Looking into darkness

I believe you cannot look into the darkness without the darkness looking back into you.

I see this as part of how human contact works, not a weakness in any specific person or a flaw in their integrity.

The very act of seeking to understand and emphatize with an enemy's views is an act of mentally trying on their justifications. There is little harm of doing it once and then rejecting it.

However, making a mental habit of thinking of an enemy as a nice guy will slowly over time affect what one considers to be characteristics of nice guys, subtly changing value sets and meanings given to words.