How to Stop War

Maybe the key to stopping all future wars is in realizing that we are all different. It is in understanding those differences AND accepting those differences that we are able to live together. It is because this is so hard to do that war happens.

How can you accept values that are so different from yours? At the most basic level, people tend to put themselves in other people's shoes. But this could be the most fatal mistake that anyone can make.

No matter how hard you try to understand that person, no matter how you try to imagine yourself in that person's position, you can never be that person. You can never share what he feels, what he thinks, what he believes in, and the things he values most.

Saying someone is wrong... That can only be true by your own standards. Any person, to a great degree, will tend to do what is right and best by his own standards, regardless of the standards of society and ethics. Every person will do what he believes in is good, and though it may be hard to understand, good may involve killing, destroying, stealing, aside from the normal things we view 'good' as. This is because people have their own standard of 'good' in them.

Changing someone, because they are not 'good' by your own standards, is inciting a war.

-Contemplations on the Verge of Insanity