* From: Jim Devine why is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic so popular??
I remember when I asked if anyone on pen-l had any useful knowledge about California Proposition 87 (taxing oil) -- and someone said, in effect: hey, the oil companies are agianst it, need we say more? That person truly earned a place on my auto-trash list. ^^^^^^ CB: First, it is not entirely illogical , is it ? If your enemy is really doing you extreme harm, and this enemy of your enemy is not doing you any comparable harm, and your enemy's enemy is contradicting your enemy such that it may give you relief from what your enemy is doing to you, then at the least you can say your enemy's enemy is helping you, no ? You may say this is superficial. Yes, but at certain points you may need mainly immediate relief from the great harm your enemy is doing to you, and have to deal with your enemy's enemy's shortcomings later. It's sort of pragmatic and self-interested, in that way. May be temporary "friend". Also, it can be one part of analyzing a situation, that is corroborated by other assessments. Are you saying it never leads to a valid assessment ? Why do you say "so popular" ? Take the U.S. Civil War. The "North" was the enemy of the "South". So, slaves may have made the immediate assessment that the North was their friend. And it was for the critical fight of ending slavery. Of course, in the long run the North was not so friendly. But for the immediate critical task of a "friend" to end slavery, this was valid reasoning.
