How to use cultural biases to win : The intersection of Cultural Theory and Sun Zi’s Art of War

Sun Zi’s Art of War is the oldest military treatise in the world and still the most relevant. It can be applied to any area of human experience that involves conflict of some sort and has been applied to a variety of problems by everyday practitioners and academic scholars alike. Despite its importance, it is mostly ignored by the social scientific community at large. In an attempt to rectify this situation, I examine the Art of War as data from a sociological perspective, namely, that of Cultural Theory, which is used to comprehend sociocultural reality. Furthermore, I invert what might be an ‘intellectually imperialist’ relationship and examine Cultural Theory from the perspective of the Sun Zi. The overall goal is to discover how their mutual interaction might be utilized by scholars in studies of the Sun Zi, Cultural Theory, and related topics as well as how it might allow people to view how they live differently. The results of these close readings demonstrate that the Art of War is rooted in two intertwining cultures, the hierarchic and the individualist—the better for a general to manipulate his enemy and emerge victorious in battle. Cultural Theory, on the other hand, can be fruitfully applied to the issues that concern the Art of War such as knowing one’s enemy and deception, and, thus, used to win