Fear and Loathing, and Mans’ Best Friend

Toby 

When I was a kid, my family always had dogs. Yes, dogs- plural. I guess lately, I have considered the strange fact that there are animals we claim as our own. It’s strange to reflect upon the “domestication” of animals, yet it is something I am confronted with most everyday. I see people walking their dogs around my neighborhood, bringing them to work, following them around with the infamous plastic bag. Scenes that should seem odd somehow seem so commonplace.

I remember very specifically a scene from my childhood that has plagued me with fear for many years. I remember very vividly the arrangement of furniture, the location of the television, everything. It was a fall weekend, and I was enjoying a Friday night sleepover at my best friends’ house. Amidst the chaos of our very existence (RC cars, sandbox dozers, and running amuck in the corn fields, etc.), his parents were watching a movie. It was an adult movie- no, not an ADULT movie- just a movie not suitable for children under a certain age. I don’t recall any sexuality, graphic violence, or crude language. In fact, I don’t even recall the role of a human in the scene; I just remember the aggressive actions, intimidating nature, and sinister presentation of wolves. There were multiple wolves, standing in the shadows of a snow encrusted pine forest snarling and howling, growling and attacking. Maybe my eyes were opened by this moment to a world I had previously failed to see; maybe it was a loss of innocence. I’m not sure what happened to me in that moment, but I do know it was a pivotal moment in my development.

Suddenly there was a contradiction forming in my mind about animals. There was suddenly a separation between wild and domestic; and furthermore, a fear of what was wild. In the years that followed, the fear I had gained of wolves in that moment was perpetuated by a laundry list of cultural pieces aimed at the disintegration of human relations with the wild relative of our canine friends. There was a big bad wolf pursuing a poor red hooded girl. There was the wolf with apparently limitless capacity for huffing and puffing chasing around three poor little pigs. It was okay to cry wolf, but make sure you knew for certain that was what was bumping in the night. In developmental literature, there were White Fangs to be feared, and The Call of the Wild to beware. In more modern works, wolves are still portrayed as vicious, wily predators. The message remains mostly the same, though the players have adapted. For instance, should you ever find yourself in love with a vampire, beware that one of your closest friends just might be a werewolf. Of course, beware the Wolf Pack running around the desert, and apparently for some reason Thailand. It really shouldn’t be too hard to admit there is some overarching sense of enmity between men and wolves, while the domestic dog is kindly known as ‘Mans’ Best Friend.’

What I’m trying to get at here is that what we call a friend, and what we call an enemy is often not all that different. Sometimes, perhaps our friends and enemies are of the same type; even the same family. As a child, I slept most comfortably with my dog by my side, and even as an adult I doubt I would sleep comfortably with a wolf in my neighborhood. Fear has caused us to drive the wolf to the edges of the earth, and to the brink of extinction in many places. All the while, our domestic partnership with the dog has reached new heights, in which they are no longer simply hunting companions, and protectors, but we entertain ourselves with their character, carry them in handbags, and take a friendship between man and beast to new levels.

As I have gotten older, the nightmarish fear I once had of wolves has turned to a healthy respect for their nature. Familiarity with my enemy has brought a level of sympathy that is impossible without understanding.

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

In simple observation of human nature, I wonder if there isn’t some tendency to desire enmity in the same way we desire friendship. Perhaps it is only through our perception of enmity we are able to create our most thorough definition of friendship. Were there no enemy to stand against, the need and desire for friends would have less appeal. Likewise, if we did not desire friendship, “true friendship,” would we have need of enemies through which our friends prove their loyalty?

When I was in third grade, I was playing soccer at recess with some of my classmates. At some point in our play, the ball was kicked wayward, ending up in the midst of a class outcast. This was a moment of decision for him, and what he chose stapled his place in the social order of the class. He picked up the ball and punted it in the opposite direction. Since I was the closest to the ball when it went wayward, I was on my way to get it. His decision did not sit well with me, and rather than let it go I decided that I needed to let him know what I thought of his decision. As the tension escalated between us, he shoved me, resulting in him being sent to the office to speak with the principle. As I rejoined my peers in playing soccer, I was welcomed with affirmation for my part in confronting what had just become an enemy to many; suddenly making me a valuable and trustworthy friend. As a third grader, creating an enemy opened doors of friendship with those whom I felt otherwise alienated from. Years passed by, and incident after incident occurred with this same kid, and each incident escalated the tension between us; all the while I was socially rewarded for my stance against his inability (or unwillingness) to fit in. Pushed to the edges of the social order, his behavior became more and more risky, and his action became more and more violent. As I have moved forward in my life, and the friends I made for my actions are a distant memory, he has been spending his days in prison. It is likely he is surrounded by others like him, who have been sacrificed on the altars of social acceptance.

Years have come and gone, and I have given much consideration to what I learned on the playground that day. I was indeed introduced to an enemy that day, but the enemy was not one of flesh and bone. The true enemy was in fact, an idea; the thought that what benefits us at the expense of another is acceptable, or even commendable. I doubt anyone has escaped this pernicious lie. There is a system in place designed and designated to create enmity between us, rather than to solidify an alliance between us against what is our real enemy. We are exposed to it everyday, it is reinforced daily by our very existence, and we seem to walk around completely unaware of it. We embrace what is familiar, pulling closer and closer that which we know and understand. Meanwhile, what we do not understand is feared, and pushed further and further away. The fear creates hatred, and hatred becomes the natural outworking of misunderstanding.

“No one has an absolute right to govern others. It ought only to be done for he benefit of those who are governed. And it is as much the duty of anyone who governs us to avoid war as it is the duty of a captain of a ship to avoid shipwreck.
 When a captain has let a ship come to ruin, he is judged and condemned, if he is found guilty of negligence of even incapacity.
 Why should not the government be put on its trial after every declaration of war? If the people understood that, if they themselves passed judgment on murderous governments, if they refused to let themselves be killed for nothing, if they would only turn their arms against those who have given them to them for massacre, on that day war would be no more. But that day will never come.” –Guy de Maupassant

“The destiny of a whole generation depends on the hour to which some ill-fated politician may give the signal that will be followed. We know that the best of us will be cut down and our work destroyed in embryo. We know it and tremble with rage, but can do nothing. We are held fast in the toils of officialdom and red tape, and too rude a shock would be needed to set us free. We are enslaved by the laws setup for our protection, which have become our protection. We are but the tools of that aristocratic abstraction the state, which enslaves each individual in the name of the will of all, who would all, taken individually, desire exactly the opposite of what they will be made to do. And if it were only a generation that must be sacrificed! But there are graver interests at stake.” –Edouard Rod

It is important to contextualize these quotes not so much in their advocacy for revolution against governmental declarations of war, but as a cry to stand against the systems and ideas that create enmity between people and nations. The product of not understanding each other is fear, the product of our fear is hate, and the product of our hate is war. What if we waged war, not on each other, but on the lies that drive enmity between us? What if we sought more to understand, and less to destroy? What if we individually agreed to flex our collective power to seek peace?

“All the congresses of both hemispheres may vote against war, and against dueling too, but above all arbitrations, conventions, and legislations there will always be the personal honor of individual men, which has always demanded dueling, and the interests of nations, which will always demand war.” –Camille Doucet
 “The upshot of this is that personal honor requires men to fight, and the interests of nations require them to ruin and exterminate each other. As for the efforts to abolish war, they call for nothing but a smile” –Leo Tolstoy

Perhaps it is not the Wolf who has chosen enmity with the human, but the human that has chosen enmity with the Wolf. When my focus is set on what I gain through enmity, I fail to see what I lose. When I am set on what I fear in another, I fail to see what another might fear in me. Perhaps if I understood more what makes me the wolf, I would see it less in others, and I could realize that I am the outcast. I am estranged; I am alone. I am afraid because I am feared.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brethren only; what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
Matthew 5:43-48

Perfect? So let us begin the process of perfection. Let us not be violent toward what we fear. Let us not fear what we don’t understand. May we seek to understand our enemies; may we pray for them, that God might change their hearts. Most of all, may we pray that God would change our hearts.

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb” Isaiah 11:6