Humanizing the enemy is a big no-no when it comes to war. In fact, most military training is designed to suppress or destroy a soldier’s tendency to do just that. After all, if an army is to be successful, it can’t have its soldiers wading through moral dilemmas each time they go to pull the trigger. They must be conditioned to pull the trigger without a second thought and without regret. This is the harsh reality of war.
At the same time though, I can’t help but think that as long as we continue to dehumanize the enemy and teach people at the forefront of our foreign policy enforcement efforts to do the same, we will never appreciate sheer beauty and sanctity of human life, whether in others or ourselves. I fear that we will never experience peace and security either, because if we—the self-appointed “good guys”—are able to reduce our enemies into something less than human, imagine how the so-called “bad guys” conceptualize us! Yes, many people in the world do terrible things—as do each of us in our darkest and most private moments. But does that place them beyond redemption and worthy of extermination? If you answer, “yes” to that question, then you also place yourself in a precarious position, because perhaps your own secret sin puts you beyond redemption as well. After all, who but God knows where the line is and when you cross it?
Perhaps that’s why Christ taught us to love our enemies rather than hate them, to do good to those who hurt us rather than return evil for evil. This isn’t some arbitrary moral imperative designed to make us feel guilty. It is a matter of survival, but, even more than that, it is the means by which we might one day become fully human ourselves.
—Comment on te blog
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