By "enemy" I mean the person or persons other than us who we feel or think are hurting us or, at the least, wishing us ill. Also, an enemy can refer to something bigger than persons, such as a whole nation or group of nations-which I hope to be able to talk about later in this post-but what I have in mind when thinking about how valuable an enemy can be are more or less limited to dynamics that arise from interpersonal relations. If we suspect that the enemy is so driven by hate that he or she wants us physically dead, that can be addressed by another article, but probably not here, or not now. Another word of caution: it is possible that the one we tag as enemy would likely have the same thought about us: we are rubbish to him or her. In other words, emotions of mutual disdain are likely to be shown by persons who imagine themselves to be having enemies.
In that context I wish to proceed to say that one of the most obvious benefits we can have from an enemy is we-defamed and all-get to know (in high definition and on large screens) what our weaknesses and shortcomings are.
For free.
With that contention I wish to elaborate on three things.
One, although we know who we are and what we do, we often need confirmation from other people to feel secured or to reach a certain level of comfort. If there is issue about our negative side, we hardly get this confirmation from friends. But with enemies, we get it for free. A basic example of how this process of confirmation works: I know I am arrogant, condescending and hard-headed. With friends, I am likely to get 4-star, instead of 3-star, ratings or reviews. I feel good and continue to live my life being arrogant, condescending and hard-headed, confident in my belief that I am doing great by being what I am. But with enemies, the world get to know that I am not only arrogant but also a bully, a spoiled brat and one who has violent tendencies; not only condescending but one who is more like an idiot; not only hard-headed but one who bristles when challenged.
The painful words we hear from people who speak ill of us are, from our perspective, often libelous. How we react to them can neither be right or wrong, but will probably indicate how we appreciate the value of an enemy. Examples:
File a lawsuit, in defense of our honor;
We can always reject and return insults (with added venom) to the sender; or
Accept the "gift," no matter how outlandish the content or outsized the wrapping.
That last point brings me to the second argument for why we derive benefits from enemies at no cost. As suggested at the outset, enemies are in pain. When they bring out caricatures of people they hate, they often exaggerate. This means that what people say about us may not necessarily be inaccurate; but their use of figurative speech (either in Latin, Greek, English, Tagalog, etc.) may make them baseless or even repugnant. Otherwise, exaggeration, when used positively, is music to all. Example: "Happy birthday to the best daddy in the world!"
Thus when an enemy calls me names and tells me I made a life-long career out of being a prostitute, he or she is probably stressing the fact that at some point in my life I offered false testimonies in exchange of a high position in government.
That said, I am glad that the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, through Lingayen Archbishop Socrates Villegas, its President, has recently called the Catholic Church to critically self-examine itself in view of President Rodrigo Duterte's tirade against the institution.
And that "self-examination", said Archbishop Villegas, must begin among the Church leaders.
This represents a slight departure from gestures of recent months where bishops would quickly dismiss Mr. Duterte as a publicly-decorated nuisance, or something that looks like it. This, to me, is a sign of acknowledging that in a dump of cabbages and kings, something good can come out of an arrogant, condescending and hard-headed enemy.