The Art of War

Ok I came across The Art of War and I found the 5 qualities of a good leader. When I read it I thought these qualities were also to be found in a good Dom. They are
Intelligence - the ability to plan and know when to change effectively
Trustworthiness - means to make people sure of punishment or reward
Humanness - means love and compassion for people, being aware of their toils
Courage - means to seize opportunities to make certain of victory without vacillation
Sternness - means to establish discipline in the ranks by strict punishment
Maybe I'm stretching it a bit but I think qualities can be applied to BDSM. What do you think?

Well, yes, if you want to think of it in simply a bdsm context. For me, however, those are the qualities of every single person i want around me, when appropriate. I would hope that a sub would also need to be intelligent, trustworthy, human(e), courageous and even stern (think of it in a poly relationship when one sub has to take a higher role to another at times, if you only want to think of bdsm). However, most of us have more than one roles to fulfill, and many subs will need to be leaders in some of their other roles.
Going back to the question at hand, however, I don't think you're stretching it when applying these as characteristics you'd like a dom to have. I'd just keep as an afterthought that it's characteristics i'd like most people to have. :)

The thing about such works is that they can be generalized and applied to all walks of life. Hence the adaptation of these myriad works into management manuals for the progressive manager. From The Art of War to The Five Rings to Throwing Fish, we can find traits that are easily "applied" to whatever situation we wish... including D/s.

It's true that the way I perceive the world depends greatly on which "lens" I'm looking through. My D/s glasses are the ones I use most these days and I tend to see everything in a D/s context.

Which strikes me as a good thing. :cool: