More T.E. Lawrence Quotes

A few more interesting snippets.

“The greatest commander of men was he whose intuitions most nearly happened. Nine-tenths of tactics were certain enough to be teachable in schools; but the irrational tenth was like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and in it lay the test of generals. It could be ensured only by instinct until at the crisis it came naturally, a reflex.” (Lawrence, p 193)

I would say this is true in any speciality, skill, or art. School can instill fundamentals. One can learn the 'generally acceptable' or what 'usually works,' but the difference between ordinary and special in anything comes from that inexplicable reserve of gut instinct--the 'irrational tenth' that can't be begged, borrowed or stolen.

“Governments saw men only in mass; but our men, being irregulars, were not formations, but individuals. An individual death, like a pebble dropped in water, might make but a brief hole; yet rings of sorrow widened out therefrom. We could not afford casualties.” (Lawrence, p 194)

Lawrence had the architect's skill of knowing the importance of understanding one's material. It is not enough to know the strengths of your building blocks, you must also understand their weaknesses. Steel and concrete beams are not beams are not used for their beauty, but because they each compensate for the weaknesses of the other. The compression strength of concrete masks its weakness when faced by tension stress. Steel reinforcement covers this weakness at minimal cost. Lawrence understood that the Arab forces were warriors, not soldiers, and could not be molded into such without losing many of their strengths. This meant that he had to deal with these weaknesses, rather than seek to change them.

"There remained the psychological element to build up into an apt shape. […] [Propaganda] was the pathic, almost the ethical, in war. Some of it concerned the crowd, an adjustment of its spirit to the point where it became useful to exploit in action, and the pre-direction of this changing spirit to a certain end. Some of it concerned the individual, and then it became a rare art of human kindness, transcending, by purposed emotion, the gradual logical sequence of the mind. It was more subtle than tactics, and better worth doing, because it dealt with uncontrollables, with subjects incapable of direct command. It considered the capacity for mood of our men, their complexities and mutability, and the cultivation of whatever in them promised to profit our intention. We had to arrange their minds in order of battle just as carefully and as formally as other officers organized their bodies.” (Lawrence, p 195)

After having read a whole book on "Emotional Intelligence," it seems like Lawrence knew its importance before it became 'important.' He describes mental attunement like a mechanic, but his application of 'purposed emotion' carried with it elements of empathetic connection, primal vision rather than micromanaged morale sessions. He also knew how to do it, not just say it.

“A province would be won when we had taught the civilians in it to die for our ideal of freedom. The presence of the enemy was secondary.” (Lawrence, p 196)

Succinct, baby. Manipulating the masses to desire a freedom not necessarily thought of or requested.

"The master key of opinion lay in the common language: where also, lay the key of imagination. Moslems whose mother tongue was Arabic looked upon themselves for that reason as a chosen people. Their heritage of the Koran and classical literature held the Arabic speaking peoples together. Patriotism, ordinarily of soil or race, was warped to a language. A second buttress of a polity of Arab motive was the dim glory of the early Khalifate, whose memory endured among the people through centuries of Turkish misgovernment. The accident that these traditions savoured rather of the Arabian Nights than of sheer history maintained the Arab rank and file in their conviction that their past was more splendid than the present of the Ottoman Turk.” (Lawrence, p 336)

The strength of language and the power of the past. This reminds me of a segment on PBS by Thomas Friedman. He is interviewing an Egyptian writer about the origins of the Arab anger toward the United States and the importance of the WTC towers. The man states simply that it came from the bitterness of dwarves toward giants. Dwarves that have memories of their own greatness, blame their fall on anyone but themselves, and know that God will return to them their glory if only they will act. This also reminds me of what i was once told about regarding a difference between the Shia and the Sunni, but i will get to that later.

The Wit and Wisdom of T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Hopefully all of this will eventually be melded into a consequential whole, but for now all I can do is provide what is hopefully interesting fodder to ponder over. To ensure that everyone is in the know, T.E. Lawrence is the name of the man alternatively known as T.E. Shaw or Lawrence of Arabia. As a 2nd Lt. in the British army during the first World War he played an integral role in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman empire. His story, told in his book the Seven Pillars of Wisdom (or abbreviated in "A Revolt in the Desert") is absolutely fantastic in literary, historical, cultural or even psychological terms. I'm going to be adding snippets and interesting quotes progressively.

On war:
"In modern war--absolute war as [Foch] called it--two nations professing incompatible philosophies put them to the test of force. Philosophically, it was idiotic, for while opinions were arguable, convictions needed shooting to be cured; and the struggle could end only when the supporters of the one immaterial principle had no more means of resistance against the supporters of the other. It sounded like a twentieth century restatement of the wars of religion, whose logical end was utter destruction of one creed, and whose protagonists believed that God's judgment would prevail." (Seven Pillars, p 190)

On war aims in a struggle for independence:
"In the last resort we should be compelled to the desperate course of blood and the maxims of 'murder war', but as cheaply as could be for ourselves, since the Arabs fought for freedom, and that was a pleasure to be tasted only by a man alive. Posterity was a chilly thing to work for, no matter how much a man happened to love his own, or other people's already produced children." (p 191)

On fighting a revolutionary war:
"How would the Turks defend all that? No doubt by a trench line across the bottom if we came like an army with banners; but suppose we were (as it might be) an influence, an idea, a thing intangible, invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head. We might be a vapour, blowing where we listed. Our kingdoms lay in each man's mind; and as we wanted nothing material to live on, so we might offer nothing material to the killing. It seemed a regular soldier might be helpless without a target, owning only what he sat on, and subjecting only what, by order, he could poke his rifle at." (p 192)

On fighting against a revolutionary war:
"[The Germans and the Turks] would believe that rebellion was absolute like war, and deal with it on the analogy of war. Analogy in human things was fudge, anyhow; and war upon rebellion was messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife."