![]() ![]() How is golf more challenging and rewarding than quilting? I suspect it is because golf players are 77% male, whereas only 1% of quilters are male. ![]() I also see how some of my self-defined categories are diminished by others, part of the divide and conquer strategy. From those categories I may seek out others with similar issues - a book club, the camaraderie of the fabric store, fellow travelers. I am a daughter, a mother, a friend, an activist, a gardener, a traveler, a reader, a quilter. They are necessary or our brains will overload. We identify ourselves in recognizable categories. You are being held back by divide and conquer.Ĭategories and patterns are how humans make sense of our complex world. What I do hate is watching the talent, brains, and creativity limited because divide and conquer is ruthlessly and continually wielded by those in power, limiting the potential of the entire human race and holding back even those who wield the power, not that they care. Each of us is a sublime symphony of different ideas, beliefs, talents, and passions. People continually surprise me with the range of their interests. I, for one, am tired of being put in confining categories, I do not know of one interesting person who fits neatly into one box. We only add the gender when it’s not men, especially White men, all the better to divide and conquer. When was the last time you read about how political parties need to cater to suburban men? College educated men? Black men? Even then it’s just ‘suburban’, ‘college educated’, and ‘Black’. It’s ridiculous that I even have to point this out, but men are just as diverse a group as women, yet somehow they remain primarily one category, men. Green Bay Packers fan, and every other dividing point. south, socio-economic status, gender identification, maternal status, Bears fan vs. Ongoing and currently accelerating with the peeling off of ‘suburban women’, and ‘white women’, and take your pick among the endless dividing lines of geography, race, religion, education, political party, city vs. Perhaps it’s where Sun Tzu got the idea in the first place. The efforts to divide women and to diminish their corresponding financial, political, and legal power has been effective for 5,000 years. However, the implosion point for me was the idea that if something is a ‘women’s issue’, it is in the minority and has little hope of being addressed. From that we could create a social marketing plan to make the issues which sustain and improve humanity of equal importance to all genders. We’d have to do an anthropological dig to uncover all the reasons why only women have been conditioned to prioritize health care and education, and why men have supposedly not. Yes, I’m sure the statistics come from polls about ‘what people care about’, but through what convoluted thought process are those not human issues? Last time I checked, males also require health care and education. Yesterday I read an article which described health care and education as ‘women’s issues’, with the implication that women do not have the strength in numbers to create significant change. In other words, half the population within one percentage point, statistically of equal power. population and 49.6% of the global population. I’ve read countless articles predicting that women’s rights will be set back by decades by the pandemic. ![]() Social media has magnified the ability of even the smallest minority to fracture the majority.ĭivide and conquer has been on my mind recently. You don’t need to be even double in strength to divide and conquer, you can be less, even far less, if you just find the right fracture points, stuff in some dynamite, and blow everything to bits. And always use the powerful weapon of fear - the fear that if ‘those people’ get ahead, you or ‘your people’ will suffer - a totally effective strategy for keeping any group down - set them fighting among themselves. Pick up on petty grievances and magnify them out of proportion. Insinuate that there are insurmountable differences between people who have far more in common than they have differences. You’d recognize it in a minute if it were happening to someone else. Instinctually it’s used on playgrounds and in middle schools, on school boards and company boards. It’s used by economists, political scientists, and historians. The British Empire.ĭivide and conquer has also been used in legal theory and the social sciences. Rome defeating Macedonia in the Battle of Pydna. “…the art of using troops is this: When ten to the enemy’s one, surround him When five times his strength, attack him If double his strength, divide him…” Sun Tzu, the brilliant military strategist and author of “The Art of War”, born around 500 BC.ĭivide and conquer has been an effective military strategy for over 2,500 years.
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