong: From This to the New Renaissance : From Rock Logic to Water Logic, 1992 ) who contends that traditional logic is static, based on the solid foundations of "is" and identity. In contrast to this traditional "rock logic", he proposes a "water logic" based on "to" and the flow of the mind: "What does this lead to?" as opposed to "What is...?" He argues that this new logic is surprisingly easy to learn and to use, and results in a visual "flowscape", which allows people to lay out and then look at their thinking. Haiku, conventionally understood might be considered as the antithesis of any action orientation. In this light, any association of haiku with the conventionally operational focus of strategy must then necessarily have an essentially "non-operational" quality in order to manifest itself most powerfully through "non-action". Writing haiku might then be usefully contrasted with casting "spells", which it might otherwise resemble in providing an operational focus for thinking. As discussed elsewhere (Poetry-making and Policy-making: Magic, Miracles and Image-building, 1993):
In contrasting spells with haiku, it is appropriate also to contrast them with commercial advertising jingles -- a feature of marketing strategies -- namely as memorable slogans usually set to an engaging melody. Jingles are memes constructed -- somewhat like love charms -- to stay in a person's memory and are often nostalgically remembered decades later, even after the associated "brand" has ceased to exist. Catalytic role of haiku in kairotic timeThomas Hemstege (Hail, Herbs, and Turnips: Haiku and its Models in the Natural World, Modern Haiku, Vol. 35:1, Winter Spring 2004, 31) usedully reframes the widespread understanding that haiku are nature poems:
The notion of "kairos" (chairos) can be traced back to the rhetoric of Sophists who held that the effectiveness of speech is determined by the timing within "cultural and political contexts". It has been explored in relation to science (cf C R Miller. Kairos in the rhetoric of science, 1992). A distinction is made between "kairotic decision-making" and the normal decision-making characteristic of chronological time. Kairos may be described as an "irreducible singularity" -- an experiential singularity in contrast with, or by analogy to, a technological singularity. How the singularity of experience can be thought through the concept of a "technics of the self" is explored by Jean-Philippe Milet (Experience as Technique of the Self, Tekhnema 2: Technics and Finitude, Spring 1995). The relation between haiku and decisive moments -- the "right time" -- has been widely explored. A haiku experience may be considered an embodiment of kairotic time -- the time in which fundamental decisions may be appropriately taken. The strategic notion of seizing kairotic moments as opportunities has been widely publicized by the injunction Carpe Diem in the movie Dead Poets Society. Such moments may be understood as marking the very essence of humanity (cf The Isdom of the Wisdom Society: Embodying time as the heartland of humanity, 2003). Of related interest is the challenge of being seized by such decisive moments when faced with an unforeseen opportunity to stand up and be counted as holding views, or taking initiatives, that contrast with those of the majority -- possibly involving a high degree of risk and even mortal danger. Such decisions may be seen, whether at that time or from a historical perspective, as constituting a kairotic turning point -- bringing wider long-term significance to the moment (cf Engaging Macrohistory through the Present Moment, 2004). Damir Ibrisimovic (in a personal communication) makes the point that:
The realm of the spirit is held to operate in kairotic (chairotic) rather than chronological time. This has been descibed by Mircea Eliade (The Sacred and the Profane) as "sacred time" [more]. The cyclic nature of sacred time has been described as follows:
According to Kay Stone (The Golden Woman: Dreaming as Art, 2004):
This challenge may be at the core of reconciling faith-based and evidence-based reality in these times. Being in love may also be characterized by kairotic moments. As various commentators suggest:
The quasi-mystical understandings of kairos are a particular focus of some theologians, notably with respect to kairotic moments of sacred ceremonies. As noted in a sermon by S. James Steen in making the contrast with chronological time:
The kairos of Biblical geo-politics in the 21st century, as explored by Kim Yong-Bock (Theology of Life: Wisdom of the Whole Life as an Alternative Foundation, 2001). For example, the World Student Christian Federation Asia-Pacific Region indicated in 2004:
Natasha Artemeva (Traveling in Space and Time: A Study of Learning Trajectories in Student Acquisition of Engineering Communication Strategies, 2003) offers a relevant analysis of "strategies" in terms of learning and the configuration of kairotic time by students, citing a variety of authors:
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