Truth and Justice are not found through Alliances

Our opinions are coloured by our alliances and friendships. It is good to be aware of this. Love and hatred follow a sign multiplication rule, which works as follows:

• The friend of my friend is my friend. (++ => +)
• The enemy of my friend is my enemy. (-+ => -)
• The friend of my enemy is my enemy. (+- => -)
• The enemy of my enemy is my friend. (-- => +)

The logic is a very simple survival logic. We do what we think is best for ourselves. We divide the world in two groups: the ones who are good to us and the ones who are bad - anyway. Our opinions are correspondingly influenced by these relationships. We tend to agree with our friends and disagree with our enemies. We see this in national and international politics. And it always leads to polarisation.

In national politics, we see in all countries the great left - right divide. If you belong to the left or to the right, you are very likely to have different opinions on just about everything: immigration, nuclear power, genetic engineering, abortion, gay marriage and environment. Our friends from the same side are always right, our enemies at the other side are always wrong. We also see that each side is very critical to the other side. From the other party, a slight slip of the tongue will not be forgiven, but from the own party members even criminal acts can count on understanding. We saw some examples in Belgian politics recently.

In international politics we saw years ago that Yasser Arafat was supporting Saddam Hoessein because they had a common enemy. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Today we see the United States supporting autocratic fundamentalist regimes, only because they are an ally against other evil forces.

This "rule" also explains why gossip is so tempting. If you talk evil to someone about his enemy, this person will consider you to be a friend, because you seem to be defending his perspective and his interest. In 1930' Germany, you could  make good friends with your countrymen by insulting Jews and you could make dangerous enemies by defending them. In 2015' Belgium, you can now make good friends by warning people against Islamic dangers, even  if they are very unlikely to encounter these in their own residential area.

The problem with the sign multiplication rule described above is that it misleads us. Truth and justice are not found through alliances and friendships and certainly not through prejudice and gossip. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend and the friend of my enemy is not necessarily my enemy. My best friend may have committed a bad crime and my worst enemy may well be his innocent victim. To reach justice, we need to use our conscience, not our relationships.

This is the great message from prophets and philosophers. The Samaritan, the Jew or the Muslim may well be my new good friend anyway and it may be my oldest friend who actually needs to check his conscience. Truth and justice are reached through individual reason and conscience, not through alliances.

See also my blog: mainstream versus democracy.