Peace: Why the Education System Gets the Nod

Because of my Christian upbringing I always expected that the attainment of peace on earth would have a religious connection. You can well imagine my surprise when I realized that the solution that was bubbling to the surface makes no reference to religion. That’s not how the story was supposed to end.

In order to understand why the burden, or privilege, of re-educating the species should fall to the educational community rather than to religion or government, we need to review an aspect of standing armies and distrust that we have not emphasized to this point.

We have already established that standing armies, even though they serve a useful purpose in contemporary society as a deterrent to war and violence, are both a drain on the public purse and a reflection of the distrust that exists in the human psyche. We have not said much about the fact that distrust only exists in the presence of fragmentation. We distrust those who are different from us -- those we perceive not to be complementary to us.

There is no distrust in a wholesome system; each component of the system works cooperatively with other components of the system. Difference does not always indicate fragmentation.

Consequently, in our efforts to eradicate standing armies we can say that our goal is to abolish the perception of fragmentation that now infects the human mind. I call it a perception because, as we shall discuss further later, the human race is only one of the trillions of natural systems that make up the larger system we call the Universe. It is on the basis of this understanding that it becomes clear why it is academia that features in our proposed solution instead of religion or government.

A process that is based on the idea of equality instead of fragmentation is best served by an institution that is not fragmented. Even though world leaders and religious leaders alike speak of world peace, both religion and government are inherently fragmented. Government is the essence of life but human government is also a political system. To maintain their power political leaders have to meet the needs of the fragmented people they represent. Political peace talks always aim for compromise because those who come to the table represent their geographic blocks. Even at the level of the UN the parties are not driven by the global needs of the human race. In the presence of distrust the best they can hope for is a compromise solution.

Most religions advocate peace but there also compromise is the best they can hope for. After thousands of years in which religion has dominated our lives we still find ourselves divided along religious lines. Speaking from my Christian upbringing I know that Christianity envisions a world of peace, yet it is not a world for everyone. In the minds of most Christians, including their leaders, the peace of Christianity is restricted to those who accept the tenets of Christianity. I doubt that Christianity is alone in this perspective but the idea is a non-starter in a pluralistic world.

This is why I think it is notable that the education-based solution makes no judgment about our partisan perspective. It treats the human race as a unit of parts.

While religious and political leaders advocate for a world where the outliers are excluded only the educational/scientific community consistently works for benefits that accrue not only to those who share their views. The mathematician creates his formulas to benefit all. The medical researcher keeps searching or cures that he may never need for himself. It is obvious that education, along with the science that feeds it, is the only human institution with the credentials necessary to advocate for a world where oneness is the ruling principle.