Opinions

Opinions

George Boeree

Although I often despair of ever seeing a world of peace and plenty for all, I always keep a little bit of hope that we as a species might finally pull ourselves up to a level we can proudly and honestly call "civilized."

There seem to be three things that we fight about the most: Religion, Nationality, and Economics. All three are dumb things to fight about.

If people could see their religions as various ways of dealing with the mysteries of life, we wouldn't need to get so worked up about them. I'm an atheist, but even I can understand someone's need to believe in a higher power, even to anthropomorphize this higher power to make it more accessible to our limited minds. But why do people get it in their heads that all the irrelevancies of religion outweight the basics? Why does the Christian need to get everyone to agree that Jesus was really an incarnation of God? It's silly, really. Or the Moslem, why does he need to convince everyone that the Quran is literally the word of God? Can't it just be the word of Mohammed, a man struggling to understand his place in the universe as best he could in his time and culture? I can keep going, but you get the point: If we just say "Hey, I have my ways of relating to the almighty, you have yours, let's just try to get along, shall we?" there would be no conflict!

When it comes to nationality and ethnicity, things are (if it's possible) even sillier. Being from some part of the world or another, growing up with one culture or another, having one kind of "blood" or another, doesn't really mean much. I have my customs, my favorite holidays, my special costumes, dances, stories, songs... and you have yours. We are still all basically the same species, aren't we, all related to each other in the end. And nations -- they are just artificial lines on a map. I have my government, you have yours, I live here, you live there... As long as we don't go invading each other or undermining each others' governments or cultures, we can just live and let live.

Economic philosophies are another set of silly ideas. Whether we embrace capitalism or communism or something in between doesn't matter. All that matters is that everyone is taken care of -- gets enough to eat, a roof over their heads, decent medical care, and the like. That's not something to fight about. We should all be happy to help our neighbors, trade with them, exchange ideas with them, even exchange individuals with them! We can learn from each other: This capitalism idea seems to work well -- let's try it. Or this socialist system really does the job -- let's adopt that. Things aren't so black and white as people seem to think!

The only thing that makes a belief a matter of life or death, kill or be killed, is when the people that hold the belief become fanatics. And I think that happens when people's sense of identity is actually so weak that they see any disagreement as threatening. Most often this happens when the people aren't very intelligent and have been "brainwashed" by others who find it to their advantage to keep them worked up. But some fanatics are quite intelligent. I can only imagine that their beliefs have become crucial to their sense of identity as members of something larger than themselves. If you aren't comfortable being an individual, you need to find that comfort by melting into something larger -- like a religion, an ethnic group, a nationality, or an economic philosophy.

Could it all be a function of "group think?" I have often felt that as individuals even people who aren't too smart IQ-wise can be quite reasonable and pleasant. But put a bunch of brilliant professors into a room together to discuss relevant issues and they turn into morons! I would even go so far as to say that the more people, the lower the IQ. Two or three just might be able to help each other (since they each have their areas of expertise); but twenty or thirty, and nothing much intelligent seems to happen. When you get a crowd of 100's or 1000's you have a mob, with a sum total IQ of 20, at best. When that mob elects a representative -- look out! You could get lucky and get a Gandhi, but more likely, you'll get a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Trump.

What to do? First, weaken the effects of groups -- religious, ethnic, national, economic... plus professional groups, corporations, labor unions, government bureaucracies.... Make it a point of pride for each of us to think of ourselves first as individuals, second as human beings, and only third as members of one group or another. And start valuing one quality over all others: Not intelligence or experience or education or status, but kindness -- the simple moral principle that says treat others as you yourself would like to be treated. Simple.