{"id":56990,"date":"2017-12-03T22:45:08","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T22:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=56990"},"modified":"2017-12-03T23:13:24","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T23:13:24","slug":"complexity-and-simplicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=56990","title":{"rendered":"Complexity and simplicity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; where both are aspects of our cognitive response ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>The New Yorker has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2017\/12\/04\/lake-chad-the-worlds-most-complex-humanitarian-disaster\">sweeping piece about Lake Chad<\/a>, subheaded:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Boko Haram, climate change, predatory armies, and extreme hunger are converging on a marginalized population in Central Africa<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We need, accordingly to understand at subtle levels, the interactions of those five elements, a wide-angle task, cognitively speaking \u2013- and simultaneously zoom in on some specific issue regarding the humans involved, a task requiring single-minded focus \u2014 an entirely different cognitive style.<\/p>\n<p>I offer this here as emblematic of wide-angle and narrow-focus thinking. Zen terms them <a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=1181\">horizontal<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=1182\">vertical<\/a>, see his two articles for further elucidation!<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>The strategic importance of barriers and when to cross them is illustrated by two quotes from the NYer article (above) and the I Ching (below):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/dq-i-ching-lake-chad.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"644\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-56992\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/dq-i-ching-lake-chad.png 600w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/dq-i-ching-lake-chad-280x300.png 280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If I recall correctly, there&#8217;s an admonition in the I Ching not to camp in evening when you come to a barrier such as a river, but to press forward and cross it, lest overnight the enemy take it &#038;c.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>And talking of complexities, how about the impressive mindset reset implied by MSNBC&#8217;s cute phrase about Gen. Flynn just now:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>from the insurgent battlefield to the political minefield<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Jim will no doubt have his own thoughts about that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; where both are aspects of our cognitive response ] . The New Yorker has a sweeping piece about Lake Chad, subheaded: Boko Haram, climate change, predatory armies, and extreme hunger are converging on a marginalized population in Central Africa We need, accordingly to understand at subtle levels, the interactions of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56990"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57005,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56990\/revisions\/57005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}