Who is your friend?

Every man has enemies, even if he does not realize it. A man who you work against, even if you have never met him, is your enemy. A man who you behave selfishly towards, even if you have never met him, has become your enemy. But more importantly, YOU are that man’s enemy. You have made yourself his enemy.
 
Why do you think men set themselves up to be each other’s enemies? The thing that I’ve really been thinking lately is a really simple idea for the basis of a philosophy.
 
Every man is a man, like any other man. Nothing can change that. Not gender, not background, not color of hair, or color of skin, not the things a man does, not the things that are done to him can change that. Not the things he takes, not the things he gives can change that.
 
If I am wealthy, and you are poor, why am I your enemy? If I am white and you are black, why am I your enemy? If you are a woman and I am a man, why am I your enemy? If I am from here, and you are from there, why am I your enemy?
 
We lose a friend every day of our life, whether we mean to or not, because we assume that a person is not our friend. We make an enemy every week because we cannot forgive someone who has wronged us.
 
What man is your enemy? And why, if you, O fallible man, could make the same mistakes they have made and make mistakes like they do every day, can you not forgive them and say “You are not my enemy - we are friends.”  
So what do you think? Why do you think we look at our fellow man - who is no different from any other man, who you have never even met before - and why do we slap him in the face, and spit on his shoes and say “You are my enemy,” to him?

As one quote from AC3 “we are cruel and desperate creatures”, also the book “the heart of darkness” talks about this kind of things apparently, but I just read the synopsis so I dunno for sure.
 
Basically, it is common to human beings to want to feel superior to their others, and in many cases they look into what differentiates them from their others, and may take those differences as bases for their superiority.
 
“I am better than you because my skin color is different (and therefore better) than yours”  
“I am better than you because my religion is different(and therefore better) than yours”  
“I am better than you because my lifestyle is different(and therefore better) than yours”  
“I am better than you because my tastes are different(and therefore better) than yours”
 
And so on.
 
The thing is, when it comes to this, there are basically three kinds of people.
 
The ones who would impose their views and alienate anyone who disagrees, we know them as “racists”, “zealots” and many other names
 
The ones who would drop their views in order to not be alienated/shunned upon, like a homosexual who forces him/herself to be straight, or a homophobic who becomes accepting of homosexuality
 
And the ones who will not drop their views but will respect and tolerate those they hate, they will be their friends, but will always look at them with contempt silently
 
There are many variations of those but I think those three are the main.
 
 
No idea if I’m answering your question or if this is the kind of answer you wanted, but it’s kinda late for me so, boa noite.
 

I have no friends.

@Vlakc
 
…while I think that’s a big part of it, I don’t think it accounts for everything. Another problem is that men often have mutually exclusive ideas, meaning they can’t both be right (although they can both be wrong). Thing is, somebody who takes advantage of reality will be met with a reward of some sort, whereas someone who acts under false pretenses gets punished; thus, man has an inherent incentive to be “correct.”
 
A man doesn’t necessarily have to hate another man; he might even have his best interest in mind. However, naturally, anything that would work contrary to a man’s struggle for the “correct” cause would be seen as “dangerous.” If two men think that their own ideas are “correct” and that contrary ideas, EACHOTHER’S ideas, are “dangerous,” then they’re essentially enemies.

@Latios381  
I have no friends either.
 
As far as enemies go, it has to do with survival, namely survival of the fittest. We humans compete in many different categories for our own gratification as well as to help those close to us. In nature, chimps form groups or families and will fight (often to the death) other chimp families for rights over territory and food. Deer have antlers for competing with each other over the rights to mate.
 
Mankind will fight over the rights to a job, for example, leaving everyone else who applies jobless and in the unemployment line even though they know the other person and their family will suffer. Man will go to war over disagreements, even if they are seemingly petty, killing hundreds if not thousands of others just to win what is essentially an argument.
 
As far as the rights to mate, we have those too. The female is attracted to the meanest and strongest (nerd vs. football player for example) because their offspring will be mean and aggressive so as to be able to compete with others. Males show dominance over each other though showcases of physical ability such as sports or military accomplishments, mental ability though acts of cunning, outthinking, and simply showing more intelligence, and fiscal ability through the showcasing of wealth such as a nice car or house.
 
TBH, although there are people who want it, I don’t think world peace is possible due to us humans having a natural instinct for competition.

@Latios381  
I wish I had more friends….
 
Friendship, one thing that always effects how we, as people, treat eachother. The other, respect. As a observer of life, I have seen enemies being born ^{in front of my eyes, over the dumbest of things as well. Sometimes there is no reason on why it happens either, it just happens. something causes, us to get so angry and lash out at others, and blame them for the trouble that is happening. That’s one reason why enemies are made, mentality. the other I believe would be boredom, world peace as I see it is nothing but boredom. We all see eachother as equals, same, brothers and sisters, everything shared among eachother, and no conflict. That type of world is to boring to some(especially me}), they don’t want something like that, so they do what they must to prevent that from happening, and that is chaos, battle, war, conflict.
 
I don’t cause trouble for others, but I do enjoy the tension of the moment when it occurs. Now I’m not saying I love seeing things fight(I don’t actually, seeing it just fills me^ with rage), but it’s better then the still quietness of the room

@Background Pony  
Fuck  
Used too many ^thingies!

Well, as far as enemies go, I don’t hate anyone unless they hate me first. So essentially, anyone that hates who I am or what I do is my enemy.

My friends are creepy perverts. That’s all i have to say.

Now if you asked me, I’d say the direct reason was actually a pretty simple one - someone doesn’t really become your enemy until they have wronged you and you have chosen not to forgive them. Now, every man is going to wrong somebody else at some point. It’s simply unavoidable. Even if it does no lasting wrong - like vocal disapproval of one’s choices - there is going to be a point at which you offend somebody else. It’s a part of human nature to be offensive. So let’s look past human nature.
 
The second half of becoming someone’s enemy is not forgiving them for wronging you. People CAN forgive each other, and they do all the time. But just as often as somebody gets forgiven, somebody else decides to hold a grudge. So I think the answer is a simple one. If people were willing to forgive each other’s wrongs, there would be a significantly larger lack of conflict.
 
@Vlakc  

 
 
I don’t know if I agree with that by necessity. I think that hate simply isn’t a necessary part of the equation. If you hold somebody in contempt, they are still part an enemy. I don’t think somebody has to hate simply because they disagree with somebody else. If you hate somebody, you’ve already made them your enemy. Hate - contempt, grudges, resentment - is merely an outward manifestation of Pride, and Pride is the enemy of all good in the world.