The Enemy of My Enemy

One of the most effective thought-terminating clichés is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” It is particularly effective because it works on both people who are, let’s say, not extraordinarily intelligent, and on more intelligent people, people who you wouldn’t expect to fall for such simplistic tricks.

It is especially effective in hyper-polarized sociocultural environments, like the one we’re in currently, where people feel like they need to be on one or the other side of whatever.

If you’r...