How to handle friendly enemies and hostile allies: Whether these reprehensible co-workers are like Count Dracula, Adolf Hitler, or Slobodan Milosevic, there is no getting rid of them. If you are working at your local gas station, you may run into five or six of these “hostile coworkers” in a single day. Yet, there is an even greater chance that, at a glance, they seem like pretty nice people.
That’s just how life is. (Little surprise to those who have lived any meaningful amount of time.) A child’s response would be to make a fuss and demand to replace such people. Ask the U.S. foreign department about that one. There is an unpleasant answer for what we should do when we encounter characters of this nature in the wild. There is going to be bad with the good; If you destroy the bad, you might also destroy the whole as well. If the value of the whole system out weighs the bad, then ignore the bad.
There are no heroes on white horses in geopolitics, and nor should there be; the whole is made of complex and opaque people, all believing they are fighting for truth, liberty, and justice! (Naive, I know.) So when you reply, “sir, this is a gas station,” they will feel undignified. Their heroism only got them to the gas station and not the global stage.
How about “you bad, me good?”
People like to bunch themselves up into easily sortable demographics. I don’t force them to do this; it is entirely of their own accord. It’s always the usual suspects: people who want praise, promotions, or to be seen as heroes. People are more than happy to abandon realism for the fantastical world of black and white, which seems so much more attractive.
So, what do you do once you’ve abandoned reality in search of praise? One common response is to oversimplify your perception of reality, until it is no longer accurate. (This, by its very nature, leads to delusion.) However, these people are our allies, whether they are in the state department or a gas station. No place is exempt from hubris, friend or foe, sea to sea.
From the evil empire with love
How to handle friendly enemies and hostile allies: When new information challenges old preconceptions, something must be given up. This might be your own values, reality, or your sense of right and wrong. I ultimately believe that Political Realism will bring about peace, so that is the hammer I use on every nail I see.
When an enemy comes my way with fists raised, I don’t assume it’s a life-threatening situation. I don’t brandish a gun yet, but I bring to bear a brioche and a latte. This is the time when you need to bring up matters that both factions care about, and reach into their personal lives to form a connection. The capacity to cooperate with a competitor or rival on an issue can be more beneficial than working with any of your compatriots.
There is nothing to learn from the opinions of my political base; I already know them all-too-well. There won’t be any insightful thing that will bring people to the table if you listen to radicals on any side. Believe it or not, speaking with a varied assortment of characters allows you to gain enormous insight.
This is normally the work of diplomats, working with people that you don’t see eye-to-eye with. Working in the domain of politics, we see that the solution to bad-faith actors isn’t excessive force.
The bulwark of life
The leveraging of soft power should be your instinctive response to any issue that appears. Once you start using incentives to get along with others, life becomes easy. The opposite is also true if the incentives aren’t there; At every corner and sharp edge, there will be chafing.
Whoever you stumble upon, start by minimizing the differences in places where there isn’t a shared interest between you. Direct their attention to points where there is a shared commonality or goal. Managing the conversation will create mutual understanding. This should be the default boundary of casual conversation.
If both of you speak wildly differently, adopt the lingua franca of a set demographic. Understanding their dialect and vernacular will ease the tension in the room. It isn’t enough to learn another language, you have to be able to understand the intention and tone of others, and the room at large.
Examples
There have been many times when I have spoken with foreign-born Americans who speak impeccable English. However, their own culture, and their lack of understanding of American culture seem to create a missing link. They might come across as cold or awkward, when they are actually really warm people.
Sometimes you don’t even have to be in a different country to not understand someone. I once worked with a delightful gal from Louisiana; It took months to understand anything she said. We constantly chafed at every little thing because her worldview was foreign to me. It is very difficult to understand what “I be axing you up?” means in a professional setting.
Concluding points
Once these issues are identified and assessed, it’s in everyone’s best interest to address these problems in communication and make accommodations when you can. The alternative isn’t fighting some fantastical moral crusade; it is actually going about your day as normal. Once you come to terms with the fact that there really are bad actors on both sides, you should also come to the realization that working across the aisle is the only solution to these woes.
