As a child, I often spoke of and wished for ‘world peace’. I get and give a lot of wishes of peace during Christmas. We constantly talk about peace as a goal. Sounds nice. But is it?
I don’t actually know what peace is, other than a lack of war. War is conflict. So peace is essentially a lack of conflict. This means that peace cannot be measured without conflict. We need conflict to understand and define peace.
If we flip this around and ask what the world is like without conflict, it is unimaginable. Let’s assume society has all the resources it needs and has the technology to handle any natural disasters – pandemics, earthquakes, typhoons, etc. There is no hunger and there is no lack of good paying jobs.
Now in this utopia people are still human. They have a desire for companionship, sex and in most cases to produce offspring. How many of these humans will have all their companionship, sex and offspring desires met? Probably many of them at times, but none of them all the time. Even with the ideal rate of companionship, sex and children, humans experience deficiencies.
If you give a human all the sex they could possibly want, they lose the desire for it. The dopamine that is pushing them hard to go get it, simply disappears. The adrenaline that fires during sex starts to wane – sex becomes so common that they build up a tolerance and/or simply produce less.
At a more basic, daily level, people experience highs and lows in emotion and experience. They make mistakes in judgements, they get tired. They let each other down, they piss each other off. They seek comfort in others, the look for more. Its a survival instinct.
Humans are programmed for interpersonal conflict.
They are not 100% trustworthy, because they can’t be. They make decisions to protect their family and children’s interests above the interests of society. This might mean lying or cheating, in case they feel their children are in danger. Humans are programmed this way for good reason. They are programmed for survival.
This survival programming leads them to prioritize their families. These families over time form larger communities who prioritize their own interests to collectively increase their chances of survival. It becomes a Pink Floyd song.
Us, and them
And after all, we’re only ordinary men
Me, and you
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do
Humans form groups, prioritize those groups over others, defend those groups against others. They will try to extract resources from the other groups.
Christmas itself is a holiday named and celebrated widely based on certain human groups power and resources superseding others.
Humans are programmed for intergroup conflict.
Its who we are.
Peace then is a temporary state where these conflicts are not active. Respite from the human experience. An appreciation for what we have. A delusion to enjoy because conflict is actually constant in the background.
I wish you conflict in your life. In doing so, I am wishing you the peace that comes amidst the conflict inherent in our humanness. And in doing so I am wishing you the peace of mind that is possible through acceptance of our humanness.