Is loving your enemy really possible? And should it be a moral objective? I have had exchanges with some of my friends (such as Brennan Breed) about these questions. Most recently Ive been discussing them with a truly remarkable young thinker by the name of Mitu Pandya. And she has permitted me to share her thoughtful reflections with you. They are lengthy. But I think they are worth the time you spend with them. -------- Before dismissing this thread, I wanted to clarify my position. I was sidetracked by your response and did not actually represent my original viewpoint. And I think it is important to disagree on the correct grounds. So how can we “love” those who seek our destruction (our enemy)? And why is the usefulness of hate in the modern world questionable? A few reasons. 1) The original context of our conversation was Tish Bav. Tish Bav involves the contemplation of suffering. And it is the contemplation of suffering that ultimately leads us to recognize the deep unity of all living beings. For in suffering and death lie our most fundamental, shared human condition. Rilke says we each hold our death within us (Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge/death at Ulsgaard). If we could look *through* each human being beyond race, religion, and class and see their death inside of them--their fate that is also our own—hate is impossible. If we could imagine our antagonist as father, mother, sister, brother–loving and mourning the death of loved ones—hate is impossible. Instead we feel tragedy and empathy. This is what I call a spiritual “love” of ones enemy. Achilles and Priam weep together. Confronted by the shortness of life and the struggle to find meaning in loss, we realize that the only sane action in this world is to be kind to one another. Its like standing on a loved ones grave and realizing how wasteful were our moments spent in anger. We are thus able to see the evil of our enemies as a delusion and a tragedy rather than an inherent trait (See Epictetus Discourses 1.18). Pity replaces hate for the evildoer, and justice is executed in the spirit of compassion and necessity rather than animosity. My point about Yahweh loving yet punishing his children was that hatred is not necessary for justice. 2) Hate is strategically unsustainable for communities in the long term. Hatred may initially be provoked by just cause against an outside enemy. But if hatred builds up over a long period of time, it becomes self-generating. Long-term hate against an external enemy eventually creates hateful habits of mind and behavior that may then be redirected endemically. People believe that hate is temporary and dependent on an external object. Yet—somewhat like vestigial body parts that retain their structure after their initial functions have disappeared—the mental and behavioral paradigms of hate outlast their initial causes. One thinks of C. P. Cavafy: “This city will always pursue you.” On a social level this means that once the apparatus of hatred is created it tends to perpetuate itself. Long-term hatred against an external Other may in fact facilitate endemic civil conflict. Similarly, love is a faculty that must be developed, not something inspired by an object (see Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving). We are therefore better able to love those in our communities if we cultivate our skill to love through the most difficult training of all: empathy for those who want to destroy us. For they hate us but they are ignorant; and we must not emulate those who would extinguish us, making their disease our own, but develop this skill that they have not. Christianity has done us the great disservice of obscuring the fundamentally utilitarian benefit of “loving thine enemy.” Turning the other cheek is not merely or even primarily a moral imperative, but a long-term political strategy to deter cycles of violence and increase the chances of group survival via cooperation. Again, though, empathy for our enemy does not preclude justice. Rather, it changes the nature and quality of our justice. 3) Science suggests that generosity may be more politically expedient than hate. Studies have shown that altruistic behavior in primates relies on reciprocity. Favors beget favors in return. We must further consider human altruisim in light of the “Ben Franklin effect”: We like someone more when we do them a favor (see Schopler and Compere, 1971). Positive attitudes correspond with altruistic behavior probably in order to reduce cognitive dissonance. Combined with studies on reciprocity, then, we see that generosity toward an antagonist may not only improve our own attitude toward them (thus fostering diplomacy), but also increase the chance that they will act benevolently toward us in turn. As per the Ben Franklin effect, this will then encourage them to view us more positively. In short we create cycles of cooperation just as we create cycles of violence. Of course real life is much more complex. But we should account for sociobiological proclivities when considering the usefulness of hate in the modern world. 4) Hate simplifies war and violence. And anything that simplifies complex moral issues is not a preferable option. Hatred of one’s enemy reduces moral ambiguity by dehumanizing the other. In this way hatred also denigrates our justice. It is easy to destroy a hated enemy, and there is thus little merit in it. But to look in an opponent’s eyes and see our own humanity reflected there –and to nevertheless enact justice and destruction in spite of our empathy because it is necessary: *this* is the most difficult and therefore the noblest task. All that said, it is refreshing to hear someone defend hate instead of reject it out of hand due to conditioned moral aversion.....
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:33:03 +0000
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