Literary notes about tactics (AI summary)
The word “tactics” in literature is portrayed as a versatile concept that extends well beyond mere battlefield maneuvers. In military treatises, authors like Clausewitz and Sunzi rigorously distinguish tactics from strategy—focusing on the immediate, adaptable means of engaging an enemy, as when Clausewitz notes that “in tactics the surprise is much more at home” [1] or when Sunzi compares tactics to the fluidity of water [2]. Yet, this term also finds application in the psychological and political realms; Dostoyevsky’s narrator, for example, employs “tactics” to describe personal surrender in the face of overwhelming purity [3], while Jefferson examines parliamentary maneuvers as subtle forms of political tactics [4]. Thus, whether applied to the art of war or to interpersonal dynamics, “tactics” emerges as a multifaceted idea that captures both the precision of calculated moves and the unpredictable nature of human conflict.
- In tactics the surprise is much more at home, for the very natural reason that all times and spaces are on a smaller scale.
— from On War by Carl von Clausewitz - Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi - All my tactics lay in simply being utterly annihilated and prostrate before her purity.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Young was not merely a debater of apparently inexhaustible resource, but a master in the use of parliamentary tactics and political craft.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson
