Why we can't all get along...

Good people often ask, "Why can't we all just get along?" There are four main reasons that, as the world exists today, it is impossible for us to get along unless we make some changes.

Reason 1:
The animal part of the brain is in charge a surprising percentage of the time, and the animal brain does not like anything or anyone different. There is a well known Biology experiment where you take a group of chicks that hatch at the same time, and when they are about a week old, you use food coloring to dye one of them red, one green, and one blue. The little yellow chicks are soon pecking the dyed chicks to the point of injury. There seems to be a template in the brain based on the faces a child grows up with, and a face that doesn't roughly fit in the template brings feelings of uneasiness and distrust. Kids who grow up going to day care in the San Francisco area seem to be exposed to enough different faces that all the kids seem to get along. If you introduce a kid with a different skin color or ethnic facial features into a remote rural area where kids have only seen their immediate family members faces, there are usually bad reactions.

Reason 2:
Parents usually feel a need to pass on their political beliefs; biases and prejudices; religious beliefs; and life philosophy to their children. This is highly successful most of the time. As a result, we have two factions of Islam still hating each other over who should have succeed Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh as leader of the religion when he died in 632 CE.  We have many different groups of Christians who disagree about even basic principles. We have several different groups of Jews so polarized it is difficult to believe they are part of the same religion. We have tribes who hate each other because one took slaves after winning a battle 300 years ago, and so on and on and on.  Too many grudges to count. We even have families who hate each other over something great great great grandpa Wilber did in 1792.  The European colonization movement provided the conditions for people in the colony to hate a whole country. Various missionaries, believing they were doing the will of their god, perpetrated terrible atrocities on indigenous peoples in misguided efforts to "save" and "civilize" the heathen savage. The North American colonists and later, the United States government wiped out many cultures and languages, not to mention whole tribes of people.  Now most of that would just be inconvenient if it weren't for one thing: each group believes they have the one and only truth that came direct from the hand or spoken word of their GOD, him or herself. Christians point to a passage in their book, that according to the circular logic they are so fond of, PROVES that they have the one and only exclusive truth. Combine that with being passed from parent to child, the strength and irrationality of their beliefs, and the conviction that everyone else is WRONG, and you have a downright dangerous situation. Because of this, only a few learned and brilliant scholars can discuss religious thought with members of different religions rather than argue or fight. I always wanted my children to decide for themselves what they believed because I've never been sure about anything, except that it is wrong to treat other people badly. Giving your children that freedom is a little uncomfortable, but I believe parents need to stop teaching after we communicate some basic ethical principles. Until people are able to look at religious, philosophical, and political issues objectively and discuss calmly; allowing themselves to recognize the possibility that another person may have a worthwhile point, rather than feeling a need to prove them wrong, we will always have the seeds of violence between people on the earth.

Reason 3:
My father told me that human greed was the single most dangerous emotion. He said that without greed, con games wouldn't work, people would not gamble away their savings, and there would be no reason for war. Someone always profits from war. Starting with the flint knappers, the people who supply the weapons profit from war. They always find ways to exploit Reasons 1 and 2 so that everyone else, who has everything to lose, will fight in their wars. Kings waged war to expand their territory, and thus increase their income by having more people to tax. In Shakespeare's play, "Henry V," Prince Hal has led a wild, drunken life and so the people didn't expect much from him. His father doesn't know Henry's true capabilities, so on his death bed he advises, "Have a foreign war." The father's advice was based on the idea that having a foreign enemy would bring the people together behind their new king. I can definitely visualize GHWB, or George I, advising GWB, or George II to have a foreign war.

Reason 4:
People are lazy, especially intellectually. Most people don't want to think for themselves. They want the Preacher or Rabbi or Iman to tell them what to believe. They read their holy book, but don't bother to get the education needed to properly interpret what they read or put it in context. Historians copy from older historians without bothering to research whether the old historian knew what he was talking about. For centuries, people were content with Aristotle as THE authority on everything. Sadly, Aristotle just pulled things out of the air and never did a real experiment. Because people are mentally lazy, they are easy to manipulate. So much is known about the psychology of selling and advertising that it is a simple matter to convince a whole country that WMD are an imminent threat, when in fact, no Weapons of Mass Destruction existed. I see evidence of mental laziness in politics today because rather than present data, politicians (and lots of citizens) just call someone a "liberal" as if that is a dirty word, and that name calling alone is sufficient to make a case or prove a point. There is little meaningful discussion or debate in U.S. politics today, and so elections have become popularity contests.  Most politicians today don't do any work to learn how to run government more efficiently and how to work for the good of the people. Combine that with the greed of politicians who allow themselves to be bought by corporations and special interests, and you have the mess the U.S. Government is in today.

Now how can we get ourselves out of this mess? Well, it would take good old fashioned work. First, people who really want to fix things need to organize, find and train candidates who are completely committed to honest government, for the people and by the people. Second, they need to work to get those candidates elected. The Presidency is really not as important as the Congress in putting together a working reform movement. If you have a majority in Congress, you can do a lot whether or not the President agrees. If you have a big enough majority, you can override the Presidential veto, and pass legislation in spite of Presidential opposition. It certainly would be a lot safer to make changes this way than to take to the streets in a Twitter uprising. I don't think the corporations who have the real power now would hesitate to use deadly force on even a million protestors, and I'd hate to think what military weapons would do to massed or marching protestors. The question is, do we have any people honest enough and hard working enough to make real change possible? Can we stop bickering over ideology long enough to actually get something done? What do you think?