Halt, who goes there: friend or foe?  This is the call from the sentinel in the playwright’s story.  This leads to the larger question many of us can ask about things that we are involved with in life.  The term friend or foe can quite easily be changed to good or bad.

We were reminded earlier this year by the explosion in West, Texas.  That explosion was from ammonium nitrate.  That compound by reason of the explosion can certainly be called a bad actor.  This asks the question, why was there the large amount of ammonium nitrate located in West, Texas?

Ammonium nitrate is also a dominant fertilizer. West, like Calhoun County can be called an agricultural location.  The farmers around West use the fertilizer to grow their crops.  Some say that without ammonium nitrate as a fertilizer the world could not support its current population. That it could, only support slightly over half of our world population.

This, of course, begs the question about how well that food is distributed. Some are well fed to the point of obesity. Some are not well fed to the point of starvation.  The world’s distribution is a problem.  Notwithstanding that, less total food would be a larger problem. So the net thing is that fertilizer can be classified as a good thing.

Ammonium nitrate has, more or less taken the place of dynamite which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the big explosive.  Dynamite is a tamed down version of Nitroglycerin. It was invented by Alfred Nobel to eliminate the danger that nitro presented because it explodes so easily. In any event they both are considered dangerously effective.

On the other hand, nitroglycerin is used as a medicine in treating certain heart ailments. It is made into a pill and eases heart pain and other things so it too is a dual good and bad substance.

Agatha Christie fans have learned that many plants that have beauty can also be poisons.  Belladonna was used as a cosmetic to increase Roman females’ attractiveness. If you didn’t appreciate her she could use it as deadly a poison. Many other plants have similar dual uses. They are pretty but can be dangerous. No further comment on pretty and dangerous issues.

We know of Alfred Nobel because of the Nobel prizes he established.. Maybe the most famous one would be the Peace prize. As the story goes, in 1888 when his brother died some French newspaper published Alfred’s obituary in error.  It said “Le marchand de la mort est mort (The merchant of death is dead)”. This bothered him and as a result he set up the foundation and gave most of his wealth so they could give prizes for good things like Peace. In a sense good came from bad.

It reminds me of the philosopher Wittgenstein who postulated that we should not look for the meaning  but look for the use.  The use of fertilizer or explosive asks a friend or foe question.