AESOP TACTICAL GENIUS

MURDER! BETRAYAL! REVENGE! SLAUGTHER!

Aesop was not a genius in just creating and telling fables, he was a tactical genius. Underneath the entertaining and educational stories, there are countless tactical lessons on offer. Did Aesop knowingly and intentionally hide his tactical genius inside the fables? There is no way of knowing, as so little is known about his life. Practically, it does not matter. The fables provide as good an education on tactics as they do with morals. If Aesop did intentionally combine tactics with morals in the same story, his aim was surely to teach how to flourish morally while succeeding materially. The man who rose from slavery to advise kings, told tales that offer a two for one deal, morals and tactical lessons in each fable. One cannot learn one without being exposed to the other. How a war or battle is won, or a family spat is decided, always determines the length and quality of the peace that follows.

For a fisherman to prosper, only appreciating the beauty of a calm surface of a river, lake or ocean is not the way forward. To thrive, the fisherman must pierce the calm surface, no matter how beautiful or breathtaking. What the fisherman needs to succeed is below the surface. From fish to gold nuggets, to find them the eye must see below the surface, the hand must reach deep into the water and the mind must understand the foreign, aquatic world. History shows the infinite rewards for those who saw beneath the surface, reached wisely and deep into the water as they quarried the foreign, aquatic world. They knew the when, where, how to reach and why they were reaching.

Reading the fables of Aesop is identical. On the surface of his stories is entertainment. Below the surface at one depth are the fables and at another depth, a shrewd insight on tactics. Those who have read and benefited from seeking guidance on morals in his fables, unknowingly benefited from his tactical genius.

To test Aesop's tactical genius, the maxims of the ancient and revered author of the oldest treatise on conflict management, Sun Tzu's Art of War are used. The tactical reality of thirty fables are examined for the tactics contained within. The maxims of Sun Tzu reveals several competing tactics in each fable.

Aesop was a master tactician and persuader through personal observation and deduction. Today it is a science. Edward Bernays, American theorist, considered a giant in the field of public relations and propaganda, believed "We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." He should know, he was one of the best faceless, anonymous men who became very rich and very powerful by moulding minds, and heavily influencing ideas of millions he never met through the newspaper and television ads he created. Look at the brands of the products you use, wear, drive, ride every day. Did you really, with a free, uninfluenced mind make the choice? Or were you convinced, swayed, influenced, guided by some intangible force? Are you a victim of a master advertiser?

The question to be asked is not, are we tacticians but how good we are tactically? How good are we at imposing our will on the world around us and those in that world without creating bigger problems than at the start? Taking candy from a baby is easy, but to do it without making the baby cry or have anyone notice; that's a tactical expertise mastered by very few. Having others do what we want them to do and convince them to believe that they wanted to do it anyway, is the rarest tactical skill of all.

Aesop was an "Edward Bernays" of his time. His fables performed as Bernays' ads, changing minds, imposing Aesop's will over thousands in his time, and maybe tens of millions over the millennia.

The fables of Aesop offer more than bedtime stories and lessons in morality. There is an equally important education in tactics to an open mind.