Overcoming hate with love, war with peace

A question from the Internet:

“Is it true that war is normal and natural for humans?”

Human beings are all born with a 100% self-serving, self-justifying, egocentric, and exploitative nature. Knowingly or unknowingly, we all succeed at the expense of each other, especially since we have evolved into a globally integrated and interdependent world.

From early childhood, we are taught to live and pursue our interests through ruthless and exclusive competition, which we can observe through games, board games, computer games, different competitions, sports, business, and politics, not to mention military conflicts.

Our main social activities are identifying ourselves with certain groups, ideologies, parties, and sports teams and then working, rooting, and aggressively acting against other such groups and identifications.

Although we also have innate abilities for love, connections, and compassion toward others, our aggressive and egoistic inclinations vastly overpower our positive and “soft” side in most, if not all, people.

This is why conflict and war is “natural” for humans. This is why human history is an endless and recurring cycle of conflicts, wars, and violence. This is why humanity is now heading towards a seemingly inevitable and imminent self-destruction.

Our future and our collective survival depend on practically, consciously, and purposefully learning how to strengthen the “good and loving” side in us through a unique method so it can neutralize and complement our “aggressive” side in a way that we can use even the incredible power of the selfish ego for positive, constructive and mutually beneficial actions, intentions and goals.

For this, first of all, we need to recognize the aggressive and exploitative ego directing and governing all our thoughts and actions most of the time. We also need to develop a true and irrepressible “dislike” of our own ego — instead of venting our frustration and anger against others, blaming others for the problems we encounter. Then, we will develop a true desire and need to change and further develop ourselves until we can develop and strengthen our “good and positive” side that is capable of loving and serving others above and against our instinctively much stronger negative side.

We cannot suppress or erase anything in us. We have no way of suppressing or erasing our ego, which constantly grows and becomes increasingly demanding and destructive. But we can develop and strengthen the dormant positive side in us through mutual support and mutually complementing cooperation in a unique environment, and this way, we can become “complete” on both — negative and positive — sides with the ability to balance them in a way that the positive “loving” side becomes dominant.