Peace On Earth, Good Will to Men

Over 400 years ago, Shakespeare (through Shylock) asked these immortal questions:

"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”

Now, replace “Jew” with “man” and “Christian” with whatever ethnicity, race, culture, religion, etc., that you like and Shakespeare is presenting a pretty valid and convincing argument for today. If everyone walked around without skin on, could you tell whom to hate? If they wore no signs of religion or culture, could you still single the supposedly “wrong” ones out? No, you couldn’t. And that is the point. Everyone, every sex, every race, every religion, is made equal because we are all human. There is no separation; we are all of the human race.  What we look like, what we believe, how we behave socially, may make us distinctive but it does not take away from our equality.

The only time one man is unequal to another is when that man commits a crime against humanity, when he degrades and destroys the very thing he is a part of. Violence towards another being is never justified, no matter what cause you fight for or which flag you fly. You cannot hide behind religion; all the major religions teach peace. You cannot hide behind your country; your servitude to their ignoble cause is even more degrading then the cause itself. Violence breeds more violence. It is one thing to take down one vicious man, a man like, say, Hitler, a man so evil that his very existence makes peace an impossibility. It is quite another to kill with out distinction for a vague cause championed by men who lie for their own gain, on grounds material rather than moral. No cause, no matter how convincingly justified by propaganda and fabrication, is worth killing innocent humans for. Violence will never prove a point. It will only succeed in making others fear you and create a stronger violence among them that will destroy you. The only way to truly convince others of the strength and righteousness of your beliefs is by peaceful use of reason and logic, and to show them the passion you feel for your cause harnessed by respect for your fellow man.  Then, and only then, will you truly be heard. A respect earned by fear is not respect at all. 

The world will never be at peace until all of these things are truly understood. By loving your fellow man you learn to love yourself, which in-turn begets more love. And is by loving that the world will know a tomorrow far better than its yesterdays. Borders cease to matter in love; differences will be embraced rather than feared. Nationalism will not disappear, but it will be of a different, better sort. A true love of one’s country, rather than a shared fear of its enemies. This may sound Utopic, but it is within reach. Once people stop giving in to fear and hatred, emotions so easily felt and inflamed, and start to feel the subtle glow of love and compassion, then the world will know peace.