![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/-4dXjsJSeIA0\/TlsUZihmqdI\/AAAAAAAAAZQ\/WcfARvqFQew\/boomer-battlestar-galactica-grace-park-gun.jpg\" "\\"boomer")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been introducing one of my housemates to\u00a0Battlestar Galactica<\/em> and we got into an argument about whether it\u2019s acceptable to root for the Cylons or specific Cylons. \u00a0Luckily for blog readers you don\u2019t watch BSG (shame on you), this spilled over into a more general argument about what qualifies an individual as an enemy.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think there are any humans about which you can\u00a0exuberantly\u00a0say delenda est\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 that which must be destroyed. \u00a0There are times when lethal force or imprisonment is the least bad solution we have; we don\u2019t have enough time to stop and heal someone before they seriously harm themselves or others. \u00a0But putting them out is something we should do with regret, and not with a sense of justice.<\/p>\n Imagine switching places with the person you\u2019re fighting. \u00a0In the inevitable Nazi-related hypothetical, imagine you were offered a choice of being born to and raised by nice but not necessarily good<\/em> Germans in enough time to be an adult during World War II. \u00a0Your other option is something unpleasant like losing your leg now. \u00a0Most of us would take a lot of pain to avoid putting ourselves at moral risk. \u00a0Plenty of ordinary people didn\u2019t overcome those circumstances.<\/p>\n When you wouldn\u2019t be willing to switch places with your enemy, when you see their tendency to fly off the handle as a burden you\u2019d like to avoid, I\u2019d argue that\u2019s\u00a0revealed pity<\/em>. \u00a0You\u2019d give a lot to be\u00a0saved<\/em> from having the misapprehensions\/weaknesses\/flaws of your enemy, and, if that were impossible, you\u2019d want to be\u00a0stopped<\/em>. There\u2019s no ontological difference between you and the person on the other side that means they wouldn\u2019t want the exact same thing, if they were in full possession of the facts.<\/p>\n If I have a friend who struggles with\u00a0alcoholism\u00a0 they may interpret my concern and interventions as enmity, but I would say that my enemy was the alcoholism, the thing my friend has difficulty resisting. \u00a0If I\u2019m in a fight, I\u2019m in an alliance with my ur-friend, trying to free them from an\u00a0oppressive\u00a0force.<\/p>\n You can misidentify which part is the error and which part is your friend-as-they-are, but that mistake still shouldn\u2019t lead you to ever think of a person<\/em> as your enemy.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been introducing one of my housemates to\u00a0Battlestar Galactica and we got into an argument about whether it\u2019s acceptable to root for the Cylons or specific Cylons. \u00a0Luckily for blog readers you don\u2019t watch BSG (shame on you), this spilled over into a more general argument about what qualifies an individual as an enemy. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[181],"class_list":["post-5229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morality-in-practice","tag-offering-resistance"],"yoast_head":"\n