And There Will Be Peace...Or Maybe Not

Welcome to another installment of secret subject swap. This week, 12 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. Links to all the blogs will be listed below. 

My “Secret Subject” is:

You have one opportunity to secure world peace. The only condition is it's based solely on what you're willing to sacrifice. If you make a big enough sacrifice, the world will have unending/eternal peace. Don't make a large enough sacrifice, things will continue as is. What sacrifice do you make? What sacrifice is just too big?

It was submitted by: http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/

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My fellow Bloggers, I feel that if every single person on this planet just had better understanding of what it’s like to walk in each other’s shoes, if we all were capable of a little more empathy, we could resolve every conflict that plagues our global community. If we could just spend some time gaining perspective on what each of our lives is worth, we could finally begin to see those conflicts resolve. With just a little more effort in understanding each other’s plights, we could finally attain something that is forever sought but always manages to elude us—world peace.

Sound like bullshit? It kind of is.

"World Peace" is an abstract term that really has no true meaning. I’m not saying that the idea of wanting world peace is a negative, hokey thing. It’s not. But when you think about it on a deeper level, the entire idea of it creates more questions than anything. What would world peace actually entail? Settlements to all human arguments? Squashing all religious strife? Resolving all social inequality making every human no matter what race, belief, gender, or sexuality completely equal in every society across the globe? Tackling all social issues that lead to any sort of strife? Closing the gap on income inequality? Ending world hunger? Giving everyone fresh drinking water and access to education? Establishing democracy and free market capitalism across the globe leading to the bigger question of whether or not democracy and capitalism encourage war? What does peace look like and entail for other cultures? Would it be the same? Would it be morally reprehensible to force one idea of peace on every culture worldwide?

See, here’s the thing… You can’t simply end all wars to establish world peace. There’s a reason that so many conflicts pop up continuously across the world. It takes more than resolving the disputes already in progress in order to have any modicum of peace. Those clashes have longstanding histories that have created out of control social issues that a wave of a magic wand would never touch unless humanity itself were changed. What part of the human condition across the board would have to be altered or subtracted or added to in order to make eternal world peace possible? Would we have to become mindless zombies that are no longer able to stand up to our governments or even each other? Would the collective progress of the world be stopped because people can no longer take risks that would lead to change? Could change exist in a world that is blanketed by peace or does change inherently come with strife and disagreements which threaten to unravel the docility of the world?

As great as world peace is in thought, I don’t think I can live in a world where change can’t happen. Some of the biggest changes that have played out in humanity were revolutionary, rebellious. Bloodshed was an unfortunate by-product of those revolutionary actions, but where would we be without them? Where would be without riots and coups? Where would peaceful protests have gotten the American Revolutionaries when it came time for this country’s independence? As much as it sucks to think of casualties as a necessity to progress, sometimes that’s the bitter truth of it. And, I don’t want to live in a world where that can’t happen. I don’t want to lose the part of my humanity that pushes me to right a wrong no matter the consequences.

So, to answer the question, I wouldn’t sacrifice anything for world peace. I do want a more peaceful world. To be clear. I want a more socially conscientious world with equality, where people aren’t dying of starvation every 4 seconds, where people have access to water—clean drinking water, where people have access to education and aren’t stoned to death for being raped. I want a culture here in America where black men aren’t 21 times more likely to be killed by police and where rioting is an option but maybe the unheard voices are fewer and fewer. I would and will devote my life to being a catalyst of social change…for fighting the good fight and being an ally, but there’s no sacrifice that I, a sole person, could ever make that would be enough to establish a world peace that I couldn’t fully believe in to begin with…

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Thanks for reading. I enjoyed the way this prompt made me think so I hope no one gets the feeling that I'm poking fun at it with my overanalyzed, non-answer to the question. This is simply the only answer I have for something I feel is such a highly complex discussion. Anyway, here are the links to the other blogs! Grab a cuppa and enjoy :)

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                          Baking In A Tornado

http://themomisodes.com                                       The Momisodes

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                          Spatulas on Parade

http://dinoheromommy.com/                            Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

 http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                        Stacy Sews and Schools

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/             The Bergham’s Life Chronicles 

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com               Evil Joy Speaks

http://www.JuiceboxConfession.com                    Juicebox Confession

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/                       Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.silenceofthemom.blogspot.com           Silence of the Mom

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                         Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                         Climaxed