You must have an enemy
 

Somewhere deep in our reptile brains, it seems we must have enemies, others we need to destroy or merely hate.

When I was growing up, it was easy; the Russkies were the balance of power, and it was a lot of fun hating them, because they sucked. When the Berlin Wall finally fell, it was strange to find no obvious enemy remaining in the culture; Hollywood returned to the Nazis as the people it was safe to hate on.

For a while it seemed like illegal drug merchants were making a play to be our big enemy but that didn't have much staying power for some reason.

Personally, you must have others you enjoy hating. Many of us enjoy hating the people on the other end of the political spectrum from us. Both sides sometimes get really feisty and sometimes they even wish slow painful deaths on certain politicians or pundits.

What is it with this instinct? Why is it built into us; are we defending ourselves from other tribes, or from dangerous animals that could kill us?

It's different. Kill it.

On an individual level, I think people can build and progress without an enemy but a civilization needs an enemy to spur progress. We needed Sputnik as a sword over our heads to create the will to go to the moon. Tom Godwin explored the idea in Prison Planet where successive generations of humans were kept focused on progressing by a leader advertising their survival to the enemy Gerns. The problem is that petty politicians know and use this need for short-term gain which often collides with long-term goals.

One of the 16 Buddhist precepts states: "Realize self and other as one; Do not elevate the self and blame others"

Having an enemy is an example of elevating the self by tearing down others. It is rooted in a fundamental misconcept of the self and other as distinct. The ego is extraordinarily powerful and cunning and will stop at nothing to assert and affirm its existence. I suspect, it has to do with survival strategy, hardwire it at the panel so you don't have to worry about replacing batteries or mice chewing through wires. The default is always ON, and on auto repair.

It takes an enormous amount of time, will, desire, and dedication to sit long enough to forget the self even for a moment, much less become adept at it and incorporate it into your everyday life.

For most practitioners (of any religion) I think we "fake it till we make it"

I'm reading (actually listening to) Orson Scott Card's The Worthing Saga right now, and like most of his books it has some pretty lengthy philosophical themes. This one is that without suffering--both emotional and physical--there is no impetus for growth, either as individuals or as a society. If our neighbor has no suffering in his life, then we have nothing to empathize with, and cannot really love him. Great human advances almost never come out of tropical climates where food is plentiful. Perhaps we are hardwired not only to choose an enemy to hate, but to be an enemy to someone who has none.

"Hatred:
The gift that keeps on giving."

Let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.

[guess]Why do you love anti-democrats?[/who] :)

I can see individuals realizing Buddha nature but for an entire society to do so seems pretty unlikely.

The following yarn is based on a true historical story, but the names have been omitted because I have forgotten them.

The bishop visits the dieing king.
"Do you forgive your enemies?" asks the bishop.
"I have no enemies" says the King. The bishop smiles, and the King adds: "I've had them all killed."

Can we take this thread as being cloned already?

Oh and back on topic, I think that having an enemy is one of the best ways to create a group identity. The unscrupulous and power hungry exploit this.
For individuals, I know the sort of mental state you mean, but it just doesn't appeal to me. There are some individuals I dislike, and some who have pissed me off and needed to be dealt with, but once that is done, I move on and let go. So I have no enemies. And no, I haven't had anyone killed.

Yet.

Perhaps "the enemy" is all the things you aspire not to be? If you find someone or a group who embodies those "qualities" they become a focus point for your anti-aspirations? Easier to "hate" a named, visualisable object/person/group that a collection of undesirable abstract concepts...

On the other hand, sometimes enemies have all the things you want. But I agree about them becoming the focus point. The beauty of having "the other"

Human brains are wired to regard "us" and "the others."

Exactly. There are principles, a standard set, and most importantly who you would invite to a party. [Elle Woods impression]

Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.

Easy for an Italian mobster to say. I fail at poker face.

So it's only natural to kill them and take their stuff. :litebulb:

24 centuries since Sun Tzu said that... and still true.

Find the book "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton. The story, meh, it's ok. What's worth ten times the story, is the author's eight or nine page theory at the back of the book describing how the gov't tries to keep a handle on us by use of a central fear. The Red Menace. Nukes. Russia. Global warming. North Korea. It's worth the price of the book. A real eye-opener.

Having not read it, I have found through experience that much of that is politically motivated for funding of pet projects through Congress and the chain of dependence from business to politics. It is not the only reason but one of the many. On the other hand there are is a lot of people out there trying to do the right thing to protect us and do the work that is required to do that, regardless of personal risk. We just need to remember that when we speak in generalized terms of how screwed up the military industrial complex works to our benefit as a nation.

I am my enemy's keeper.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares

Part 1/3 (an hour long)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...9275960015727#

No one group of people should be lumped into an all consuming stereotype, and where there is a division in the mind toward a people, and every negative attribute ever conceived branded upon them, that person has categorically demonized them and called them enemy.

'Cept them dirty hippies. :haha:

Yeah. They're ALL taking that pot.

For individuals, I know the sort of mental state you mean, but it just doesn't appeal to me. There are some individuals I dislike, and some who have pissed me off and needed to be dealt with, but once that is done, I move on and let go. So I have no enemies. And no, I haven't had anyone killed.

But, failing to have an actual enemy, we will always find one - somehow, somewhere.

Our brains are rewarded for having enemies. Identifying the other, and seeing it as deep danger, happens without us knowing it. There was a reason why this was put into us in our evolutionary past; at some point, it was important to our survival. But now, it threatens us every day.

We see that a huge amount of socialization informs the children how to get along with others. Years of repeated experiences and correction are needed. It usually needs to start at a really early age, like at the same time we are learning language. We figure out how our social world works by watching the other people and what they do.

A peaceful civilization is formed in the software of our culture, and it runs against the hardware of our genes. Everything we can possibly do to ensure this peace is very important. But what's needed won't always be obvious, because the instincts are so deep in us that we don't recognize them.

They don't even have to be identified, just having confidence that somewhere out there some person(s) is/are causing me(us) this misfortune.
This relieves me(us) of considering the possibility of having made a mistake or having misunderstood.
Oh, and it's safer, blaming God is a little risky, ya know. ;)

I'm going with people who don't like dogs.

I hate those other bastards over there. Just like any right-thinking American.

Just change the word brain to ego.

Your brain is a physical tool. Your ego needs conflict and barriers to define it's own boundaries. If you are run by your ego, you think it's you, but.... If you realize that it's only a construct, you don't need edges.

That sounds good, but the problem is, I am using my brain/ego to analyze it, and my brain/ego says that it has looked into it very carefully and that it's really Those Other Bastards Over There that are the problem.

I feel like it's so low-level that we'll always find it hard to understand. It will trick us. It's like gay conversion therapy; every technique to suppress it will just come back, maybe even as something else we don't recognize.

That's right. You're trying to taste your tongue. See your eyeball with no mirror.

Get below the level of thought. What in you hears the thoughts you think? What is the vessel that holds them?

I have been spending my entire life trying to get to the level of thought in the first place. I am a simple man. An I/O card, really. I am a weaponized ape. If I don't have an enemy, I don't actually exist.

The Lakota said that you are judged by the strength of your enemies, and who am I to argue with 4000 years of hunter-gatherers that had all the best enemies?

They also said "the center cannot hold," which was dead nuts on the money, if you just take a look around.

Wait. That last one was Yeats. Still true, though.

Judged by whom?

By your other enemies, obviously.

You have basically two choices:

1. Just go with 2 million years of primate programming, or

2. Become a Buddhist monk. Only then your teacher hits you with a stick, and nobody has time for that.

It is also worth mentioning that the greatest trick ever pulled on people was to get them to view themselves as the enemy.

Examples would be the USA since 1979 and the UK weird Brexit thing.

A bit glib, I would say. Which is fine on a forum where attention spans can be short... But...

3. Recognize your primate urges, but act with compassion.

You don't have to be a monk to have empathy. It's really just a matter of attention. Reduce your walls and don't fear being hurt. It's going to happen. You get better.

My mileage varies, but I try.

Well, how you behave towards your enemies is a different matter than if you have enemies in the first place.

I don't intend to be a shit here but didn't you endorse political violence on another thread? I believe that #devinnunesisanidiot but I'm not calling for his head, his seat is another matter.

If people are waving actual swastika flags around, I absolutely endorse violence as the first solution.

But not all of my enemies are outright Nazis, or even bad people. Some people I just don't get along with, and that doesn't call for heaved bricks.

you're saying if you were to see a person wearing a swastika armband, violence is your FIRST solution? just to be clear here.

Yep. You can't let that kind of thing fly.

Karl Popper had something to say about that:

Nazis by definition cannot coexist with people that don't fit their model of what is human. If they could, they would be something else entirely. Nazism is in itself a statement of intent to do violence to people who just want to live their lives.

I will put up with anyone who puts up with everyone else, no matter how much I disagree with them. Nazis and ISIS are the only two groups that I don't feel any need to tolerate on even a provisional basis.

so, you would strike without first finding out if they were wearing a costume, or leaving the set of a film, or maybe don't understand what they are projecting.



What kind of arm band do you wear to warn others of the danger they are in if you disagree with their views?

If I were at a Halloween party, I would start with the assumption that the person has extremely bad taste, and see how things developed.


Given the two groups I mentioned, I don't believe in giving them a warning.

Do you think one is warranted? Both of those groups are pretty odious, and a direct existential danger to everyone around them.

yes, I think a warning is warranted.



hey, good talk, it was informative.

As a natural rights libertarian, I absolutely agree: nazis, islamists (along with socialist/commies and thought police) are "direct existential danger(s) to everyone around them".

When one of those jackasses willingly, knowingly, deprives someone of life, liberty, or property, then go to town on 'em (and not one damn second before).

I didn't say Islamists. I said ISIS.

Wh--Wha-

Warn them????:eyebrow:

There can't be no us without a them...

half a dozen of one, six of the other

anywho: kinda missin' my point

So you are suggesting that all Muslims are the same as ISIS fanatics?

that's wrong.


enemies are like problems. if i solved all your problems and killed all your enemies in a day, you'd invent new problems and create new enemies.



fix your point of view. there are no problems, there are no enemies.


there are situations and other people that are starring in their own realities.


respect them and have peace, or struggle against them and have suffering.


your choice.

nope. muslims and islamists are two different animals.

again: missin' my point (on purpose).

Not on purpose. It isn't quite clear to me. I made a statement, you added qualifiers for yourself but also put words in my mouth, and now you are saying that I am deliberately missing your point.

Hey, you wanna go with isis? Okay...

As a natural rights libertarian, I absolutely agree: nazis, ISIS (along with socialist/commies and thought police) are "direct existential danger(s) to everyone around them".

When one of those jackasses willingly, knowingly, deprives someone of life, liberty, or property, then go to town on 'em (and not one damn second before).

I wasn't puttin' words in your mouth; I just see no difference between islamists and isis.

As for my point: don't lay hands on the other guy till he lays hands on you, no matter how odious his thinkin' is.

To work hard at identifying the correct enemy, to imagine their evil thinking, to consider the possible attacks, to fantasize about the violence, this all the chimp heritage right here right now

It will be our destruction

(changes in BOLD type mine for continuity)

The definitions can be a slippery slope.

I find it helpful to think of it as the Spectrum of Islam Continuum:

Muslims (have Islam as their religion) > Fundamentalist Muslims/Islamists (have Islam as their religion and politics by peaceful means) > Extreme/Fanatic/Radical Islamists [Extremists] (have Islam as their religion and politics by any means necessary).

Between the terms Muslims and Islamists there's some overlap; but, I don't consider them the same.

Between the terms Islamists and Extremists (like ISIS) there's some overlap; but, I don't consider them the same.

FWIW:

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/...-vs.-islamists

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism

True, but kinda beside the (my) point.