Beyond The Headlines Travis Roelfs   © Copyright 2007 by Travis Roelfs

“American Death Toll in Iraq Reaches 3,000 Mark”

“Islamic Extremism on the Rise”

“Government Sanctioned Genocide in Darfur Displaces Millions”

 These are the sorts of headlines that dominate the front pages of our newspapers.

Pedophiles are stalking your children. School shootings are on the rise. Terrorists are plotting the

downfall of Western civilization. In short, everyone has gone insane and the world is coming to

an end. Of course, if you have been around a while, you may have come to notice that the world

has been coming to an end for quite some time now. It is a very popular mantra for the media to

tout; namely, because the death and destruction sell so much better than peace and

reconciliation.

            This distortion of information is great for business. It is not so great for human morale.

85% of Americans reportedly feel that America is equally or more dangerous today than it was

following 9/11, despite the lack of a single terrorist attack in the past five years (“Poll: Many

Americans Feel Less Safe”). A survey commissioned by International Alert in Britain found that

nearly three fourths (74%) of citizens felt that the world is more violent today than it was 50

years ago, with another 63% convinced that the world will deteriorate more in the future.

(“YouGov Survey)

                                          The trend to peace

Luckily, opinion polls are not an accurate reflection of the actual state of society. Here are the facts:

“-The number of armed conflicts around the world has declined by more than 40%
since the early 1990s
-Between 1991 (the high point for the post–World War II period) and 2004, 28
 armed struggles for self-determination started or restarted, while 43 were contained
 or ended.
-There were just 25 armed secessionist conflicts under way in 2004, the lowest
number since 1976
-The number of genocides and politi-cides plummeted by 80% between the 1988
high point and 2001
-International crises, often harbingers of war, declined by more than 70%
between 1981 and 2001
-The dollar value of major international arms trans-fers fell by 33% between 19
90 and 2004
-The numberof refugees dropped by some 45% between 1992 and 2003
-Five out of six regions in the developing world saw a net decrease in core human
           rights abuses between 1994 and 2003"
(Human Security Center 1-170)

            The Human Security Report is a massive research undertaking, compiling information

from dozens of human rights organizations across the globe. It’s three year, 2.5 million dollar

project culminated in the publishing of the Human Security Report 2005; a landmark (albeit little

known) publication, the findings of which came as a surprise to many in the world community.

Inter-nation wars, civil wars, genocides, politi-cides, international crisis, and human rights

abuses, and military coups have been on a steep decline ever since the end of the Cold War.

The biological roots of human conflict

            Conflict is a natural extension of our own innate survival instinct. The evolutionary

motive for every organism on the planet is to pass on it's genes. This is a selfish, egotistical

motive-and rightly so, for this is the engine that makes life on earth possible. Were it not for the

ego-centric competition that takes place among populations, life on earth would never have

progressed beyond the single-celled amoeba.

            Competition is essential in the animal world, for it not only ensures that the strongest

survive, but also gives the individual organism an incentive to better itself. An animal

community that has no aspect of competition will stagnate, and the individuals of this

community will perish when another species fighting for survival comes along.

            Humans have always had to compete. Unfortunately, competition often takes the form of

armed conflict. While such hatred and bloodshed is often characterized as unique to “evil”

human nature, fighting over resources, power/dominance, and cultural/anatomical differences is

quite common in the animal kingdom. Chimps have been documented beating members of

competing groups to death. Lions, Hyenas, and African Wild Dogs often engage in grisly battles

when food on the savannah grows thin. Certain species of ants actually enslave one another, in a

fashion strikingly similar to past forms of human slavery. Competition between organisms is to

be expected, and humans are not above using violence as a method of survival. The most

significant factor to consider in terms of the debate over human conflict is the scale upon which

our competition has traditionally taken place.

            Original humans, by all indications, were solitary creatures, competing on a one on one

basis. The birth of human society came about when certain humans began to seek an advantage

by banding together into units. A group of humans has an obvious advantage over a single

person, but only if the individuals of this group show favoritism for the members of their

respective clan, and is willing to do what it takes to ensure the well being of their unit (which

often means killing members of other groups). By aiding and cooperating with members of

exclusively one’s own group, the members have a better chance at gaining an advantage over

outside individuals/groups, leaving the members of this group to more easily fulfil their central

motive (self-propagation).

            Over time, these groups have gotten bigger. For example, clan A, who might have once

discriminated/competed against clan B, may gradually seek to assimilate the members of clan B

in order to gain an advantage over clan C. Under this principle, human society has gone from an

individual basis, to a family basis, to groups, to communities, to tribes, and finally to nations.

(“History of the World”)

            While such competition may seem grisly on the surface, I believe that the scenario that I

have described has very rosy implications for the future of human society. The trend over the

centuries is that tolerant societies typically win out, and social structures have become bigger

and bigger over time. What sort of social structure is both bigger and more tolerant than the

current human society unit (the nation-state)? A unified global state.

                                        Liberalism and its harbingers

            There are quite a few distinct differences between a liberal society and a conservative

one. However, as far as this paper is concerned, there are only one principle difference:

Conservative societies go to war against their neighbor. Liberal ones do not.

            If you have noticed, the United States is not (and has rarely ever been) a region of

warring factions. Since the European colonization of the Americas, our nation has housed a vast

diversity of people, each with equally diverse religious views. On the other hand, when you

consider all the past and present nations who have had a tendency to religious/ethnic conflict

(Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan), the makeup of society is just the opposite. In Iraq, you are either a Sunni,

or a Shiite. In Rwanda and Burundi, you are either a Hutu or a Tutsi.

            The more diverse a society, the more tolerant and liberal it is. Personal differences are

not so divisive when everyone is different (such as in America). The more analogous a society,

the more conservative. If almost everyone in the community exhibits the same traits, but there is

this minority group on the other side of town who does not conform to the norm, this minority

starts to look pretty threatening to the majority, whose scope of acceptability is narrow. Add a

little ethnic/religious misunderstanding or a government conspiracy to the equation, and violence

is almost inevitable. If you examine the cultures of the world, you will find that this rule is

almost without exception.

            If it is prolonged exposure to diverse people, beliefs, and cultures that breeds a liberal

viewpoint, how is it that people in even the most remote corners of the planet are now becoming

culturally savvy? The two major factors are technological expansion and globalization.

            The explosion of technological advances over the past few decades has resulted in what

Thomas Friedman would call a “flat world”. The world of today is indeed much smaller than the

one of our grandparents. With the advent of the internet, new cultures and ideas are just a few

clicks away. The increasing diffusion of televisions throughout the world, coupled with the

booming media business, brings different viewpoints into households on a regular basis.

Communications technology is connecting people as never before. I have personally talked to

and befriended people as far away as Germany and Australia. All this technology makes

increasing collaboration between individuals of different parts of the globe ever more profitable.

Globalization accounts for the immigration of millions yearly, meaning that cultural diffusion is

not happening solely through wires and cables, but on the home front as well.

It is all ready happening: Contemporary advances towards a more unified global state.

 Collaboration between governments: The utopian dream of global unification typically

involves the vison of nations tearing down their borders and uniting under a single government.

While the number of internationally recognized independent nations still remains fairly

consistent (currently residing at 192), we are seeing a similar phenomena of cooperation. The

European Union and United Nations are two prime examples of nations cooperating towards

similar goals.

            The European Union was created in 1992, and currently encompasses 27 member states.

After centuries of competing against one another, the nations of Europe decided to take a new

approach towards prosperity- cooperation. All member states have adopted a common trade,

agricultural, and regional policies, creating what has now become the most powerful economic

entity on earth.

            The United Nations represents the closest thing we currently have to a united global state.

With the induction of Switzerland in 2002, it’s members currently include every single

independent government on earth (besides Vatican City). The crisis resolutions and conflict

intervention provided by the UN is what the Human Security Center credits as the greatest

positive force in declining human conflicts.
(Human Security Center 155-170).

            Collaboration between individuals: Globalization does more than spread culture- it also

unites individuals in the pursuit of similar goals. Not much needs be said regarding the

increasingly obvious business collaborations between companies in the west and laborers in

places like East Asia, Europe, and to a lesser extent, South and Latin America. Less obvious is

the effect it makes in intergovernmental relations. “The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention”,

outlined by Thomas Friedman, notes that no two nations with businesses collaborating in a major

supply chain have ever gone to war against one another. The logic behind this is thus- that the

vast economic damage that would inevitably result from such a war overrides any incentive to go

to war in the first place.

(Friedman 467-475)

            Increasing political alignment: Cooperation between nations is more difficult when

dealing with disparate political systems. If the current trends hold, this will become less and less

of a problem in the future- democracy is taking over the world. The Polity data series, which

ranks world democracies, notes that the number of democracies scoring above an “8 on the

democracy scale has risen from zero 200 years ago, to 65 today, including a 25 nation jump just

in the last fifteen years (“Polity IV Project”). Freedom House’s recent ranking of personal

freedoms is perhaps even more encouraging. In just 35 years the number of “free” nations has

nearly doubled, while the number of nations considered “not free” has fallen nearly two fold.
(“Freedom in the World”)

                                                            The biggest factor

“70% of respondents said that religious differences are the greatest harbingers of conflict”
(“YouGov Survey”)

            In this case, the polls respondents are probably right. It has been established that cultural

differences are the most common instigant of war. Since the dominating aspects of individual

cultures usually revolves around their religion (beliefs, morals, traditions, dress, customs,

politicalideology), it makes sense that religion should play a great part in human conflicts. Most

peace advocates view religious uniformity as the utopian ideal. While it is unlikely that everyone

in the world is going to suddenly jump over to one religion, this uniformity is manifesting in

other ways.

            Religion evolves. It undergoes natural selection like any animal would in a biological

system. However, instead of entire religions winning out, it is often specific beliefs within those

religions that do the winning and losing. Beliefs from various different religions have tended to

meld together over the centuries, with the same sort of phenomena happening today.

            The trend over the past few centuries has been a growing number of religious sects, not a

unification of the existing ones. However, what you begin to notice about these different sects is

that, although they are greater in number now than they were in generations past, there is much

less disparity between their beliefs.

            Advances in technology and commerce over the past centuries have had significant

effects on people's worldviews. Newer modes of communication have allowed ideas that were

once confined to specific geographic regions to transverse the entire globe. Consequently, most

religions, whether consciously or by matter of influence, have begun to adopt concepts of

disparate world views.

            This trend of religious diversifying will likely continue for many years to come. At some

point, however, worldviews will have intermingled so extensively that there will be no telling

one religion apart from another. At this point, religious boundaries will disappear altogether.

In our age of mass media, globalization, and the internet, people are becoming subjected to a

greater and greater amount of new ideas. Before these idea/culture exchange venues existed,

isolated societies knew very little of the various different religious views. This is significant,

because naturally, the less we know about something, the more likely we are to fear and hate it.

Now that our cultures are more diverse (and people can see first hand that these differing

customs are not really not so evil), tolerance is increasing tenfold. Religious violence,

consequently, must logically be decreasing as well.

            Three-quarters of Americans say that many religions can lead to eternal life, compared

with only 18 percent who regard their own religion as the “one true faith.”
(“Americans Struggle with Religion's Role at Home and Abroad”)

To me, this is astounding. Here we have America, the most conservative Protestant industrialized

nation on Earth, and 75% of our citizens say that there are many different ways to eternal life.

Think about what this number would have been, say, before the civil rights movement. 2%? 3%?

            People are becoming more tolerant, there is no escaping that. In fact, the only region on

Earth that has not become significantly more tolerant is the Middle East, where idea exchange

and cultural diversity is very limited. It is here that you see the vast majority of religious

violence. HOWEVER, even here we can see some progress. Many Mid East Muslim youths

have taken up Western clothing and music fads, and female Muslim youth are, for the first time,

challenging the wearing of their traditional head garments.

            Many Christians, increasingly exposed to Eastern philosophy, have taken up the practice

of things such as meditation in addition to their Christian traditions. Such people are much less

likely to view Buddhism as the enemy , or evil , as there is an inherent comradery in the sharing

of similar beliefs. Muslims and Hindu's living in the same society, partaking in the same political

system, and walking the same streets will no doubt rub off on one another. This is marked by the

increase of more inclusive religions; those congregations that, in lue of the increasing diversity

around them, no longer view absolute truth as being so absolute.

                                                                        Conclusion

           I recently interviewed a group of twenty random people, asking all the same question. “Is

our present day world a more peaceful place than the world of our parents?” Four yes’s and

sixteen no’s later, I concluded that something really must be done. What is the use of a peaceful

world if there is no one to appreciate it?

 Was my question a matter of opinion, or is there really a right answer? The statistics

don’t seem to stutter. Where there is diversity, there is tolerance, and where there is tolerance,

there is peace. That has been the trend ever since communications technology (embodied in

things such as the internet, mass transit, and globalization) has started significantly bringing

people (and worldviews) together. While the world map still depicts stark national boundaries,

these arbitrary lines are becoming increasingly meaningless.

                                                     Works Cited
Americans Struggle with Religion's Role at Home and Abroad.
      The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 20 Mar 2002. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
28 Mar 2007 <http://pewforum.org/press/index.php?ReleaseID=13>.

Center for International Development and Conflict Managment, Polity IV Project. cidcm. 0 Jan
      2004. Center for International Development and Conflict Managment. 3 Apr 2007                           <http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/polity/>.

Freedom in the World. Wikipedia. 2007. 3 Apr 2007  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Freedom_House_Country_Rankings_1972-2005.png>.

Friedman, Thomas. The World is Flat. 1st. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.

History of the World. Wikipedia. Wikipedia. 28 Mar 2007                                                                                <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_world>.

Human Security Center, Human Security Report. 2005. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Poll: Many Americans Feel Less Safe. CBS News. 6 Sep 2006. CBS News. 28 Mar 2007                              <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/06/opinion/polls/main1975940.shtml>.

Smith, Dan. YouGov survey. International Alert. 21 Sept 2006. International Alert. 28 Mar 2007                 <http://www.international-alert.org/press/article.php?id=59>.
 
 

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