Throughout history there have been many problems that people couldn't
avoid: disease, pestilence, and natural disasters. But one of the
greatest causes of suffering is caused by people themselves: war.
Pretty much everyone agrees that war is not a good thing, but somehow
people get involved in fighting anyway at various times and places.
Image by Brigitte Werner via Pixabay.com
Once a war begins, it is like a fire going through a forest,
destroying everything in its path. Wars, like fires, are very
difficult to put out, but fortunately they are much easier to prevent.
Although wars continue to occur, we see that many nations on
Earth are peaceful, having both peace within the nation and with
nations around it. Therefore, the means of having and sustaining
peace must be known. If we collect this knowledge and disseminate it
everywhere, that would prevent wars from continually arising.
To avoid war, it is not sufficient to simply avoid provoking it.
Except with total separation, such as between the continents in
pre-Columbus times, there will be interactions between people of
different groups. Without agreed-upon rules and boundaries and
objective judgement, there will inevitably be conflicts arising.
Small conflicts don't necessarily result in war, but many humans tend
to be a bit tribalistic, with trust strongest to those who are closest
and most similar, and a general lack of concern for the welfare of
those outside the tribe. This is like living in a dry forest, where
any lightening strike or even a spark can put the whole forest on
fire.
Preventing a fire requires proactive action, and likewise this is true
for preventing war. In a forest the dry tinder and deadwood could be
cleared out, firebreaks cleared, and water used strategically to
dampen the riskiest areas. In a world of humans, war prevention
involves building good-will between groups, so that they will feel
like they are part of the same tribe. Furthermore, there needs to be
rational means implemented for addressing conflicts that may arise, so
that people do not revert to primitive violence as a means of
resolving them.
To prevent war, it is necessary to actively build peace everywhere.
Otherwise, war will happen sooner or later. With the modern capability
for humanity to totally annihilate itself, that's a risk we can't
afford to take any longer.
There are many steps needed to build peace, but they can be summarized
into these basic principles:
Goal of Mutual Happiness
This is the most fundamental and
important element of peace. If people seek this across all groups,
they will find a way to make it happen. People don't want to fight
against those who are their friends, so this is a powerful deterrent
to war. Once a war begins, however, people tend to seek the opposite;
at that point we no longer have prevention, and a solution becomes
very difficult.
Complete truth
Truth is not just a casualty of war; the lack of
complete truth is the primary cause of war. Dishonesty, half-truths
and broken promises make it impossible to reach any kind of rational
solution and to implement it successfully.
Impartial justice
Each side in a dispute or conflict has a
"confirmation bias." They need an independent judgement to prescribe
a fair solution. Prior to any dispute or conflict arising, the rules
and method of dispute resolution should be decided collaboratively,
and then when a judgement is made, the process is followed and each
side accepts and implements the prescription.
Adequate law enforcement and defence
As there are inevitably a few
people of weak morality who would form gangs or start wars for
personal glory, there will always be a need to protect against that.
Putting too much resources into military can create an arms race,
however, which creates fear among the slower racers and arrogance
among the faster ones. Moreover, it takes resources away from applying
them to the above peace-making principles and other worthwhile pursuits.
Therefore, it needs to be at a controlled level, or else it is
dangerous and counterproductive to peace.
As the group size increases, the difficulty of achieving mutual
happiness, truth, and justice also increases. This is why we have
mixed success across the world on these matters. However, there has
been progress over the history of the world on having cooperation on
an increasingly larger scale, first among families, then clans, then
city states, and then nations. It is reasonable to assume that we can
continue this progress to a universal scale.
To make this happen, we must see other people as people, generally
worthy of happiness as you would wish for ourselves. In a war
situation, there is a tendency for combatants to discount the
worthiness of the "enemy" to a value of 0. War creates injustice as
innocent people are inevitably hurt, and very quickly the combatants
are unwilling to stop.
To actually end a war voluntarily, one would have to follow Jesus
Christ's prescription from two thousand years ago: "love your
enemies." Few people seem to be able to do that, which is why it is
crucial to prevent a war rather than supposing it can be stopped.
When wars stop, it is more often because of a stalemate or of one side
destroying the other.
Even when war ends with some sort of deal, there can be animosity and
suffering that re-sparks the conflict later. We saw that between
World War I and World War II. With the depression of the 1930s and
reparations for Germany to pay, conditions were ripe for Adolph Hitler
to get elected in Germany, and to pursue his ambitions to replay the
world war.
At the end of World War II, however, the Allies had learned to treat
Germany differently than after its World War I defeat. One example of
this was the
Berlin Airlift
to supply food to Berlin citizens
following the war, as an act of solidarity rather than abandonment or
vengeance. Likewise, USA resolved to avoid the mistakes of the past in
its defeat of Japan, by benevolence instead of retribution: enabling
Japan to rebuild its economy, and building it into an independent
democracy.
This is why those nations are on friendly, peaceful terms today.
Building peace prevents wars, and it restores peace after a war.
Forgiveness is an essential element to go along with love as a
solution.
To build peace, we need to understand our weaknesses that permit us to
be dragged into war, in order to compensate for those weaknesses.
Likewise, we need to strengthen our traits that support peace, and
develop our skill and talent for cooperative solutions.
Are humans naturally cruel or naturally kind? Evidently we are
evolved from simpler animals, so what traits might we expect?
We see that in many of the more sophisticated kinds of animals, there are
tendencies toward altruism.
Animals who help each other have an evolutionary advantage.
Nevertheless, animals can survive across generations even with some
disadvantages. In some species, they reproduce in large numbers, of
whom only a few survive.
People, however, wish not only to survive, but also to be happy--not
in mortal danger!
It is easily demonstrated via a computer simulation such as
Project NewWorld that Peace-making behavior is superior to warring behavior
for survival and widespread happiness.
It seems odd, then, that people would kill each other. Some might say
that war is a development unique to humans because of their
sophistication. Solitary animals of the same species tend to be
evenly matched in strength, so they are unable to make war; humans on
the other hand can join forces into unevenly sized groups, which makes
it possible.
However, in actual fact, there are other kinds of animals who kill
others of the same species, and they are not especially sophisticated.
For example, lions form groups and they do kill each other. When one
lion takes over a pride, cubs are killed off. Younger lions that
reach mating age are ejected from the pride, and most die. Overall, 7
out of 8 male lions die, as reported in
www.livescience.com.
Gorillas also form groups and a new dominant male will kill the prior
offspring of the females. Male bears have also been known to kill
their cubs.
Some species of ants make war against ants in other ant hills.
Although it may seem that these behaviors support evolution by
promoting the most powerful and vicious among them, in fact it weakens
the group as compared to a species that can cooperate on a larger
scale. No lions, gorillas, or bears can survive in a contest against
a large group of humans, who are weaker individually but powerful
together.
Basically, the more primitive animals suffer an evolutionary
disadvantage, causing suffering among themselves, but not such a great
problem as to eliminate the species altogether.
Regression among humans
Because humans have the capability to cooperate, the intellect to
develop mutually agreeable solutions, and an inclination to do so via
natural altruism, why do they sometimes end up in fights?
Unlike two lone tigers who meet in a forest and fight over territory,
two humans in that same situation can make an arrangement to avoid
injury, such as "let's each turn to our right and take that
territory."
So, what goes wrong?
One problem is cheating. He didn't actually want to limit himself to
the "rightward territory," so he makes the promise but then secretly
hunts in the other person's territory anyway. Eventually he gets
caught at it. Now a rational solution is no longer possible, because
no promise means anything when it is violated. Each of them falls
back to instinct, and they prepare to fight.
It could be a simple fight, like between the tigers. But preferring
to gain an advantage over each other, the individuals head back to
their respective tribes to seek assistance. Within small groups,
humans have developed empathy and trust, which gives them solidarity.
So each combatant brings his tribe with him to "solve" the problem.
Now we suffer from another human weakness, that the tribe members lack
a larger-scale empathy. They fail to understand that the "enemy"
tribe members are just like them. They originally had no animosity
toward them, but in each tribe the people get dragged into war by
trusting a one-sided story. The tribe leader endorses the complaint,
and soon he is leading them to war. In some cases, the leader was
itching for a fight already as his ambition to increase the scope of
his power, and this provides the excuse he can use to get tribesmen
involved. Soon each side will not only fail to have compassion for
the opposite-side strangers, but they will develop anger and hate
against them as they all endure suffering.
This is a hypothetical story, but this same scenario has played out in
larger nations, sparked by different complaints and led by presidents
instead of tribal chiefs, in war that occurs even as this is being
written. The same elements are present: lack of concern for those in
the other tribe, dishonesty and broken promises, and inability to
obtain or accept an impartial judgement.
The first three of the
fundamental principles described above would
prevent this problem if followed scrupulously by everyone. The fourth
principle is a fall-back to protect against a situation where a few
people insist on fighting regardless.
The problem isn't so much that people don't know better, but sometimes
they think their personal goal is more important. Or perhaps they
don't understand how breaking the principles eventually and inevitably
produces misery, both for the people who violated the principles and
many others along with them.
Here's what individual people can do, to take individual initiative
for a better world.
To see a detailed explanation for each item in this list,
click the "Show Detail" button:
Insist on free and impartial sources of information
Leaders with self-serving goals will enlist citizens in a war of
"conquest and personal glory" if they can, but knowing that the
citizens will suffer from their involvement in the war, they will
employ deception or half-truths to get the necessary support from the
soldiers and citizens. Ensuring that citizens have access to
impartial sources of information will prevent this.
Political actions to remove freedom of information should result in
protests, and it is up to each individual citizen to "go marching in
the street" if that occurs. There needs to be a strong an immediate
backlash, to make it clear to politicians that they won't win another
term in office if they go through with it.
Also it's the citizen's duty to vote against any politician who tries
to prevent the full truth from being known. Some politicians can
erode citizens rights through a series of small steps, and without a
tradition of democracy the citizens might not understand what the
result will be. People need to be vigilant.
In a dictatorship, there may be no access to impartial information and
nothing that citizens can do about it. The best they can do may be to
realize that nothing they hear on the news is reliable. Therefore,
any government propaganda designed to make them accept a war is not to
be believed. In such a case, no citizen can enlist in a military
without being immoral.
Killing in self-defence could be moral, and in such a case it is moral
to be a member of a military (for a nation defending itself). But if
that information is uncertain, then a person can't in good conscience
participate in a war. It's like being a hired assassin.
View information from multiple sources; seek out multiple reliable
sources. Use Internet so that you can go outside of regional and
national sources.
Choose honest leaders
Because of the importance of having complete and correct information,
it is unwise to vote for and elect leaders who lie or who speak
half-truths.
Unfortunately, it is fairly common for leadership candidates to
present only the facts that are favorable to their proposed policies
and past accomplishments. When presented with some question about an
unfavorable fact, they don't really the question; instead they state
one of their pre-defined answers highlighting something favorable,
that basically ignores the problem.
Many potential solutions to problems have both advantages and
disadvantages, and a better leader will be aware of and understand
both, respond to both, and explain why the balance of their proposed
solution falls more strongly on "favorable" than "unfavorable."
If the person simply ignores or denies unpleasant facts, this could be
deception, or the leader may be blind to the unwanted evidence due to
his (or her) confirmation bias. Neither is what you want in your
nation's leaders!
This is critically important: Dishonest leaders cause most of the
wars, and if the leader is so misled that he believes false things,
that is just as dangerous!
Choose leaders with virtuous personal lives
It is surprising how often large numbers of people will vote for a
leader whose life is filled with disasters in his personal
relationships. He (or she) may have cheated on his spouse, and often
not just once--but many times, going through repeated divorces and
marriages, either official or common-law. He may have been a business
leader who employed heavy-handed techniques in managing his staff,
resulting in unfair dismissals or employees simply leaving out of
disgust, to join competitors. He may stretch the boundaries of the
law to the very edge, to do things that are "a bit immoral but not
illegal," for personal gain.
It is further surprising that such leaders are often not at all
embarrassed of those things, even blabbing publicly about how they
managed to avoid paying any taxes, or fired people they didn't like,
etc.
Yet at the same time they speak confidently of their wonderful
policies that will bring prosperity to their country, unlike all of
their political opponents, who are idiots. It can be quite enticing
to the electorate to believe the confident words, and in a spirit of
hope and excitement, vote for such a candidate.
The fact is, however, that if a person has a low "EQ" (emotional
quotient, similar in concept to IQ intelligence quotient), he is at a
high risk of causing harm to his country if elected. No one person
can run a country effectively by himself, as it requires the combined
cooperative effort of many people. With low EQ, a leader will tend to
make arbitrary decisions based on inadequate evidence, because he is
mostly a "solo act". Those on the hierarchy below him may be afraid
to enlighten him on problems his decisions would create.
This lack of EQ is also a risk when the nation has dealings with other
nations, on matters of trade and tariffs, cooperation on projects,
handing problems of pollution drifting across borders, on
international justice, or on military alliances. The risk is of
worsening relations between nations, and the potential of him tearing
up treaties, imposing tariffs, etc., that are harmful to the best
interests of the nations, merely because he is incapable of
cooperative relations with their leaders.
A person cannot deal effectively other humans in a professional
relationship if they are incapable of dealing with other humans
effectively in a personal relationship. It is a big mistake to
suppose that would be so.
Moreover, if he (or she) has been cheating on his spouse (or a series
of spouses), there is dishonesty involved in that. If he will be
dishonest in that situation, likely he will be dishonest in other
situations too. This takes us back to point #2 above.
So first, he creates a series of tensions and disputes between his
nation and some other nation(s), due primarily to his lack of EQ in
dealing with their leaders, and then he gets into a self-righteous
huff, and in his mind a great need for retaliatory action of the
military kind. Of course, the general population would not support a
war for that reason, but that's where lying comes in. And, if he has
managed to get control of the mass media, he can lie quite
effectively.
Contribute to international charities
Helping other nations can be a very effective way of building peace.
Remember that peace doesn't just happen. It has to occur by removal
of the problems that create conflicts.
Apart from donating, you can volunteer in local, national, or
international non-profit organizations.
As another way to help, when making investments, put some money in
nations other than your own; support ethical businesses and
micro-credit.
Watch or participate in international sports
Participation in international sports is especially helpful at
developing cross-border relationships.
Also keep in mind that sports is a substitute for a competitive
instinct that could lead to war. When there are conflicts between
nations, it is best that sports continue regardless. It is
counter-productive to ban teams from participating in the Olympics or
other such competitions because of political differences or even wars.
So long as the teams themselves are not cheating, they should be
allowed to participate.
Travel across nations
Travel outside your own nation, and observe that people there are just
like you: hospitable and friendly. Let them see that you are
hospitable and friendly too.
Develop friendships and relationships across boundaries
By travel or by "virtual" means, communicate with people in other
nations. Leave messages or posts. If you have relatives in other
nations, keep in touch with them. Use tools like Facebook to share
photos or stories.
Learn a foreign language
This supports understanding people in other nations and makes it
easier to view foreign news, without always having to rely on
automated translation.
Participate in international education
Take a course in another nation, or take an online course from far
away.
Sponsor a refugee
Help people start a new life when their own homeland is destroyed from
war.
Support Justice: Obey just laws.
Obeying just laws is necessary for civil behavior and prevention of
violent conflict within a nation. Participate in democratic political processes
to refine laws or to make new laws, or to vote for political
parties according to the laws that the propose.
Protest injustice or war.
Removal of civil liberties that
prevent access to true information is a sufficient cause for protest.
When there is a valid reason to object to actions your government is
taking:
Immediately join marches of protest.
Another response would be to initiate recall of elected
politicians, if that is possible in your nation.
Yet another response are large scale strikes; drag the economy
to a halt, which impairs its ability to supply the military (eg: buses stop,
gas stations close - factories can't operate when workers can't get to the job.)
Refuse to fight in an unjust war. This applies to soldiers too.
The precedent is already set that soldiers in many nations have a legal obligation to refuse
an order to gun down unarmed civilians.
If necessary, leave your country to avoid being conscripted
into an immoral war.
Keep some international investments for your savings, so you
have a place to go in the event you need to do this.
If conscripted, one strategy soldiers use is to shoot over the
heads of those they are told to kill.
Have courage not to kill others in an unjust war!
Have courage: Be willing to support defence of your nation or of
a nation unjustly attacked.
There are two kinds of courage: the courage to fight and the
courage to not fight.
Sometimes it is necessary to engage in military action.
A classic example of this is defence against Adolph Hitler's
ambitions in World War II. Imagine what would have happened if there was no
resistance! People were willing to risk their lives to give a better life to future
generations than what would have happened to all non-Aryans if Hitler
had succeeded.
The desire for liberty equals desire for life; life is not worthwhile without liberty.
This is a reasonable expectation; one must consider the impact on current
and future generations.
A strong resolve to preserve liberty is a deterrent to attackers.
It prevents a risk of being attacked (as compared to a nation that would give-in easily).
Write a letter.
When you feel strongly about an issue, or you observe that a government bureaucracy
is not treating you, friends, or family as it should, write a letter to your local, provincial,
or national representative of your constituency. Most politicians will pay attention.
Protect rights and fulfil responsibilities - behave ethically
Democracy depends on its citizens being good. There is no magic
about voting that turns evil into good. The assumption of a democracy is that its citizens are well
educated, well informed, and moral. If this is generally true, then democratic nations will avoid
starting any war.
Democracy within a nation is an effective way to prevent fighting over
leadership, and it also reduces the risk of war between nations, as
citizens generally prefer to avoid the misery that comes with
fighting. However, it needs to be an effective democracy, aimed an
enabling each person to fulfil their "pursuit of happiness".
Democracy is
more than just voting.
Leaders can improve their
democracy, if their nation has one, or gradually transition their
aristocracy or single-party system into one that becomes accountable
to the citizens.
There also needs to be economic justice within the nation, whereby
nobody is arbitrarily discriminated against, and all have the
opportunity for success.
There needs to be effective and fair rule of law.
All of these things are necessary to prevent conflicts that, left
unsolved, may escalate into worse conflicts.
As I first started to write this, I began to make a long list of steps
leaders could take to improve their political and economic systems,
and it turned out to be a very long list indeed! I finally decided to
discontinue writing that here, as the content was more suitable for a
book on political science or economics, and that information is
readily available elsewhere.
There is a wide variety among nations of how well they do these
things. Leaders can rely on social sciences to discover best
practices, but progress is slow because people are wary of change.
Some changes have been attempted in the past on a large scale that
turned out to be terrible disasters (such as the implementation of
collective farming by the Soviet Union and later communist China,
resulting in mass starvation). So it makes sense to be cautious, and
to start with pilot projects, or to copy successful examples from
nations that have tested the practices.
There is a lot that can be done to implement solutions that literally
build peace. Also, nations can help each other. There are
organizations devoted to preventing war and building peace, that can
offer ideas and assistance. Here are some examples:
Some nations have been quite successful at building peace within their
nation, but the world overall is less successful at doing so on a
global scale. The same methods that work well within nations need to
be applied to the world overall. The United Nations was founded with
that intent, but it was founded during a cold-war era in which the
largest powers had opposing ideologies, so it was not as effective of a
solution as we would wish. Nevertheless, many initiatives can be
undertaken through the United Nations to address global warming or
other mutual problems, and over time it could be evolved into a more
effective organization for preventing war. It really depends on the
state of progress within individual nations, and their level of
willingness to adopt proven solutions for justice and democracy on a
global level.
And here's a bit more advice to leaders...
To see a detailed explanation for each item in this list,
click the "Show Detail" button:
Use creative, benevolent solutions
Leaders should always remember that war is not the only solution to
conflicts. Often there are creative solutions available that may be
costly but not deadly. Of the trillions of dollars devoted to
armament and military salaries in the world each year, imagine what
could be done if that was instead redirected to health and development
across the world!
Instead of responding to minor conflicts by expelling diplomats,
unilaterally applying sanctions, making threats of war, or taking
military action, consider using the "carrot" instead of the "stick".
Invest in peace-building initiatives such as sponsored exchange
programs for students, joint initiatives for science or development,
etc., and you can build good-will and break down prejudices. This
creates a conducive environment for finding mutually satisfactory
solutions.
Support multi-culturalism; encourage cooperation.
The most successful nations of the modern world enable people of
multiple ethnicities and languages to cooperate together. Success
stories include federated states such as USA and Canada, which have a
multi-level political system that allows local autonomy. The European
Union is another success story in which citizens of multiple nations
can trade goods, share a common currency, travel freely, and work and
study wherever they wish among the member countries.
When there are multiple ethnicities in a country, the best solution is
to make all of the people feel at home together. If some feel
alienated, don't tell them they don't have permission to leave;
instead show them you love them, celebrate with them, talk to them
about their concerns, and fix injustices.
If two nations decide they want to redraw the border because they have
held referendum votes on the matter, and that's what the people want,
that's fine. But when separatists hold a snap referendum whenever
they see a possibility of winning it, or do it in a way that is not
objectively verifiable, that is not a wise solution. Changes of
jurisdiction require a lot of arrangements, for solving matters of
taxes owning, allocation of national debt, handling of matters such as
currency exchange and passports, etc. It is a matter that requires
cooperation on all sides, or else hardship is sure to ensue.
Moreover, on interventions that are forced, there is injustice or the
appearance of injustice, which may draw in neighboring nations to
support those who appear to be oppressed, to contribute financial aid
or weapons. What seems like a simple intervention becomes
unexpectedly difficult, expensive, and filled with suffering. Even
when the intervention is likely to be widely beneficial to the
population, if it is forced it will be strongly resisted; that is the
natural reaction of people.
Support and implement new international agreements, including
limits on weapons.
Between nations there is no higher judicial authority to oversee them,
but nations can create overarching authority through treaties. A
weakness of many international treaties is that compliance is
voluntary, and compliance often drops as new politicians get elected.
However, it can be made more like an enforceable contract if it is
passed into law in each nation, with specific terms and conditions for
ending the contract. Setting up an impartial board across nations for
judging compliance is also helpful.
These agreements can cover a variety of things that extend laws across
boundaries, including agreements about cross-border law enforcement so
that criminals from one nation don't have a safe haven in another.
They can cover trade, copyright, and many other rules that nations
have within their own nation, but extended across nations. And they
can be used to prevent an arms race.
Nations who are allies share military information. Moreover, even
between nations holding an adversarial attitude, it is generally
beneficial to agree on limits to military equipment and to set up
means where each nation can verify compliance.
Some leaders may suppose they are clever to build beyond the agreed
limits, slyly. This is the old attitude of espionage, whereby
subterfuge is the strategy and the game is domination. That is a sure
recipe for disaster. It's not just because it spurs a costly
arms-race, with money that could be better spend on other things. It
can tip the balance of power, or create fears of that. It could spur
a nation to a pre-emptive strike, if they fear getting behind. It
makes it impossible to reach any kind of rational agreement on
anything, because of lack of trust. Agreements made with the
expectation of broken promises are non-functional, and this leads to
unresolved disputes, escalation, and gradually to war.
In the 4th principle above, each nation keeps necessary police and
military, but "necessary" must also be balanced if that principle is
to deter aggression. It doesn't stay in balance by itself. It has to
be arranged that way, across multiple nations or alliances.
It is often said that "hindsight is 20/20" (clear). But once a
"military solution" has been tried and turned into an endless war, it
is too late to apply peace-making strategies that could have worked.
Instead of friendship there will be hatred that will last for
generations.
Every leader arises to his position from some particular situation,
and often the leader doesn't know the best course to take, or doesn't
have support to do it. A good analogy is this: To a carpenter with a
hammer, every problem seems like a nail, and the solution is to hit
it. Similarly, leaders with military or espionage careers tend to
apply those methods that they are familiar with.
Instead, leaders need creativity, and focus on the welfare of all people
regardless of their location or nationality. That is the first of the
peace-making principles I stated at the outset,
of which all are critical.
Moreover, leaders need to seek expert advice from far and wide,
drawing on social science, and going well beyond the borders of their
own party. There is a tendency in hierarchies for the lower levels to
tell the leader what they suppose he wants to hear, and to edit their
reports and advice accordingly. This leads to very myopic thinking,
and decisions made on the basis of distorted or false information.
Much has been written about that phenomenon. It is sometimes called
"groupthink". It has occurred in the lead-up to more than one war.
It's not just problematic: it's dangerous. Leaders need to avoid it,
and societies need to prevent it via open dialog and freedom of the
press.
The number of people who face death due to war has been on a downward
trend, with some periodic reversals to that trend, but overall going
down. See:
https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace
At the above site, notice in particular the graphs titled:
"the decline of wars between 'Great Powers'"
"Death rate in state-based conflicts by conflict type, World, 1946 to 2020"
Note however that the above data only goes up to 2021. There has
been an uptick in conflicts, as reported in March 2022 by the UN:
Although wars among people have occurred throughout history, there
have also been regions of peace. The largest-scale regions of peace
exist in modern times. Here's why the future doesn't have to be the
same as the past:
The vast majority of people around the world want peace and expect
their leaders to deliver it. This was not always so. In ancient
times, city-states or larger nations were ruled by aristocratic
dictatorships, and it was an expectation that the king would make war
on neighboring countries to expand his territory. Citizens didn't
consider war to be immoral, so long as their side would win. You can
see this in ancient philosophies, such as that of Socrates, who
himself was a military man in his earlier life.
In the modern world, means exist for nations to build trade
relationships and to amalgamate peacefully, when it is beneficial to
their citizens. We see examples of large voluntary federations in the
United States (made of 50 states), Canada (made of provinces and
territories), and the European union. In ancient times, war was the
only way to expand a region with a single currency, system of trade,
and common law, as neighboring dictators would never willingly agree
to serve another king.
Democracy has become more common, and although not all democracies
function as well as they might, they do tend to defuse armed conflict
within a nation about who should rule.
There has been historical social progress,
such as abolition of
slavery throughout the world over the last two centuries, and
improvements in civil rights. In North America there has been
dramatic improvement in the treatment of Indians and black people.
We have better ways of communicating across borders than ever
before. This includes Internet, by which we can get news from other
nations. It includes automated translation, whereby we can read
information from other languages. In ancient times, leaders tricked
citizens into fighting their wars of conquests by deceiving them
people of other languages, religions, or races were evil. This is not
as easy to do in modern times, especially if citizens take an effort
to discover the truth.
International education is increasingly common, where students
attend course in other nations. This promotes understanding and
spreads knowledge.
Although people have some aggressive instincts inherited from
evolution, there are well established ways to compensate for them.
People can learn to make cooperative decisions that produce mutual
happiness, even when their default inclination may be for conflict.
People can also identify risks from individuals or groups who are
following an aggressive path, and take sufficient collective measures
to deter that aggression or protect against it.
There is a wide array of situations that can produce conflict, as
noted above, related to deficiencies in political and economic systems
that produce suffering to subsets of the population. But there is
also extensive knowledge in the social sciences of how to make
political and economic systems work well. This knowledge has not been
applied to its fullest extent in all nations, so that actual political
and economic systems lag behind best practices. However, there are
known means to make improve these systems over time, reducing
injustice and perceived needs for fighting.
There are organizations devoted to promoting peace around the world
and preventing war. Some of those URLS were listed above. The
United Nations itself has made much progress in addressing
international problems, despite its many limitations due to its
cold-war era origin. Also, many
charitable organizations
indirectly promote peace by helping to cure problems around the world
that give rise to conflicts.
Conflicts can occur between individual people, or between leaders of
nations. In the latter case, the leader brings his nation into it,
and the military and citizens typically follow, as it is their
tradition that the leader should lead.
So, despite progress, we also see periodic setbacks. There continue
to be armed conflicts in the world, and it is especially shocking to
see large scale wars between nations that otherwise seem to be modern
and well educated.
Creating a peaceful world basically requires each citizen to learn the
fundamental practices of peace. There is also much to learn in all
the social sciences: political science, economics, justice systems and
judicial process, social justice, and the ethics specific to every
domain of professional practice. This is too much for any one citizen
to understand everything there is to know. However, individuals can
take the actions listed above to promote peace, and engage all their
collective knowledge to make a better world.
We live in a dangerous time, when technological capability exceeds the
social development of people. We could easily destroy ourselves by
nuclear war, by continuing global warming without ceasing, or by many
other means. However, we also have a trend of social improvement.
Social progress is slow, but if we can continue worldwide progress
through two or three more generations without destroying ourselves,
very likely we will have a very peaceful world. Moreover, it will be
a wonderful world, as we already have the capability of a better
lifestyle than has ever existed before.
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