Machiavelli: Scheme with a bunch of viziers in triple crossing power plays vs. just pay a guy to stab your enemies
Sun Tzu: 45° Angle Pincer Movement after recon by fire feint retreat vs. your soldiers, also your horses, need to eat food
1984: there's an unimaginably large and deceptive state machine that will manipulate you in ways you do not begin to understand vs. just send a hot resistance asthetics gf honeypot
both the Prince and Art of War are manuals for ungrateful princelings that go over the bare basics of statecraft/military manners so that the unqualified nobility won't completely muck it up, that they're held up as these mystic tomes of forbidden knowledge is an insult to the proletariat's basic intellect (understanding that animals need fodder and normal people don't like monarchs)
I'll extend this to 1984 because I think "You could be working for the state and kind of disagree and it will fuck you" is not a lesson your average working class person needs
Public perception vs. actual book:
Machiavelli: Scheme with a bunch of viziers in triple crossing power plays vs. just pay a guy to stab your enemies
Sun Tzu: 45° Angle Pincer Movement after recon by fire feint retreat vs. your soldiers, also your horses, need to eat food
1984: there's an unimaginably large and deceptive state machine that will manipulate you in ways you do not begin to understand vs. just send a hot resistance asthetics gf honeypot
both the Prince and Art of War are manuals for ungrateful princelings that go over the bare basics of statecraft/military manners so that the unqualified nobility won't completely muck it up, that they're held up as these mystic tomes of forbidden knowledge is an insult to the proletariat's basic intellect (understanding that animals need fodder and normal people don't like monarchs)
I'll extend this to 1984 because I think "You could be working for the state and kind of disagree and it will fuck you" is not a lesson your average working class person needs
lmfao yeah