Your Enemy, Obscured

Perhaps what you think you see is in fact something entirely different.

Nov 16, 2023

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Winston Churchill

Your Enemy, Obscured

Confront ideas, not people: Recognize that true enemies are harmful ideologies, not individuals, and addressing these toxic beliefs with understanding and exposure is key to transforming enmity into peace.

I have very few enemies. Better put: I have very few people of whom I would consider to be my enemy. There are plenty that consider me an enemy. But I don't see it that way. Be careful who you vilify.

When we make another person a villain we demonize them. This makes it very easy to de-humanize them. That's a road we don't want to go down. We saw this many times in the 20th century and we're seeing it come back in force in the 21st century.

Do not de-humanize anyone if you can help it. If you find yourself doing so, take a step back for as long as you need. It would be better to hide away for years at a time to allow a reset of your thinking than to press on looking at those around you as less than human. That path leads to immense suffering for yourself and those you encounter.

This is why we must really take a look at who our enemies are. This requires both introspection to look at how we may be obscuring our own vision in addition to the active effort of avoiding complacency.

Do not make the mistake of attaching man to an idea. You can kill the man, but the idea won’t die. But if you can kill the idea, because it’s a bad idea, the man doesn’t have to die. Avoid that propagation of suffering.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

Charles Spurgeon

As a Dad it's important I teach my kiddos the lesson "Know Your Enemy". We must really think about who or what our enemy is. Wouldn't it be useful for our enemies to be able to trick us into thinking they're our friends? What about if they pretended to be a certain set of people but turned out to be a different group altogether?

That'd be pretty rude. I don't think they worry about that much though. We know that pushers of lies and propaganda often use societal norms and seemingly innocent foundations to hide behind while they work. Much like the coward during war will hide in a family home, hoping they won’t be targeted for fear of harming an innocent, harmful ideas do the same.

These ideas hide out and source from a desire to do good and a desire to help the helpless. Those are wonderful virtues and desires. They should be cherished and protected. But that also means keeping the snake out of the garden. We should not build a wall around the garden and assume it will remain safe. We must remain vigilant to ensure any snake that bypasses the wall is detected and removed before it has the chance to instantiate the chaos it brings.

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

Abraham Lincoln

My enemies are ideas. Not every idea. Not most ideas. Specific ideas that serve to conceal the humanity of people. There are ideas out there that if you hold them, they allow you to see others not as human, but as sub-human. Less than. They create enemies out of neighbors.

These are pernicious ideas. They are infectious ideas that seem good and virtuous on their face but have an insidious nature that consists of separation, segregation, unhappiness, suffering, and death.

Let's be honest, it would be easier to have people as enemies. You don't have to care if your enemy is suffering or dying. It's easy to demonize and dehumanize people. And they're squishy. They're easy to vanquish.

This ease of consequence and conscience comes with vilifying our neighbors. It explains how people could see you as an enemy even if you don't consider them one. Why wouldn’t you label someone an enemy if it makes it easier to see them suffer? If you believe they should suffer, making it easier to watch makes it possible to perpetrate.

A man who has made no enemies is probably not a very good man.

Antonin Scalia

I see very few enemies in fellow humans. I see many, many hostages to the ideas I consider my enemies. I see people trapped in the false promises and virtues they provide. They are misguided souls. They are lost souls. They are to be helped, not destroyed. They are to be spoken to, not ostracized.

If being duped made people eligible for dehumanization, nobody would be human. Although those ideas are my enemy, they cannot be vanquished or destroyed simply by silencing them. No force or coercion can destroy ideas. Not fully.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

Oscar Wilde

A look into religious persecution and the persecution of religious individuals throughout history shows that neither the church nor the government can destroy ideas.

For a Time they will be quelled, but it won't be long. There will always be pockets in a population where that idea lives. The heel of a boot is not enough to stamp out an idea. Force simply lends credence to the idea's validity, credible or otherwise. Light is the only cure.

Drag them up from the darkness and place them for all to see their moral failings. Let all see their hypocrisy and the danger that's in their dogma. We must talk about them and we must expose their untruths. Without that they continue to live on, undisturbed and growing.

If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

Desmond Tutu

Your Enemy, Obscured

Perhaps what you think you see is in fact something entirely different.

Your Enemy, Obscured

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