How many people in the world truly want peace?

Zsolt Hermann
3 min readSep 14, 2024

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At first glance, the idea of peace seems universally appealing, something that all of humanity would inherently desire. However, when we delve deeper into our nature and the structure of the world, we come to a rather surprising conclusion: none of us truly want peace, at least not in the way we tend to imagine it.

Human nature, by default, is 100% egocentric, self-serving, and subjective. We are driven by a system of individualistic “pleasure-pain” calculations, which means we are primarily focused on our own well-being and that of our immediate loved ones. In this state, we cannot even perceive what true peace is, because our desires are rooted in personal gain, often at the expense of others. We interpret peace through this narrow lens, unable to comprehend the broader and more selfless concept of peace on a collective level.

The Hebrew word for peace, “Shalom,” is derived from the term “Shlemut,” meaning wholeness or completeness. True peace is not merely the absence of conflict; rather, it is a harmonious state where diverse, even opposing elements come together to form a single, functioning system. In this state, each component complements the others, working in service of the greater whole. We can observe this form of peace in nature, for example, within our own biological bodies, where diverse organs, cells, and subsystems work in perfect harmony to sustain life.

Yet, despite nature providing this beautiful example of integration, human beings are far from being naturally inclined toward such wholeness. We are programmed for ruthless competition, conflict, and war. Our history is a testament to this, an endless cycle of battles, disagreements, and power struggles. Thus, the idea that there are “peace-loving” people in the world, separate from those who desire conflict, is misleading. In reality, we are all part of the same flawed system.

If we genuinely wish to pursue peace, we must first acknowledge that we are unsuited for it in our current state. We must come to a humble recognition of our inherently destructive, “cancer-like” nature and then develop a deep, genuine yearning for change. Only through conscious self-development and internal transformation can we begin to approach a state of true peace. This means turning inward, confronting the “evil warmonger” inside each of us, and accepting the need to change ourselves before we can hope to change the world.

Once we undergo this process of self-correction, we might find that our perception of the world shifts dramatically. Perhaps the rest of humanity has already been prepared for peace, and it is only our own internal struggles that prevent us from seeing it. In this sense, the desire for peace becomes not a question of how many people want it but rather a reflection of how many are willing to change themselves to achieve it.

Ultimately, peace is not an external goal that we can strive for without first addressing our inner selves. It is only when we commit to this inner transformation that we can begin to understand and experience the true meaning of peace and, in doing so, discover that the world may have been ready for peace all along.

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Zsolt Hermann
Zsolt Hermann

Written by Zsolt Hermann

I am a Hungarian-born Orthopedic surgeon presently living in New Zealand, with a profound interest in how mutually integrated living systems work.

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