An Enemy to Blame

Most of us prefer an enemy we can blame, even if it is the wrong enemy. After the fight or flight response to a serious threat subsides, after the denial response to a serious loss fades, we naturally want to fight back. The urge to fight may go unresolved until we settle on a target. But often circumstances leave us without an obvious one.

Consider what may happen when one of the following situations robs us of a loved one or perhaps of our future hopes and dreams.

• A chronic or terminal illness
• An act of war or senseless violence at the hands of someone who got away
• Betrayal or serious mistreatment at the hands of someone, such as a loved one or authority figure, whom we cannot bring ourselves to blame
• Serious misfortune, failure, or disappointment that cannot be explained without blaming ourselves
• Undeserved prejudice or hatred, targeted at characteristics inherited by birth

Choosing an Enemy

In situations such as these, the urge is strong to choose an enemy, to blame someone or something, to go to war. Choosing an enemy provides an outlet and a tangible target for the anger that accompanies grief. It takes our minds off the pain of the loss. An enemy gives us purpose in the midst of futility. It gives us an opportunity to “circle the wagons” against something seen and to feel as though we have fortified the defenses that failed to protect us from the unseen.

So, where do we go to find an enemy we can blame? Most of us don’t have far to look. We keep a mental list of people whom we have come to objectify. We dehumanize them because they are dissimilar to us. They may have offended our sensibilities in ways they may or may not know about. They may be members of a political, religious, racial, ethnic, or gender identity group that holds to ideologies or cultural mores that conflict with our own. Perhaps they are associates or even family members with whom we have had personality conflicts, incompatibilities, or grudges.

Engaging the Enemy

The thing is, our chosen enemies often accommodate by stepping into the roles we have ascribed to them. When I see someone as hostile, offensive, inconsiderate, or outright evil, I treat them as if they are so, and they in turn are more likely to act that way towards me.

Consider, for example, the grocery clerk with a frown on her face. She must be a grouch or maybe even a “b*tch”. We may or may not take it personally. We either frown back or keep our distance, perhaps muttering something judgmental under our breath. Sure enough, she has nothing nice to say. What if instead we had ignored the frown and offered a friendly smile with a genuine “how’s your day going”? Could it be that she is preoccupied with some pain or challenge in her life?  Might she even qualify as some kind of hero just for making it to work today?

The Intimate Enemy

The situation is much more volatile and toxic when our chosen enemy is someone close to us, someone we encounter over and over, someone who “should” care about us, someone who knows our weaknesses and whose weaknesses are known to us. Each party interprets the words and behaviors of the other from a largely internal perspective. But the reality is those words and behaviors arise from a much bigger landscape of circumstances, motives, and thoughts. Each party finds allies to join them in seeing the other through jaded eyes, in finding fault with the other. Cycles of mistreatment repeat themselves. We are at war. It becomes increasingly difficult or impossible to see where it began and how it could possibly end. Each side becomes convinced of the culpability of the other.

During times of extreme threat or loss, our emotions are raw. Fear, ignorance, and jealousy intensify, along with our anger. It is not difficult to find real or imagined connections between our losses and the people we have chosen to target. Our hearts go to war. Indignation and hostility blind us.

The Anonymous Enemy

Our chosen enemies may be less intimately connected to us, and perhaps even less deserving of our wrath. Most of us in the course of our lives objectify or at least distance ourselves from entire demographic groups out of fear, ignorance, or jealousy. Polarization and acrimony between dissimilar groups is rampant in our world. Choose your side, and you have ready-made allies and enemies, whether Christian vs. Muslim, black vs. white, Republican vs. Democrat, gay vs. straight, or dog vs. cat.

The person who works hard all his life may be bitter about his marginal success. He resents those who have seemingly achieved more with the help of government assistance or affirmative action. The person who has been abused or bullied strikes back in random violence against proxies for his abusers. The person who loses a loved one in armed conflict hardens his heart against all members of the opposing group.

The Cause as Enemy

A seemingly better target for our grief may be found in a “cause”. We commit ourselves to saving others from suffering the same kind of loss that we have. We join a public awareness, prevention, or rescue campaign. Raising money to fight a particular disease or lobbying for protective legislation gives us new purpose. If our commitment arises out of a heart that is at peace, it may be restorative for both us and our target population. But if it comes from a heart that is still at war, it may instead become another obsession that serves only to delay our healing.

Choosing to Heal

Conflicts with our chosen enemy tend to feed on themselves and escalate until we either tire of them or until one party courageously begins to see the humanity in the other instead of the enemy. These conflicts keep us from moving on past our anger in the grieving process. They divide us when we badly need to be brought together.

In order to break out of the cycle, we must finish the grieving process. We must face the sadness and come to accept that loss is a part of the cycle of life. When we truly face the pain of our brokenness, we begin to find that our hearts are malleable and yielding. They adapt. They bounce back. We survive our losses and even grow as a result of them. It is all part of the human experience.

There may or may not be an enemy to blame, but in either case, blaming an enemy does not make us whole. We must begin to see the humanity that we share even with the objects of our anger. We may need to offer or ask for forgiveness. Just as our enemies tend to react in the offensive ways that we ascribe to them, so will most respond in kind when we respect their dignity. Healing is to be found in joining hands and hearts as opposed to joining in battle. Which begs the question, what is to be gained by choosing an enemy at all, even if the enemy is truly our perpetrator.