Can the wolf really live with the lamb?

[Dilettante]

Isaiah 11:6-9 paints a picture which would delight any multiculturalist: "The wolf will lie with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea".
A beautiful picture indeed, but let's put it into secular terms. Where it speaks of animals, try substituting different cultures or nations. Think of Jews and Arabs, Turks and Kurds, Pakistanis and Indians, you name it. Is it a realistic picture now?

[MagusYanam]

Realistic? Not currently. Something to work towards? Most definitely.

But then again, what do I know? I'm a social Gospeller, a Ritschlian moralist, a theological liberal and (gasp!) an optimist. And that may lessen my credibility, but hear me out. Yes, things blow in the Middle East nowadays. But during the Clinton era, we were making progress. Big progress - and that was with Arafat in power.

Things seem to be stagnating now that Israel / Palestine is on the back burner to Iraq. (Another reason for us not to have gone in - Israel / Palestine is far more crucial to the War on Terror!) The way I see it is, we get Bush and Sharon out of office, get the Palestinians and Israelis to sit down at the table again, and no one leaves the room until they doodle a few lines. We take it from there, playing it by ear, and with a little luck and a lot of hard work and funding, we have peace in Palestine (and a lot less terror in the world!).

I'm just using this as an example. Heck, we could do a lot of stuff to improve our lot as human beings if there was more call for foreign aid in the federal budget.

[mrmufin]

Realistic? Not currently. Something to work towards? Most definitely.

This pretty much reflects my sentiments on the matter as well. But then again, I make no pretenses about being a bit of a leftover hippie, "give peace a chance" kinda guy who needs to be pushed on some personal level before resorting to violence.

In working toward the noble ideal described where do we start? What would it take to achieve the ideal and why do the peace processes keep breaking down? I'm not convinced that these matters are as much a function of foreign aid in the federal budget as they are a lack of sincere desire toward peace without oppression. The struggles that Dilettante mentions have been going on for generations. When people are born and raised in an environment where violence is the norm, where the team struggles and objectives are so deep-rooted, the situations appear to be very, very bleak.

Regards,
mrmufin

[DanMRaymond]

The other day on the news I was watching a short segment on a goat and a rhinocerous that live together in a zoo. They snuggle up together and everything, its real cute. That's some fun stuff

[DanMRaymond]

I think that before we even think of working on peace between countries, we need to address the issue of racism within our own countries. The situation is horrible in the US. There are TONS of hate groups and the KKK is still around. It's a very real problem that continues to be ignored. If we can't even settle shit in our own countries than we'll never settle international disputes between different races / religions

[Dilettante]

I think DanMRaymond may have uncovered the crux of the matter. It's not so much conflict between nations, but between cultures (by cultures meaning worldviews or Weltaunschaung for those who like German words). Unfortunately different worldviews tend to be irreconciliable with one another (save a few exceptions). That may be why war seems to be inseparable from human culture. Before different cultures existed, there could hardly be any wars. Once different / opposing cultures or worldviews come into existence, conflict--sometimes violent conflict-- arises. Even though each human language may be said to lead to its own worldview, sometimes the cultures are too close for conflict to arise (the Swiss speak several languages and remain united--however this may be because every Swiss person I ever met spoke at least two fluently and just enough of a third one to get by, so he or she were part of more than one culture). For example, Western Europe contains different cultures, but those cultures share enough of a common basis for conflict to be averted.
Of course even people who speak the same language may have opposing worldviews and be based on opposing myths.

On the other hand, wherever cultures contradict one or more among each other's basic tenets, they clash violently. The conflict may be repressed for a long time (like in the former Yugoslavia) but it is latent and may be detonated rather easily. So the wolf may lie with the lamb for a while, but the lamb will have to be a very light sleeper if she wants to survive!

[QED]

Isaiah 11:6-9 paints a picture which would delight any multiculturalist: "The wolf will lie with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea".

OK, so look at the activities this portrays: We have predators maintaining their existence by preying on other creatures, and snakes who on perceiving a threat respond in the same way that has resulted in the maintenance of snakes. So what of humans?

While we don't often go after each other as a source of food, we do go out to harm others and we react if we are threatened. Both those are effectively one and the same thing because random, unmotivated attacks are far more rare by comparison.

So I suggest that it is "a reaction to a perceived threat" which motivates most human conflict. This might seem to be contradicted by certain apocalyptic historical events, but I'd argue that even our most aggressive collective actions are ultimately rooted in paranoia rather than anything else.

I'm almost afraid to say it here (because it follows from evolution by natural selection), but it is very clear in my mind that anything that helps divide humans into different camps, is going to inevitably result in a continuation of conflict. Inevitably - because you can't undo ten million years of human evolution overnight. Let me explain this by example:

Obesity through excessive consumption of fats and sugars... For most of human existence these rare foodstuffs were highly valuable for our metabolism. To make sure our bodies got enough of these hard to get foodstuffs, we developed a particularly strong taste for them. Now that we have all too easy access to them, the taste is still there but the lack of supply problems mean that we readily overdose.

The same thing can be read into our intrinsic nature when it comes to aggression. The origin of aggression resulted from a totally different set of conditions to those prevailing today. But it is firmly rooted in our nature and will continue to be so until such time as we can adapt ourselves away from it. By continuing to present each other with something to fear, we continue to deny this adaptation away from the undesirable.

I will not go into those things that I consider to perpetuate such fears, I anticipate that there may be other that might like to express their own opinions.