If politics is the friend/enemy distinction, that "there is no politics without an enemy," then the interesting question is: "whatabout the alternatives."
And obviously the alternatives to the war against the enemy is something a bit less bloody. Such us religion and the good / evil distinction, and law and the legal / illegal distinction. And economic exchange and the trusting / cheating distinction.
But then an email acquaintance proposed the following:
Politicians need an enemy.
Corollary: The enemy must be more feared than government.
That's a good point. Because clearly government likes to swing its weight around. I'd say it is pretty clear that since the January 6 riot our ruling class has -- deliberately or instinctively -- come down like a ton of bricks on the "armed insurrectionists" and also anyone in the Republican political sphere that might feel like lending them a hand, right Speaker Pelosi? Because, what with the resources of the government you can sure make life unbearable for any government critic or Outer Party partisan. As in bankrupting them.
Actually, there must be a further corollary to "politicians need an enemy." Clearly, practical politicians in the ruling class's Inner Party would really like it if members of the Outer Party had a healthy fear of the Inner Party.
And that is obviously what Our Nance and the Cancel Culture are all about. They are not interested in persuasion any more. Just intimidation.
Which tells us that they have given up on persuading us of the glory of their arc of history bending towards justice. Just shut up and fall into line, peasants.
But my point is that, really, we humans should attempt to spend as much time as possible outside the political world and its friend enemy distinction. Because treating other people as the enemy implies physical conflict and ultimately the possibility of killing.
And the point about conflict and killing is that it is very expensive. Particularly for men. That is why, I have read, primitive tribes do not go in for pitched battles and the risk that the entire male warrior group could be killed off. When the males are all eliminated it means the end of the tribe, and the women are absorbed into the neighboring tribe.
You know, just like German women after World War II becoming GI war brides.
Primitive tribes prefer a nice surgical dawn raid to a pitched battle. More civilized, old chap.
And so also religion, which deals with malefactors by naming, shaming and shunning, rather than by conflict and killing. More civilized, old chap.
And law, which short-circuits the revenge and reparations culture with a legal trial, rules of evidence, and a final disposition of an argument over land, inheritance, wimmin, and a deal gone sour. More civilied, old chap.
And the market economy, which, as indicated by the Science™ of trust and the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, rewards acts of trust and penalizes acts of deceit. Notice that the market economy is gentler than the religious game of naming, shaming and shunning, and the expensive law game of trials and lawyer bills.
Amazing, innit, that the most civilized version of the friend-enemy distinction should be the one thing anathametized by our lefty friends. I wonder why? Is it because, at heart, they are primitives, or at least reactionaries, as in my Great Reaction.
Hey, you gotta say, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat are most keenly experienced in the political sphere, where all is won and lost in the decisive battle. So I understanding my lefty friends having a certain hankering, a certain nostalgia, for the good old days.
But I say that the destiny of mankind is to civilize conflict and disagreement. Because that is the whole point of social animals.
If you want excitement, then build a spaceship and go to Mars. Hey, Elon Musk may have a job for you.
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