People

What are people? Humans? Sentient beings? Animals? Traditionally, people has meant exclusively humans, largely because of our ignorance of any other intelligent life. Discovery of such life would require a revision in our definition of people. Which brings me to my main point.

Whatever people are, all humans are certainly people. But they are not all always treated like people. The poor, the homeless, the minority, the refugee, the immigrant, the diseased, etc. are all classes of people that have been historically treated as somehow below people, as though they belonged to a sub-class species that are somehow distinct from humanity. But black/white, Chinese/Canadian, poor/rich, native/immigrant, we are all humans, and we are all people. Its time we were all treated as such.

You can bet that if and when we ever do discover another sentient race, the tables will turn. Instead of petty human squabbles over very arbitrary distinctions we make between each other, we would band together as a species and have petty squabbles with the new race we encountered. This is not in any sense admirable, but is at least progress. What I propose is that we recognize, without the crutch of a new species, that we are all people, all humans, and that the distinctions between us are really quite slight. We have different jobs, different histories, and different lifestyles, but at the end of the day, we all just want to live a good life for ourselves and the people we love. What causes conflict is hubris, hatred, fear, and so-called "realist" judgments made based on the existence of these evils. If we all realize that we all just want to be allowed to live and pursue our happiness, we could stop racism, intolerance, war and violence by just allowing each other to live.

Remember that the purpose of our life is to create more, better life. Violence does not help us accomplish this, but rather hinders it. There are times when violence may be necessary to defend against aggression, but it is a temporary solution. The cause of the aggression remains, even if the particular act has been halted. Rather than seeking violent means to our ends, which separate us from each other, creating an "us vs. them" mentality, we should realize that we all are included in "us;" "them" is an arbitrary distinction, and an unnecessary one at that. If we stripped it from our world, and united as one "us," with one common goal of "live and let live," we could all pursue our own happiness, and we could advance our species into something truly great.

Love thy enemy, and he shall no longer be an enemy, but a misguided friend.