Peace Through Human Nature
In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, President Obama brought up many interesting and good points about the history of violent wars and human kind's effort to bring justice to all nations. This is a noble and fulfilling goal that we all should strive for. He rightly quoted MLK in his Nobel speech when King stated that violence never brings lasting peace, just complicated social problems. Obama made it a point to bring out the strength of mankind in fighting for justice, but also of the perpetual violence that humanity brings to the world stage. He made it clear that evil will always exist and someone will have to use force to stop it. Obama does not see a way out of it. Man will always be violent.
However, one line in his speech rather interested me. This is the part of the speech where he was talking about the efforts of humanity to maintain peace and justice. Obama quoted John Kennedy saying that we need to "focus on a practical, more attainable peace based not on a sudden revolution in human nature, but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." It seems to me that the opposite of this statement would be true. Every time we have problems we look to human institutions to solve our problems. Because institutions are run by humans they are susceptible to corruption no matter what. We are not perfect. Rather a change in the philosophies and ideologies that our human nature's carry would have a much more profound effect on the problems we are facing. I also believe that this perspective is not a impractical and unattainable goal for peace. It will take time, but so will any other solution we come up with. No, it will not solve our problems overnight, but it will be a much better long term solution to the problem of injustice and violence. Institutions are not infallible and will only seek to solve the problems using human means and will inevitably lead us to other problems. However, by no means am I not advocating against human institutions as a whole. There are many organizations that do an incredible amount of good work for justice and peace, but I am saying that it would be better to start working on the nature of our actions and the nature of humanity so that they can have a much more positive impact on our human institutions. This would be a better direction for our president to go.
What would it mean to change human nature? I'm not sure I understand the language "a change in the philosophies and ideologies that our human nature's carry." Would changing our philosophies change our nature?
ReplyDeleteAs long as I fully understand this post, and I'm not misinterpreting David's idea, I agree entirely. I think that, since human institutions are run by humans, we must go to the core of the problem instead of just the creations of the core. With that being said, I do believe that human nature is the core of the problem, and human institutions will never change unless the force behind them has good, peaceful intentions.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the issue I encounter here is the idea that we can change human nature, or even philosophies and ideologies of others. We tend to encounter the most violence and disturbance of peace when we attempt to change others. Using the events of 9/11 as an example, the terrorists--the fundamental Muslims--attacked, to some extent, in order to make a point about our political and religious ideologies. We are the "infidels," and they want us to change. With that being said, we can't be the ones making the change because, once again, that would be an assumption that "we" are right, and "they" are wrong.
Ideally, I would love for human nature to change on its own, without the use of force or interference from an outside source. However, I don't think such a thing is possible, so I'm quite positive this change in human nature where all people become actors of peace will never happen.
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ReplyDeleteno changing our philosophies would not change our human nature. I actually think that "nature" was a strange word to use. I had to think this out a little more. What needs to change is not our human nature, that is unchangeable. Our nature is who we intrinsically are and the purpose for which we exist. However, what needs to change is some of the perceptions of morality that people put onto human nature. What would be better for Obama to say would be a "radical improvement in moral nature." The popular view is that there will always be violence because of humanity and one of the ways we have to stop it is through force because that is the way we are. What we need is to improve the moral ideals of humanity so that we do not need institutions to do what should naturally occur.
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