Good article! Perhaps the deeper meaning behind “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” is not strategic at all. Friends show us how we fit into the world; enemies show us where we collide with it. One affirms our strengths, the other exposes our edges. A life without critics may be comfortable, but it often leaves a person partially unknown to himself.
Fantastic post. In a way Carl Schmidt took this a step further. He said that democracy will always fail in the long run because democracies inherently aren't set up to make the friend-enemy distinction. Enemies are useful in the sense that they bring people together (WW1 Germany, Britain, WW2 Germany, Britain, Cold War USA, Russia). Seemingly a paradoxical idea until you think about it in terms of your post.
This judgment is ambiguous. I prefer more friends than enemies with whom I will waste my energy in vain. A friend can stab you in the back unexpectedly, so you will reduce your real friends. Keep enemies farther away, distance saves from disappointments in the future.
STOP IT - enemies are enemies for a reason! They are useful, yes, but trying to navigate life as a suspicious friend is just stupid. Such absolutism is ignorant.
Good article! Perhaps the deeper meaning behind “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” is not strategic at all. Friends show us how we fit into the world; enemies show us where we collide with it. One affirms our strengths, the other exposes our edges. A life without critics may be comfortable, but it often leaves a person partially unknown to himself.
Fantastic post. In a way Carl Schmidt took this a step further. He said that democracy will always fail in the long run because democracies inherently aren't set up to make the friend-enemy distinction. Enemies are useful in the sense that they bring people together (WW1 Germany, Britain, WW2 Germany, Britain, Cold War USA, Russia). Seemingly a paradoxical idea until you think about it in terms of your post.
This judgment is ambiguous. I prefer more friends than enemies with whom I will waste my energy in vain. A friend can stab you in the back unexpectedly, so you will reduce your real friends. Keep enemies farther away, distance saves from disappointments in the future.
STOP IT - enemies are enemies for a reason! They are useful, yes, but trying to navigate life as a suspicious friend is just stupid. Such absolutism is ignorant.
That is why it is a strategy and not a rule. Absolutism breeds complacency. The function of the absolutism above is to force unorthodox thinking.