Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so on and so forth. There is no denying that a notion of the enemy exists somewhere in our minds, and, culturally, it's as persistent as the notion of a friend.
So, here's the deal. If you were to define an enemy as someone who is actively plotting, scheming, or in any other way consciously contributing to your demise, and to whom you do the same... then I have no enemies. Not as such.
I have a number of friends (whom I define as people who, when an opportunity presents itself, act to my benefit and to whom I do the same), acquaintances, colleagues, occasionally a girlfriend etc. I like most of the people I know and the very, very small number of people I don't like I simply treat with this generic kind of respect and courtesy a (more or less) well-behaved person has to any other person. In other words there is no human being I know personally whom I consider an enemy. To the best of my knowledge neither do the people I know. I don't even have rivals. Generally my ties to the people I'm in contact with are based on positive emotions.
But in popular culture the enemy is mentioned as often as a friend; for every hero there is a villain, for every paragon there is a nemesis. Every Sherlock Holmes has his Proffessor Moriarty, every Frodo has his Sauron, every Papa Smurph has his Gargamel, every Beatrix Kiddo has her Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.
My questions are: where have our enemies gone? And I mean honest to goodness enemies, not the allegorical ones that the world is full of, but the people you can always count on to do everything they can to destroy you and everything you stand for? And don't we subconsciously want to have one human being we can focus all our hatred on, this one special person we can cross Hattori Hanzo swords with? Just as we have friends and romantic partners as the targets for our goody-goodness? Wouldn't it be healthier if each had his or her own nemesis?
So, here's the deal. If you were to define an enemy as someone who is actively plotting, scheming, or in any other way consciously contributing to your demise, and to whom you do the same... then I have no enemies. Not as such.
I have a number of friends (whom I define as people who, when an opportunity presents itself, act to my benefit and to whom I do the same), acquaintances, colleagues, occasionally a girlfriend etc. I like most of the people I know and the very, very small number of people I don't like I simply treat with this generic kind of respect and courtesy a (more or less) well-behaved person has to any other person. In other words there is no human being I know personally whom I consider an enemy. To the best of my knowledge neither do the people I know. I don't even have rivals. Generally my ties to the people I'm in contact with are based on positive emotions.
But in popular culture the enemy is mentioned as often as a friend; for every hero there is a villain, for every paragon there is a nemesis. Every Sherlock Holmes has his Proffessor Moriarty, every Frodo has his Sauron, every Papa Smurph has his Gargamel, every Beatrix Kiddo has her Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.
My questions are: where have our enemies gone? And I mean honest to goodness enemies, not the allegorical ones that the world is full of, but the people you can always count on to do everything they can to destroy you and everything you stand for? And don't we subconsciously want to have one human being we can focus all our hatred on, this one special person we can cross Hattori Hanzo swords with? Just as we have friends and romantic partners as the targets for our goody-goodness? Wouldn't it be healthier if each had his or her own nemesis?
