(3) Pursuit of Sustainability in Survival

(3) Pursuit of Sustainability in Survival

 

Survival is a continuous process. To live means to survive today and also to survive tomorrow. This is a fact that is very intuitive and obvious, and the temporal persistence of a survival state is the concept of survival itself. Conversely, if a subject does not persist for even a moment, it is "death" or "extinction," and everything thereafter becomes worthless.

 

Since all political actors pursue continuous survival, they generally choose to avoid death and extinction rather than pursuing the maximum survival capacity for a given period. As a result, the following generally occur.

 

         [Ch.2.14] Humans who pursue the sustainability of survival may also give up immediate large benefits in order to avoid death and extinction.

 

The Mongol Empire, established in AD 1206 with unparalleled conquests throughout world history, rose to become a world empire in a short period of time. Among the many features of the Mongol army's tactics, one was that if a city resisted rather than surrendering, the Mongol army would engage in merciless slaughter after conquest. This was to spread the fear of slaughter and force the enemy to surrender by making it impossible for them to resist. As all people pursue the sustainability of survival, this strategy was effective. For example, when the residents of Aleppo learned of the cruel destruction and pillage of the city by the Mongol army led by Hulagu after its refusal to surrender in 1260, they promptly surrendered to Hulagu and handed over the keys to the city without delay.

 

It is uncommon for surrendering to the invading enemy to be praised, but in cases where defeat, death, and extinction are very clear, the choice of surrender can also be applauded. One of the countries that later developed into Russia, the Grand Duchy of Novgorod, had its ruler, Alexander Nevsky, make the choice of surrendering early to the Khan of the Mongols and adopt a policy of cooperation even before the Mongols' invasion reached the Grand Duchy of Novgorod. He judged that resisting the Mongols would mean the massacre of his own people. Later, in the 16th century, the Orthodox Church elevated his reputation as a saint by praising "his ability demonstrated as a result of saving the Grand Duchy of Novgorod from destruction."

 

The pursuit of sustainability in survival is closely related to the consistency of desire quantity[Ch.1.7]. Consider the situation where the quantity of satisfied desire decreases or increases to the same extent.

 

[Diag.2.B.2] The comparison between the impact of the invasion threat and the increase in realized profit.

 

 

If we think using the [Diag.1.가] seen earlier, the decrease in quantity of satisfied desire is the movement from Q1 to Q2, and the increase in the quantity of satisfied desire is the movement from Q1 to Q3. The area 가 represents the size of the satisfaction that will be lost, and 나 represents the size of the satisfaction that will be gained. When the line segments Q1Q2 and Q1Q3 are the same, the area of 가 is always greater than the area of 나.

 

Moreover, the decrease in the quantity of satisfaction of needs implies closer proximity to death and destruction. Therefore, political actors react sensitively to decreases in the quantity of satisfaction of needs, compared to increases. In other words, they prioritize choosing the option where the quantity of satisfaction of needs does not decrease over the option where it increases. There is also a tendency to avoid adventures that pose a threat to survival and prefer predictability.

 

To summarize, if there is a list of expected survival values that a political actor can expect over time, the political actor does not simply choose the one with the highest total amount of survival values, but chooses the one that ensures that the survival value at each moment is not excessively low.