The Possibility of Peace

You know, it's not that hard to get people to agree with the notion of world peace. Most of them already do, whether through unthinking agreement or calculated reflection. And were that many people all to agitate for peace, we could probably get something done!

Well, clearly we aren't getting that much done, despite the voices of everyone from the most die-hard of activists to the adolescent acting outraged over Twitter desperately trying to fill the air. We still go to war and we still play the old "my country's better than yours" game. So what's going wrong? If so many people want peace, why are we still fighting each other?

I'm not going to fault anyone speaking out on behalf of world peace, whether they're marching in the street or signing a petition, because at least they're speaking out. Actually, I'm not going to single out any particular person or group of people - I'm going to single out an idea, that of so-called realism.

As far as I can figure out, the biggest reason why ordinary people don't agitate for world peace isn't because they have a secret agenda for war - unlike capitalists and politicians, they stand to lose from fighting and dying. It's not because they're put off by activism, either, though negative stereotypes of activists certainly don't help. It's realism - the misplaced idea that one should only do what is realistic. As for what is actually realistic? That varies, but generally it assumes keeping the capitalist "representative" "democratic" framework in some form, or abiding by "human nature" - whatever that is. That tends to rule out the big ideas, and sadly world peace is one of them.

The argument that world peace is impossible does generally tend to rest on the argument that our human nature forbids it. Apparently humans are innately selfish, greedy and violent, and this means that we will always be stuck killing each other on a grand scale - so why bother agitating for world peace? It's an impossible dream.

There are significant flaws in this: firstly, the "human nature" argument seems less like an actual line of reasoning than a placeholder. Nowhere is human nature actually defined - instead, only a couple of traits, such as greediness or violence, are highlighted, and these traits change between variations of the argument. Secondly, human nature isn't just limited to negative traits - it also includes significant positive traits such as being able to co-operate with each other instead of trying to kill each other at every step. If human violence is an argument against world peace, logically human co-operation would be an argument for it.

I wholly expect someone to chuck some misunderstood biology at me, claiming that nature is a violent place, that species have to be violent to survive, and since that we're animals who share some of the same DNA we're going to act the same way and since genes determine, like, totally everything there's nothing we can do about it.

Well, I can't really comment on misunderstanding the biology - I study physics. What I can comment on is something that should be pretty obvious: DNA is not the be-all and end-all. It influences a lot, but it does not exclude the effects of environment - and, for a sapient species like us, the conscious choices of an organism. We aren't condemned to be nasty, mean, violent creatures, and we can't hide behind a misunderstanding of genetic determinism. To some extent, we are capable of changing our behaviours and rising above what we think determines our actions. We can choose to be less violent and more generous; we can learn these behaviours. We have restructured our societies before, moving from hunting and gathering to farming - arguably one of the greatest transitions. We can do so again, moving from a society that rewards ruthlessness and greed to one that focuses more on community.

World peace is not an impossible dream, or even one that's particularly far-fetched. It may be difficult to try and unteach selfishness and violence, but it can be done, probably on a grand scale if enough people get involved. And the more people move beyond what they consider "human nature" and towards working together, the less impossible it's going to get.