Creating Tolerance and World Peace

Archive for the ‘World Peace’ Category

Many well intentioned people over the centuries and millennia have been dreaming of the day when we can finally say we have achieved world peace. Coming off of two world wars and a nearly 50 year cold war, the yearning for world peace is now stronger than ever. The dream is a noble one-a world where we all live together in harmony and tolerance is the order of the day. But beyond the emotion of it, is it realistic to think that our world will ever achieve a lasting peace?
If we examine human history, the prognosis is certainly not very encouraging. We can go back thousands of years to civilizations that were very well organized and certainly must have had similar desires as we have today. So why were they unable to create this elusive lasting peace? Was lack of education the problem? Well, the Egyptians who built the pyramids more than 5,000 years ago were certainly very well educated. The Greek philosophers were also an educated bunch. They were certainly capable of coming up with solutions to the world’s problems. Why didn’t they?
What about us? How do we compare to our ancestors? What makes us so much more enlightened that we think we can do what they were unable to do? Is it our modern technology? How about our level of “tolerance” toward those with different viewpoints. Can any of these make the difference? I have to admit I’m skeptical.
As long as we have a world with imperfect human beings that have woven inside their DNA greed and selfishness and a natural yearning to have more than their neighbors, I don’t see how our situation will ever change. Humans have always been selfish and have always wanted to have more. Even in today’s enlightened society, we still seem to have more takers than givers. The challenge as I see it is to make sure that 100% of the world’s population develops an attitude and mindset of serving others above themselves. To me, that seems unrealistic, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to try.

World peace is one of those lofty goals that people have already dismissed as a fantasy. It would be nice to have but it isn’t realistic with opposing religions, world views and the antagonistic nature of humans occupying our planet.

World peace may not be achievable in our lifetimes, particularly with the volatile political and cultural situation in the Middle East, but many people are actively working to help bring about a social change that will lead the world into a state of universal peace. Some of the most obvious indicators of this is the steps world leaders have taken to establish worldwide political partnerships that help to dissolve the differences between individual nations and tie the futures of the people amongst many countries together. These agreements, including the League of Nations and the United Nations Organization, make it more difficult for individual nations to precipitate war or aggression upon other states because the most political, economical and social success is found when sharing goals and objectives.

Cooperation amongst the world superpowers in fields ranging from science, law, education, economics and health all help to build a foundation that will eventually lead to world peace. The need to show dominance or superiority should be quelled by the idea that the entire world should be considered an ally and a source of continued support.

And yet even the significant steps taken toward establishing a working world order since World War II have not been enough to convince most people that world peace is achievable. There are currently several wars that are engaged in throughout the world and aggressions between countries continue to swell. Some people believe that world peace may come only after some sort of unimaginable horror wipes out a portion of the earth’s people – another holocaust or a nuclear war. But as problems become more widely recognized as global, the need for peace will become more urgent.

Although there are some people who believe that war, conflict, anarchy and terrorism will always exist as long as people are on Earth, there are a number of practical measures that will help to create a world community that relies upon one another and makes it difficult to use aggressive tactics on any other nation.

Despite the practical nature of it, banning nuclear weapons, germ or bio-warfare and the use of poisonous gasses are steps that world peace organizations have been promoting in various ways but will not lead to an eventual end of warfare even if every suggestion was undertaken. People are ingenious war-faring people and have been inventing new wars to hurt one another since man first picked up a rock. Solving individual conflicts (specifically over land, resources and other sources of world-wide arguments) will also not lead us to world peace. There will always be another reason to feel disgruntled if the underlying attitude amongst people of this Earth do not change.

Groups of nations must work harder and more diligently to produce meaningful and formal relationships with one another than establish cooperation as a key to each nation’s economic, cultural and political success. World leaders have recognized that world-wide cooperation is needed if world peace will ever be an achievable goal but issues such as ignorance, hatred and jealousy can be difficult problems to tackle.

When world governmental organizations tackle identify and tackle world-wide problems, the need for accelerated mutual reliance becomes apparent. For instance, the issue of global climate change, the world economic situation and other global problems have been identified and tackled over the last few years by multi-governmental associations. Although these problems obviously haven’t been solved, the cooperation on a scientific and technological front help to cement the idea that a global community is stronger than a single country can be on its own.

There are several religions being practiced in this world. There are various conditions where it becomes really tough to judge which to follow and which not to follow. With the numerous religions present in this world there arises the need to help and cultivate the feature to fulfill the desires and expectations of the people living and practicing their respective religion.
Though at times people there have been many conditions aroused into the society where people may like or dislike the views and behavior of the persons of different religions. But you can never find a situation where you can see there is a religion which wants the people to hate the other religion.
But it is very much seen that people are still taking it in an offensive manner and may lead to a war criticizing the other religion. But this kind of situation is not being practiced by the new generation. So, the conditions may arise in some conditions where is need to help and educate people of different religions to educate about the other religions to create respect for all the religions into their mind.
Hinduism which is proven the world’s ancient religion always believed in world peace. From ancient time the followers of Hinduism religion always said and followed a phrase “Vasudaevakutumbaka” which means that “this world is one family”. Even the Sikhism also spread the word that “All creatures are created by god and god belongs to all of us”.
Christianity also spread peace among all by showing faith and helping each other in all times. These things shows that creator of all religions always followed that every person living in this world should live with bother hood.
No religion ever said yes to all, all teach us to respect and love each other. People should believe in their self and love every creature of this world.

The fashion today is to blame one particular religion for the strife and violence that is being practiced in many parts of the world. While this might make good fodder for the news hungry people, the fact of the matter is that vast majority of people from this religion are peace loving and have a deep respect and regard for people from other backgrounds.

It is however unfortunate that many of these people who proclaim themselves to be torch bearers of tolerance and brotherhood have in fact lot of questions to answer for their actions. How can one justify occupation of a faraway land for years together in the guise of world peace when in fact it is very evident that they are doing so just to plunder the natural resources for which this land is so famous?

Tolerance is not all about preaching, but some amount of practice is also expected. Tolerance is not in the genes of each individual. It is a skill and art which has to be learnt. However, to learn tolerance it is very important that a person learns to respect himself. How can you expect a drug addict or an alcoholic to be tolerant when he does not know how to respect his own body? Tolerance requires lot of courage, patience and perseverance.

People today may laugh when Gandhi had advocated showing the other cheek when someone hits you in one cheek. Let it be understood that this is not weakness or cowardice but a strong sense of courage and a strong belief in the ideals and thoughts which he stood for. It would have been impossible to push British out of India if violent means were adopted, because militarily they were much stronger than the Indian subcontinent at that point in time. Non-violence and tolerance were the cruise missiles which the British found too hot to handle

Those who believe that absolute world peace can be obtained by following the principles of domination and bulldozing of peoples’ opinions and beliefs, are sure living in a fools’ paradise. However, by the time they realize this they would have caused immense damage to the world and society. The fabric of social life is very thin and is born out of the need to love and respect not only the other human being but also to love nature as a whole.

Tolerance is not only abut being accommodative to your fellow human being. While this is the most important, respecting nature, wild life and environment also goes a long way in developing a person and makes him to be more tolerant as a human being.

The irony of the matter is that the vast majority of the people are by nature peace loving, caring and tolerant. Those who practice intolerance and violence are very few but at times it looks that they are ruling the roost and are pushing tolerance into oblivion. These people live their life in a world of hate and misery. Internally they are unhappy and always at conflict with their inner soul. Then there are these so called leaders who arouse religious and jingoistic feelings and split society down the middle.

While many sermons can be given on the need for tolerance and many articles can be written on the subject, the ground reality will change only when the big majority which believes in peaceful coexistence come out of their shell and face these trouble mongers head on. The world and world peace is too precious to be disturbed and destroyed by a bunch of so called mass leaders who are nothing but thugs masquerading as good people. So let all the peace loving people join hands and come out more vocally out in the open to make their contribution towards lasting world peace.

What does it mean to be tolerant? Tolerance has several different definitions, but is basically defined as having a “permissive attitude” towards others. This is in reference to others who have a differing opinion from you, different religious beliefs, different race, nationality, or different practices than your own. Another definition of tolerance refers to having the ability or capacity to endure.

So does tolerance mean you must change your opinions, your religious beliefs, or your pride in your own nationality or race? Absolutely not! It is simply learning to get along. Learning to allow others to have the same rights to their opinions, beliefs, pride in their nationality or race, etc. Too often you see others trying to bend other’s thoughts and beliefs to fit with their own. It can be difficult to understand another person’s culture, religion, etc., but just because it is different than your own does not make it wrong or even strange.

So why do so many people find it so difficult to be tolerant of the differences in other people? Could it be that it makes them uncomfortable, and it is human nature to want to be comfortable when you are uncomfortable? One way to get past some of the misgivings of other’s differences is to take the time to learn more about them. It is every person’s responsibility to look at their own lives and their own feelings to determine why they would have intolerance for someone else. What could be the reasons behind ones negative feelings?

We are each responsible for ourselves. It is up to each individual to take the time to learn more about the people around them to become more tolerant and accepting of the differences in others. Once we have learned to be more tolerant of the people around us, we must teach our children the same principles of tolerance, which will in turn lead to a more peaceful world for us all.

World peace has been a dream of people as far back as we know. Unfortunately, no one has come to a conclusion yet on how to attain world peace. Many people have their opinions on how to accomplish this, but until there is more tolerance of differences world-wide, there simply cannot be world peace.

It sounds nice to think that by simply “learning to get along” or by everyone becoming tolerant of each other’s differences, that it would be enough. But, the reality is that the world is run by governments, each one wanting to be the controlling factor. There needs to be a form of government instituted that will actually become a “world” government. Because of the differences in cultures and people, there continues to be miscommunications, intolerance of other’s beliefs, cultures, and practices, etc. This continues to spark conflicts and incite wars against nations.

People all over the world have their opinions on how to achieve world peace, but the governing factors of the world, who are really the only ones who can achieve world peace, are not taking the necessary steps towards that goal. So long as each government continues to try to be a controlling factor, rather than working together to make the world as a whole a better place, the goal at a world-wide truce and in turn world peace, continues to be an unobtainable dream.

By becoming more tolerant and peaceful people ourselves, we can work together towards world peace. If enough private citizens of the world work together, eventually the governments of the world will have to start bending to the will of the people and may actually come around and start coming up with some solutions that will bring us closer to a world-wide peaceful solution to live together in harmony. Well, if nothing else, we can continue to dream that someday this could really happen and we will live to see peace throughout the world!

There is a cliché that every contestant in a beauty pageant always wants “world peace.” Of course, most people want world peace, but do we actually know what that means? World peace is the ideal of a world where there is happiness, freedom, and peace in every nation and among all people. Incorporated in that ideal would be a world free from violence and wars and in which nations willingly cooperate with each other to govern in a peaceful manner and find a non-violent way to resolve differences. In reality, world peace is generally used as a broad term to refer to a global “cease fire.” Unfortunately, though, over the course of 2009 to 2010, world violence has actually increased and world peace has declined.

While the concept of world peace is theoretically possible, some people feel that human nature is such that it would not be possible. Their belief is that it is human nature to be violent and/or that otherwise rational people will choose to commit violence in certain circumstances.

Another school of thought is that it is not in human nature to be violent and that war is not a part of human nature. Their belief is that it is this thought process and the myth that humans are naturally violent creatures that continues to prevent world peace.

There are numerous ideological theories and ideas from political groups, religious groups, and individuals on how to actually achieve world peace, but obviously our societies are not to the point where this can become a reality quite yet. World peace cannot be achieved until there is no more conflict over resources. Oil has become one of the main sources of conflict among nations. Possibly in time there will be additional technology invented that will utilize renewable resources, and therefore open the door for world peace.

To understand the capitalism peace theory, it is first important to understand what capitalism is. Capitalism is when an economic system, which is based on means of production such as the machines, factories, and tools used to produce wealth are privately owned and are for private profit. In a capitalistic system the economic decisions are made by the private owners rather than a government system.

Ayn Rand, a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screen writer theorized that the largest wars of history have been waged by controlled economies against the freer ones. It is her theory that capitalism has allowed for the longest span of time throughout history in which there was peace. This time frame she has referred to in her theory included the period of time from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to the beginning of World War I in 1914. It is said that during this time period there were no wars throughout the entire civilized world. However, this theory has ignored many wars and conflicts that did take place during that time including several conflicts throughout Europe.

Ayn Rand was not the first to propose the idea of a capitalism peace theory. In fact, the idea of capitalism playing a part in theories rose by philosophers in the 1700s. In a more modern capitalism peace theory, capitalist peace has been combined with democratic peace theories. In his research, Stuart Bremer examined the relationship between capitalism and war. He found that capitalism seemed to be a more powerful force for peace than democracy. Although at the time of his research more notoriety seemed to be directed towards the idea of a democratic peace theory than in the capitalism peace theory. It is believed by modern theorists that a capitalistic peace theory includes the democratic peace theory in that capitalism is actually the cause of both peace and democracy.