Peace: Getting it right

It is obvious and universally accepted that something is wrong with humanity. That's the easy part. The difficult part is agreeing on what is wrong so that we can create a solution that is permanent and universal.

One reason is our unwillingness or inability to appreciate why we are so unique among all the species on this planet. By definition, every species is unique. But only humans have the ability to do science. However, this does not elevate us above the other species; it only sets us apart from them. Because, we cannot do science without the other species. This is why observation is the first step in the scientific method. We learn from the other species. One could say that nature uses other species to teach us.

It would take books document all the ways in which we have gained knowledge from observing the other species. Every thing we have learned has come courtesy of the living and non-living things in our environment. Nature appears to have planned it this way. We may not make a big deal of it but it is generally agreed that our planet was functioning perfectly by the time humans first appeared. We are not the ones who put the finishing touches on the planet. Truth be told, in the process of improving our quality of life, a desire that does not appear to exist among other species, we always manage to do harm to this spaceship on which we travel "in circles."

Before we arrived the other species knew how to coexist with which other even though the food web makes many of them enemies of others. They had mastered life before we arrived, it is hardwired in their DNA, and we have had to observe them to learn how to make the best of the conditions in which we find ourselves.

But there is one thing that nature has not been allowed to teach us. In nature we learn how things work and with that knowledge we have been able to "create" things that did not exist when our ancient ancestors arrived here. But nature does not teach us how to repair damage that does not have an external origin.

The reason is simple. The systems that comprise our world never need repair. Natural systems work, whether they be weather systems, ocean currents or galaxies. In living things, the immune system is the ultimate repair man, but it only works against external threats. Every moment it fights against a host of pathogens that keep trying to destroy the body. But it is hopeless against diseases like cancer and auto-immune diseases that are not caused by the environment.

Given our natural education it is not wonder that humans prefer to find a solution for what ails the species by assuming that the problem is caused by an outside source, even though we all know this not to be true. This is even reflected in our language.

Robert Burns first documented the phrase "man's inhumanity to man" in his poem "From Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge." The problem is that every form of behavior that we say is inhumane can only be observed among humans.

We must first properly identify the problem before we can hope for a solution. Nothing else will suffice. Our experiences with cancer and the autoimmune diseases should tell us something.