New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 147
The friend-enemy distinction, as it is called, is the underlying organizational principle of the Marxist Left, radical Islam, and the Fascist Reactionary Left (usually mislabeled “Right”). It is spelled out in detail in a 1932 book by Carl Schmitt called The Concept of the Political, and in that book Schmitt goes into great detail to explain what is meant by the term “enemies.” He gives much less clear attention to the opposing term “friends,” in his fundamental construction. So who are the friends in the friend-enemy distinction? Friends are those who will join with you to fight the enemy, who has been declared by the leader (or Führer). In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay exposes this ugly fact about the “friendship” (or, allyship) in the friend-enemy distinction and reveals that it is the root of authoritarian and totalitarian thinking. Join him to learn why this concept is so evil.
Additional episodes of New Discourses Bullets can be found here.
Subscribe to New Discourses Bullets on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora, YouTube, Rumble, Odysee or by RSS.
4 comments
Interesting, thank you. Seems to reinforce the concept of “frenemy,” a portmanteau in which ideological enemies (e.g., LGBTQ activists and Islamists) have temporary synergistic relationships to advance their respective interests.
This concept of friend or enemy is simply anti civilized. One has to ready for battle in any kind of greeting. It is quite successful as we see what is going on. And that is because we don’t view being civilized as a concept, an agreement of common, neutral rights forfeit. It is a contract we all have to abide and keep. This is why the doctor and the parents name the child. And when the child demands of others to call them something else. We sense it is wrong, why has something like someone’s name been made into a confrontation and confusion. It is the civilized agreement being broken.
I see this as more than an academic discussion.
The psychopath lives in a world composed mostly of “enemies.” These are NOT actual antagonists, but merely those who seem even vaguely threatening to the psychopath. This is the origin point of the concept of “enemy.” It is at its core delusional; insane.
Meanwhile, we will encounter many antagonists in our journey through life. In the animal world, this includes predators who will kill you for food (or sometimes other reasons) down to disease, bad weather, forest fire, etc. In the human world we add a whole range of roles that vary from criminals who would threaten your life to opposing team members in friendly games of sport.
None of these entities is necessarily an “enemy.” They are simply antagonists with more or less actual potential threat to survival. At the sports level, we have friendly games that represent very little threat. And at the crime or natural level we have psychopaths or environmental factors that are perfectly willing to kill you or perhaps large numbers of people. And even these have their own survival strategies in mind and are not normally total enemies.
What I am getting at is that the concept of “enemy” is essentially a product of insanity. It can “infect” normal people with grossly exaggerated ideas of how threatening other actors on the stage of life may be. But even people who hate psychopathic behavior are not necessarily prepared to murder any psychopath they lay their hands on; they realize how crazy this “solution” really is.
Thus, ideologies that push the “enemy” narrative are essentially insane and criminal. They are not that rare on Earth. That leads to the conclusion that war is essentially a product of insanity.
Those who wish to control psychotic behaviors in society are NOT trying to “kill enemies,” unless they are themselves being deceived by a psychotic influence. However, such people (such as “anti-crime” political groups) can be misled by crazy persons because their own understanding of what is really going on is so poor. The solution is to improve our understanding of psychopathy and how to deal with it effectively.
It’s sad and false to see radical Islam associated with Marxism when anyone who studies history can find the true record:
Marx / Engels were both Jooish.
So was Lenin and Trotsky.
So was Stalin’s wife.
So were 80% of the 1st Soviet secret police – the Cheka, and the next, the NKVD.