Choose Your Enemies Carefully

Francis Porretto on culture and enemies

In recent decades, whites and Americans have learned not to exalt themselves over other races and nationalities. But non-whites and non-Americans resent whites and Americans for having achieved more in the four aforementioned fields. Indeed, the trend seems to be running the other way; tensions based on race and nationality are rising rather than attenuating. Which calls to your Curmudgeon's mind what Colonel Tom Kratman wrote about coming to resemble one's enemies:

[I]t has been said more than once that you should choose enemies wisely, because you are going to become just, or at least, much like them. The corollary to this is that your enemies are also going to become very like you....

If I could speak now to our enemies, I would say: Do you kill innocent civilians for shock value? So will we learn to do, in time. Do you torture and murder prisoners? So will we. Are you composed of religious fanatics? Well, since humanistic secularism seems ill-suited to deal with you, don't be surprised if we turn to our churches and temples for the strength to defeat and destroy you. Do you randomly kill our loved ones to send us a message? Don't be surprised, then, when we begin to target your families, specifically, to send the message that our loved ones are not stationery.

[From the afterword to Colonel Kratman's A Desert Called Peace]

Colonel Kratman was speaking with regard to our war against Islamism, but his core observation is applicable to any form of hostility. Hatred and resentment tend to be reciprocated. Also, he who has been accused, sufficiently often, of holding a particular condemned conviction will often adopt that conviction as a result -- and champion it openly, and act on it, and feel no shame about any of it.