I used to think it tremendously childish to have enemies. I remember a respected college professor one day starting class with a long tale about the negotiations surrounding the publication of his latest book. He ended the story by saying, "Life is just high school over and over again." Making a hobby of enemies is jr. high school.
But to have enemies probably is just the weary fact of life being high school over and over again. If one is engaged and active in society, they will be there. You will be duped. You will be made the fool. You will be attacked honestly, and also wickedly and foolishly.
Withdrawal from human interaction does not impress me. Neither does the paranoia of seeing an enemy lurking behind every smile. Once must engage, maintain a clean conscience, and permit life to be experienced as it may. As the philosopher Abelard put it in his list of advice to his infant son: "As a wise mind should not be deceived, so a good mind should not / deceive; to be deceived is a flaw, to deceive is a crime." Or as Christ exhorts, "...I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. Beware of men..." (Matthew 10:16-17)
It is true that one will find one's best critics amongst the enemies, though it is yet another weary fact of life that they will be buried amongst many fools. I had to laugh to read in the Psalms this morning, "Those who sit at the gate murmur against me, / and the drunkards make songs about me." Reading the Psalms over the past year, they are full of a considerable amount of passive-aggressive whining, to the point that I seriously wonder about the wisdom of daily reading. However, they are also the truth of a man who was deeply engaged in public interaction.
Recently I had a disappointing conversation with an elderly woman. It started well enough. She asked about the link between my education and my employment. Given that I studied philosophy, there is none. She said something I don't hear enough: "Well, I always thought that people went to school to get an education, not to get a job." Of course, the truth is most people make every effort to get through college while receiving as little education as possible. This woman had taken advantage of her college years to become educated, she asserted. She also had the advantage of her many years of experience and many years of religious instruction. The conversation moved on to an issue of morality, where her option was not to take either side but to take a position of willfully ignorant amorality. I read somewhere recently that as soon as you care what people think you become an evil liar. I don't recall who wrote about this, but in this case it was true. I am trying to ingratiate myself into her society and so I merely nodded noncommittally and beat a hasty exit. My friendship has done her no favors.
Experience has taught me two things about life that I had not until now put together. The first is that as one develops into adulthood it is quite easy to become progressively more stupid. My GRE scores from 6 months after graduation to 6 years after graduation are more than enough to prove that point. The second is that experience has a value that cannot be replaced by anything else, so that as one moves into adulthood one becomes progressively less stupid. What this goes to prove is that there is an uneasy balance of stupidity in adulthood and unless one is quite cautious to tilt the balance in favor of intelligence, stupidity will win. It is probably more likely than not to arrive at ones dotage with little but experience to show for it. Yet, if we have exceedingly good fortune, we may from time to time have a friendship or passing acquaintance or even a single conversation which improves intelligence.
A few weeks ago I wrote in my journal, "There are many who would destroy themselves rather than admit that even those who work to destroy them work to their own good." We don't need good fortunate to assure our enemies are among us, we just need to walk out the front door. It is the best opportunely we have to assure that reason and good sense develop rather than wither.
(Picture: Landaur Alterpiece, 1511, by Albrecht Duerer, poster)
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