Inside the Fog,

We are often asked to show compassion, demonstrate ethical behavior and show kindness to others. Society, in general wants to see this from us, but on a more direct level our teachers, parents, and quite often peers demand thus from us. While ethics and kindness are all nice and good, these demands go against human nature.

First understand that everything a person does is motivated, at its origin, by that persons self interest. This can be as “selfless” as just wanting to make someone else happy, but they still did that “selfless” thing because THEY wanted something. The lowest common denominator in all human action is preserving ones self.

Once we understand that we can turn iur attention to what self preservation looks like and why. There is no arguing that people do plenty of totally nice things for other people. These things often have no clear benefit to the person commiting the acts of kindness, so then why do they do it? Well humans have a natural predesposition for being nice to other people. This because of the all to obvious reason that if we had no concious, no morals deeply rooted into our born-with sense of right and wrong then it would be diffacult, if not impossible for the human race to srvive. Now, this is where the point of this essay, the impossibility of world peace, or really any peace, comes in.

There are fundementally two types of people. Well, that isn’t true but for the specific point of this essay, how humans deal with conflict, it is. Fight and flight. We are taught that these are the two ways that humans, and animals, deal with conflict. The way it is taught would suggest that in ecery situation your brain analyzes what to do and chooses either to “fight” or “flee.” On its premise this idea is silly. Most people encounter thousands of problems everyday and there is not a choice being made for every problem as it comes up. You are born with a strog tendency to either fight, or flee. While the people who flee may survive, they rarely win anything, because if you don’t even try to win a fight, you will not win. Those who are presidposed to fight are always the winners (unless they die). While dying is quite serious that has nothing to do with the fact that all of those at the top are “fighters.” What do I mean by “the top?” Im referrig to the leaders of countries and those in charge of major companies. In essence, anyone who had to confront other strong-willed people and step on them to reach where they are.

If you havent picked up on it yet, let me articulate my point. All people try to look out for their own self interest. Try to survive, at the most basic level, to stay alive. Those who “flee” are those who are more inclined to shy away from conflict and look for peaceful solutions to problems. They do this because they believe that peace is the most effective and the best way to survive. Those who “fight” are those who are inclined to use force in a conflict and to confront their opponent. This is why the fighters are at the top, because they are willing to do things that are not peaceful and are not ethical in order to get to the top. Those who flee cannot usually make it to the top. For this reasons we have a world that is controlled by people whose first instinct is to fight and who, to be quite honest don’t believe in, nor desire peace. The reason that we are put off by this, is that, it would seem most of us are more interested in peace and are not “fighters.” This means that the majority of the world population desires peace but it can never be achieved.