All's fair in love and war

I’ve been thinking about this at the moment: all's fair in love and war. The phrase 'all's fair in love and war' is used to describe a situation in which people do not follow the usual rules of behaviour and do things that are normally considered unfair. It's a proverb attributed to John Lyly's Euphues, a didactic romance written in 1578. I recently re-membered that phrase and have been considering it in light of all I have been experiencing in my life.

Anything goes in the world of business. No wonder the world of business runs largely on IP and laws. Hard boundaries that try and protect things because 'all's fair in love and war'. If you're operating in an environment where it's fair to steal, cheat and lie, then of course it's a war - it's about winning, and ultimately it's a game where the rules are that there are no rules - not around things like kindness and fairness and trust. It's very radical to be doing business based on trusting relationships. And it's risky. How do you know the other person/organisation won't defect?

Thinking about this and conversations with Daniel Schmachtenberger about perverse incentives and prisoner's dilemmas. I love our conversations because we both seem to take the same perspective: not one that villain-ises the people, nor pities them, but comes from the deepest place of empathy we are capable of: knowing deeply the incentives and dynamics that create the constraints that result in such emergent property behaviours.

Also thinking about this in context of my conversations with Nora Bateson and about the system that exists to protect itself. Nora's words: "We have to move the ships across the world because people need to make money. We have to destroy the rainforest because people need to make money."

So what about love? Same again... In romance there is also the territory where normal behaviours go out the window. What is the equivalent of professionalism in romance? Not the meaning of professionalism meaning a clean veneer and fake niceness that creates coldness, but professionalism meaning manners, courtesy and a deep respect of another human no matter what.

I think there's a case to be made to bring back manners. And that in the realms of love and war: both, in a sense, some of the closest we have as humans to life-and-death situations, that if we are playing with people's hearts, livelihoods and lives, that we show up in doing so with the utmost respect - sourcing from a respect not just for their humanity, but all life.