- Messages
- 5,329
As we all know in The Dark Knight, the Joker makes a speech to Harvey Dent when he's in the hospital about "schemers", anarchy, and what's "part of the plan." Having seen this movie again recently, it really started to make me wonder what the true differences were, logic wise, between the Joker and, for lack of a better word, what I will call from here on out, the Establishment (the Gotham City Police Department, Batman, Harvey, and etc.). Perhaps by studying this face-painted demon, we can learn something new. And when we first begin analyzing exactly how the Joker does things, the first knee-jerk reaction is, "Well, the Joker is technically a schemer too. He's got goals and he makes plans." But while both of those points are true, there is actually still a significant difference between him and the Establishment. This difference is the difference between tactics and strategy. A strategy is a long-term plan. A tactic is a short-term plan. There is a little more to the Joker than just this, but we'll get into those smaller factors later.
With that, the Joker very often employs a bunch of very small, simple, and self-contained plans. If x happens, do y. His planning is also proactive. He anticipates difficulties and he makes small reactionary plans to them. The simplicity of the plans means much less potential for breakage, and the quantity of them provide redundancy. It doesn't matter if plan x failed. Just start up plan y. Or maybe you don't even have to do that because you already have another bite-size plan in motion to ensure that plan x executes. This kind of small, efficient planning is incredibly resilient to interference too. The enemy not only has to contend with one plan, they have to contend with many of them. It's a huge mess for the enemy. So clearly, the Joker's methods of planning are superior right? Well, that's is not exactly fully true. Read on.
With the Establishment, they tend to make fixed long-term plans. W follows x follows y follows z. The Joker can just employ a bunch of tactics in a very scattershot fashion because he's not on any particular schedule. He doesn't care if the goal he's striving for takes longer to reach. In fact, he may not even care (too much) if he succeeds at all. So, the Joker has the luxury of being haphazard and unpredictable. Usually though, this is not an available luxury for certain goals. So, you'll need to employ strategy. Strategy has the advantage of being able to accommodate any time-sensitive goals. Strategies are easily monitored and are orderly and controlled. The "scheme" can be somewhat modified and can even be fully halted if desired in case a new unfavorable circumstance arises. Strategies are always going to be much more rigid and inflexible than tactics though, and that's just something you'll have to accept when using them.
Of course, the Joker would say that if your goal is time-sensitive, then it's probably not a very worthwhile goal to have in the first place, but that becomes a more philosophical discussion instead of a logical one, and that's not in our scope for today. So, what should we use, and when? Well, the obvious answer is a mixture of the two depending on how flexible your goals are. If they are not time-sensitive and don't demand that any executing plans stay in control at all times, then you'll want tactics. If they are, then strategy is what you use. You can also modify your goals so that they're more friendly to tactics, but this is not always advised. If you're really ingenious, you can combine tactics and strategy for a tree-like approach to the goal, but this quickly starts to get VERY unwieldy and hard to keep track of, so it's also not recommended.
With that, the Joker very often employs a bunch of very small, simple, and self-contained plans. If x happens, do y. His planning is also proactive. He anticipates difficulties and he makes small reactionary plans to them. The simplicity of the plans means much less potential for breakage, and the quantity of them provide redundancy. It doesn't matter if plan x failed. Just start up plan y. Or maybe you don't even have to do that because you already have another bite-size plan in motion to ensure that plan x executes. This kind of small, efficient planning is incredibly resilient to interference too. The enemy not only has to contend with one plan, they have to contend with many of them. It's a huge mess for the enemy. So clearly, the Joker's methods of planning are superior right? Well, that's is not exactly fully true. Read on.
With the Establishment, they tend to make fixed long-term plans. W follows x follows y follows z. The Joker can just employ a bunch of tactics in a very scattershot fashion because he's not on any particular schedule. He doesn't care if the goal he's striving for takes longer to reach. In fact, he may not even care (too much) if he succeeds at all. So, the Joker has the luxury of being haphazard and unpredictable. Usually though, this is not an available luxury for certain goals. So, you'll need to employ strategy. Strategy has the advantage of being able to accommodate any time-sensitive goals. Strategies are easily monitored and are orderly and controlled. The "scheme" can be somewhat modified and can even be fully halted if desired in case a new unfavorable circumstance arises. Strategies are always going to be much more rigid and inflexible than tactics though, and that's just something you'll have to accept when using them.
Of course, the Joker would say that if your goal is time-sensitive, then it's probably not a very worthwhile goal to have in the first place, but that becomes a more philosophical discussion instead of a logical one, and that's not in our scope for today. So, what should we use, and when? Well, the obvious answer is a mixture of the two depending on how flexible your goals are. If they are not time-sensitive and don't demand that any executing plans stay in control at all times, then you'll want tactics. If they are, then strategy is what you use. You can also modify your goals so that they're more friendly to tactics, but this is not always advised. If you're really ingenious, you can combine tactics and strategy for a tree-like approach to the goal, but this quickly starts to get VERY unwieldy and hard to keep track of, so it's also not recommended.
Last edited: