Hello again from the People’s Democratic Republic of CHAZ/CHOP! Apologies for the delay in contribution to this august publication, but my car was recently reduced from almost paid off to a 2-ton paper weight by one of the degenerates who are currently roving the formerly Emerald City, destroying cars and abandoning them on city roads. It’s definitely intensified my opinion that we need to make Seattle a lot more like Singapore, but it also (sadly) provides me the perfect framework to talk about the friend-enemy distinction as published by Carl Schmitt in his 1932 The Concept of the Political (‘Der Begriff des Politischen’).
While Schmitt’s overall political ideology is definitely not one to emulate (“Nazis are bad, m’kay”), it is interesting that it is the first thing shitlibs cry about when you bring him up. Heidegger and Günther Grass were also Nazis, but somehow managed to regain their status as approved thinkers. Apparently they were somehow redeemable but in a way Schmitt was not. This is simply a limp-wristed excuse to dodge any serious discussion of Schmitt’s thought, and the genetic fallacy never looks good on anybody. Despite Schmitt’s stance on “non-Aryans,” his insight into the distinction between friends and enemies has been used by many such as the prominent Jewish right wing thinker Paul Gottfried to investigate how people organize themselves in political systems. Schmitt was, admittedly, a raging hemorrhoid of a Hun, but even a nasty pile can remind you of something true; namely, that the most important distinction in politics is that of who is your friend and who is your enemy. While Schmitt makes it clear that the concepts of “friend” and of “enemy” are really only meant to be used on a bird’s eye, societal level, I think with some minor tweaking they are surprisingly helpful in clarifying things on a personal level as well. In this vein, let’s think about everyday, real-world examples of both friends and enemies.
Friend
To start on the positive side of things, think for a moment about your friends. Who is your friend, and how many of them do you really have? In a culture of instant gratification and instant results, most Americans compete for social clout online by acquiring as many “friends” or “followers” online. In the immortal worlds of Arlo Guthrie, “They’re not really your friends, are they?” Stats on a server somewhere are not your friends, and while I can honestly say I’ve been blessed to discover the proprietors and readers of this fine publication on the Bird Site, this is clearly the exception that proves the rule. Your friends, your real friends, are those who check in on you, and who you check in on. They’re the ones you rush to help when they’re having a hard time, and the ones who rush to help you when things are hard. You have a responsibility to them, and they have a responsibility to you. They could live near you, or they could live on the other side of the world. Your actual friends are the ones you build community with. They’re the closest modern equivalent to the retinue or comitatus of late Antiquity, a group of warriors who were willing to risk everything for each other.
This idea is so strange to (post-)modern ears that most people laugh at its apparent naiveté, but if you’ve ever travelled somewhere outside of the West, you probably noticed how much more people rely heavily on social bonds to maintain peace and stability in their societies. For 99.99% of human history, this was how humans survived, by building and maintaining true recipcrocal friendships. It is so rare in America these days, that any mention of it will win you scorn from Leftists who would much rather you rely on nebulous, unaccountable entities to take care of your basic needs. All the more reason to recognize your friends, and most importantly, to reward your friends. Rewarding your friends doesn’t mean buying fake friends who will leave you the instant things get rough. Rewarding your true friends can mean something as simple as being a true friend back to them. When your buddy is feeling down, actually check in on him. When a friend needs help out of a tight spot and you have some extra cash, throw some a little their way and encourage your other friends to do the same. And the hardest one of all for myself and many of us, when you need help, swallow your pride and reach out to your friends for help. Nothing will tell you who your true friends are faster than genuinely asking for help. The comitatus lives and dies by its willingness to “inconvenience” itself to help its own.
Enemy
Now that we’ve raised the bar a bit to those people you actually care about you, your friends are not as many as you might have first thought, This probably also means that, depending on various factors, you have a small to relatively small group of actual friends. Here’s where the numbers game gets you: you will always have more enemies than friends. I’m not talking necessarily about arch-nemesis, Dr. Moriarty-type enemies (although if you do have an arch-nemesis, that’s actually kind of cool). Most of your enemies are people who will never even know you.
They are the people who first and foremost stand opposed to the things you care about. True, good, beautiful things, they don’t like those. Give them false, degenerate, and ugly things any day. It doesn’t really matter to them that you think allowing men to expose themselves to children is abhorrent. They simply don’t care as long as they can use taxpayer money to sponsor drag shows for kids at the local library. It also doesn’t matter to them that you don’t think suffering children should be mutilated to appease the god Moloch. As long as your money goes to fund the disfigurement unit at the local children’s hospital, your thoughts on the matter are irrelevant. They don’t care what you think. They’re your enemies, remember?
Unfortunately, these nebulous, nameless enemies can become all too real once you stand in the way of what they want. You don’t want children groomed? You’re a transphobe and must be destroyed. You don’t want just anybody to be able to come and go into your country? You’re a “Christian nationalist” and must be destroyed. You simply don’t want your property to be vandalized to the point of worthlessness? You’re a “reactionary” and must be destroyed. The common theme here is, once they see you swim counter to their eldritch leftward course, you can no longer be tolerated. As my co-contributor Elliott would say: open up the dread Necronomicon and you will see, “I hate you, and you can’t leave.”
On the necessity of enemies
The risk of blackpilling here is high, since on paper it seems like you’re greatly outnumbered and no matter how much you might post spicy memes on the Bird Site roasting rainbow Satanism, it won’t stop them (still not a reason to stop posting those memes, btw). The thing about despair, though, is that it’s the epitome of what Mr. Reznor would call the Downward Spiral, and attempting to fight this Time War accountant-style simply doesn’t work. You can’t fight this with overwhelming force. You have to think a lot more like guerillas, who win because they appeal to and draw in those people who are fed up with those in power. Perhaps we really are just waiting for the counter-elite to show up. Fine. But until then, let’s start “finding our frens” and building those comitatii where we can.
One important thing to remember is that if you don’t have enemies, you’re not doing it right. To have enemies really means something like, you care enough about some things that you’re willing to stand against people who want the other things. This is basically saying something like, you have a backbone. So from this perspective, maybe having enemies is the price you pay for being a legit person. As the character Tozawa-san in the awesome HBO show Tokyo Vice would say, “A man without enemies is no man at all.”
So go “find your frens,” as the saying goes. If you’re enjoying Carpe Forum, it’s safe to say you’re already among them.