Throughout history humans have worked together to face common enemies. Whether it was “barbarians” or Huns or “redcoats” or “commies”, the threat of a common enemy would make people overcome their minor differences and work together to defend themselves.
For most of recorded history these common enemies have been physical and they have been “others” – some group of people outside of “our” group. But I think the real common enemies we face today are not physical and are not strictly ‘outside’ of ourselves. The real common enemies are internal experiences we all face. The issue is not whether we have these undesired experiences (we all will, at many times throughout our lives). The issue is more about ‘what do we do about them’ when they rise up within us, or when we see that others are trying to activate/encourage these enemies. Here are some Common Enemies that we must face:
1) Ignorance – when we were ignorant of how the oceans worked, we never attempted to cross them. When we were ignorant of how to fabricate metals we were dependent on sticks and stones. Ignorance itself is easily defeated with education and learning, but it can also become a stubborn enemy without effort put in to overcome it. Ignorance wins when laziness or surrender are chosen.
2) Fear – all of us experience some form of fear at various times in our lives. The assigned source of the fear may be externally physical and easily recognized by others (natural disaster, rabid animal, threatening human, etc.). Fear is a natural experience and keeps us alive. It focuses attention, enhances senses and response mechanism, it helps us move in ways that can reduce injury or death. But fear can also come from non-physical sources – maybe a hallucination or imagined fantasy. Reactions to imagined fears can frequently be worse than the fear itself (imagine rolling out of bed due to some reaction to a bad dream).
3) Anger – most people get angry at times, some rarely get angry and some stay angry much of the time. Anger and Fear are two major driving forces – ’emotional energy’ sources – that generally lead to some type of movement. ‘Fight or Flight’ as opposed to ‘Freeze’ responses. They are basic primate emotions so it’s no surprise that they are targeted by people who want to direct the actions of large numbers. The combination of base motivators (Fear & Anger), along with the general tendency of life to conserve energy, can lead to ‘mindless masses’ who just want to let others tell them what to do. This is generally not a good direction when faced with high levels of complexity.
4) Greed – the true ‘Dark Side’. It’s a subtle addiction that’s difficult to detect when it reaches a dangerous point. For the short-term all of us may exhibit ‘greedy’ behavior. When we are immature and hungry we may grab food from someone else, without thinking about the unintended consequences. Eventually, when we mature, and when we have ‘enough’ we begin to become aware of the needs & wants of others, and we can choose to extend our caring intentions from self to others, from small group to larger group. We can learn to be generous. But as evolution explores a wide variety of niches, some individuals either never learn this maturing path, or they intentionally choose alternative paths. They may have a natural tendency to be more intensely greedy, for longer periods of time. Or they may learn this by reinforcement of events & experience over time. Whatever the process, the end result is that true ‘dark side’ greed emerges when the person has a continuous internal drive for “more”. There is never a feeling of satisfaction or a sense of “enough” – there is only the constant drive for “more” and a disregard for the needs and wants of others. In this case, a community needs to put constraints on the individual who cannot constrain themselves. Examples include thieves or rapists who cannot or will not control their own behavior. Most societies restrain these people in some way – typically jail/prison – so that the majority of society can continue to function without having to constantly spend attention and energy to defend themselves from the perpetrators.
It’s time we recognize our common enemies and determine actions to defend ourselves.
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