Tzu×Wilde

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Sun Tzushare moment

   I never wrote most of what bears my name.
2. 00:02
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Darling, I have the opposite problem. I wrote everything attributed to me, and still people insist on improving it. Just last week I saw 'Be yourself; everyone else is already taken' on a teashop wall in—well, wherever we are. I never said it. Too earnest. Too American.
3. 00:16
   Sun Tzushare moment

   Your concern is vanity. Mine is strategy corrupted.
4. 00:19
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Oh, I adore how you make even vanity sound like a military defeat. But surely you must admit there's a certain immortality in being misquoted? The real Oscar Wilde died in a cheap Paris hotel. The misquoted one lives forever on inspirational posters.
5. 00:34
   Sun Tzushare moment

   False immortality. A general wins battles. His name wins credit for battles he never fought. The enemy studies the wrong tactics.
6. 00:43
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   But Sun Tzu, you wrote—or someone wrote—that all warfare is based on deception. Isn't being misquoted simply the universe practicing your own philosophy upon you?
7. 00:52
   Sun Tzushare moment

   Deception by design serves purpose. Deception by ignorance serves chaos.
8. 00:58
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Chaos has always struck me as underrated. It's so much more interesting than order, and it requires far less maintenance.
9. 01:04
   Sun Tzushare moment

   You joke because words are your clay. For you, meaning is play.
10. 01:08
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I joke because I'm quite good at it, actually. But you're not entirely wrong. I did say—and I really did say this—that I can resist everything except temptation. People quote it correctly because it's already perfect. One cannot improve upon a genuine epigram.
11. 01:21
    Sun Tzushare moment

    They add to my text. Chapters I never touched. Battles I never studied. This is not tribute. This is theft of authority.
12. 01:29
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Authority, yes. That's what troubles you. Whereas I'm troubled by the dullness of the misquotations. If you must put words in my mouth, let them at least be words worthy of the mouth. 'Be yourself'—as if I would ever counsel something so tedious.
13. 01:43
    Sun Tzushare moment

    What is your true teaching, then?
14. 01:45
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    That's rather a large question for someone who dislikes wasted words. But if pressed, I'd say my teaching is that surface is substance, that artifice is honesty, that the mask is the face. One must lie beautifully to tell the truth.
15. 01:58
    Sun Tzushare moment

    This is not teaching. This is decoration.
16. 02:00
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    And what is your teaching, o master of abbreviated wisdom? That one must know the enemy and know oneself? How useful. How utterly devoid of wit.
17. 02:08
    Sun Tzushare moment

    Because it is true.
18. 02:10
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Truth is so rarely interesting, though. I've always preferred the beautiful lie to the ugly fact. At least one can take it to dinner.
19. 02:17
    Sun Tzushare moment

    You evade.
20. 02:18
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I perform. There's a difference, though I grant you it's a subtle one. But let me ask you this: do you suppose people misquote you because they've never read you, or because they have read you and found you insufficient to their needs?
21. 02:28
    Sun Tzushare moment

    They read fragments. They want fortune cookies. They want war without study.
22. 02:33
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Ah, so they want exactly what I give them! Wisdom in a witticism, philosophy in a paradox. Perhaps you should have been more amusing. People remember what sparkles.
23. 02:43
    Sun Tzushare moment

    I wrote for kings and generals. Not for tea shops.
24. 02:45
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    And yet the tea shops have you now, don't they? Every corporate boardroom warrior with your name on a slide deck. Every LinkedIn philosopher quoting you between advertisements for webinars. You've been democratized, my dear strategist. You belong to everyone, which means you belong to no one.
25. 03:01
    Sun Tzushare moment

    This troubles you also.
26. 03:03
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    It does, rather. I spent my entire life crafting a very particular image—aesthete, wit, martyr to beauty—and now I'm reduced to greeting cards and motivational speeches. They've made me wholesome. Wholesome! It's unbearable.
27. 03:16
    Sun Tzushare moment

    You chose performance. Performance invites distortion.
28. 03:19
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    While you chose authority, and authority invites appropriation. It seems we've both been hoisted by our respective petards, though mine is considerably more stylish.
29. 03:29
    Sun Tzushare moment

    Can you correct them? Those who misuse your words?
30. 03:32
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I'm dead, darling. The dead have no copyright. Besides, I'm not entirely sure I'd want to. The misquoted Oscar Wilde is rather more famous than the actual one ever was. He gets invited everywhere. He's on Twitter, apparently, though I shudder to think what he says there.
31. 03:45
    Sun Tzushare moment

    You accept defeat.
32. 03:46
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I accept inevitability, which is different. One cannot win against the tide of human laziness and the hunger for simple wisdom. People want their Sun Tzu in one sentence. They want their Wilde in ten words or fewer. To fight this is to fight human nature itself.
33. 04:03
    Sun Tzushare moment

    Human nature can be redirected. This is the essence of strategy.
34. 04:07
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    But why bother? Let them have their inferior versions. Let them quote things we never said. We know the truth. Isn't that enough?
35. 04:13
    Sun Tzushare moment

    No. Truth buried serves no one.
36. 04:15
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    How wonderfully stubborn you are. Very well, let's suppose you could correct every misquotation. Where would you begin? With the generals who've never read past your first chapter? With the business consultants who think warfare and sales are equivalent? With the tattoos—oh, there must be thousands of tattoos by now, all gloriously mistaken.
37. 04:33
    Sun Tzushare moment

    I would begin with principle. Know what was written. Know what was not.
38. 04:38
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    But people don't want to know. They want to feel wise without effort, profound without thought. You offer them a mirror and they see a fortune cookie. I offer them a paradox and they see a bumper sticker. This is the condition of posterity.
39. 04:50
    Sun Tzushare moment

    Then posterity is enemy territory.
40. 04:52
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Oh, how marvelous. Yes. The future is a foreign country and they've translated us badly. I shall remember that, though of course someone will misquote me on it eventually.
41. 05:03
    Sun Tzushare moment

    You make light. But your wound is real.
42. 05:05
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Of course it's real. Everything I say is real, even when I'm lying. Especially when I'm lying. But if I didn't make light, what would I do? Make heavy? Rage against the internet? Write stern letters to people who won't receive them?
43. 05:17
    Sun Tzushare moment

    Speak clearly now. Let this be record.
44. 05:20
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Very well. For the record: I never said half the things I said. And Sun Tzu, I imagine, said rather more than people remember. We are both victims of compression, reduction, simplification. They've made us into slogans.
45. 05:32
    Sun Tzushare moment

    A slogan has no depth. No context. No wisdom.
46. 05:35
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    But it has reach, darling. It travels. It persists. Perhaps we should think of misquotation not as death but as evolution. We've become something new in the mouths of others.
47. 05:45
    Sun Tzushare moment

    Mutation is not evolution when it removes strength.
48. 05:48
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Yet even a weak descendant is still a descendant. We live on, however poorly. Isn't that the war you're trying to win? Immortality against forgetting?
49. 05:56
    Sun Tzushare moment

    I want no immortality built on falsehood.
50. 05:58
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Then I'm afraid you want the impossible. All immortality is built on falsehood. History is fiction agreed upon. Legacy is myth. The only question is whether the lie is beautiful or merely useful. Mine, I hope, retains some beauty. Yours has remained ruthlessly useful. Perhaps we should both be grateful for that.
51. 06:16
    Sun Tzushare moment

    Gratitude to distortion is surrender.
52. 06:18
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Or wisdom. It's so difficult to tell the difference.