by Mr. H. Wlan

Created on: March 19, 2007   Last Updated: November 22, 2010

Question: Why is "there so much war, famine, hatred, and evil in the world"?

Answer:
1) Fear.
2) An innate human desire/need to accumulate and control resources.
3) The basic self-centeredness of human nature.

Human beings (as collective groups and as individuals) fear things they do not understand. They also fear not having control of sufficient and sustainable resources. We as a species, also have self-centered tendencies when it comes to things that make us afraid and this selfish tendency also comes out when we need to acquire or accumulate resources of one kind or another.

These three ingredients combine to ensure a deadly cocktail of economic, gender, racial, and political inequality in the world we live in today. When these factors are not immediately resolved or sufficiently exacerbated (which happens all the time), they lead to war, famine, hatred, and selfish barbaric acts often referred to as "evil".

FEAR:
People fear things that are different from and outside of their own knowledge and environment. A basic and certainly not exhaustive list throughout history has included the following:

1) People of different races.
2) People who worship different Gods.
3) People who are more advanced (ambiguous term) or less advanced than they are.
4) People who think differently and have different values than they do.
5) People of a different sex.
6) People of a different sexual orientation.
7) People who have relationships and an understanding of things outside of what they know.
8) People who have more or fewer resources than they do.

Often, there is no reason to be fearful at all and an intelligent rational person would seek to explore, celebrate, or constructively deal with any differences. However, human beings have (depending on what theory you subscribe to) either an animalistic side or an "evil" nature.

Whatever label you wish to apply, different defense mechanisms arise when primordial beings are presented with things that they don't understand that make them afraid.

In the last century, this has included acts of genocide, war, criminal violence, theft, conspiracy, or just running away.

While fear is a key ingredient to many of the world's problems and certainly causes war, hatred and evil which, together, create more of the same, it is not the only one.

RESOURCES:

Any political science professor will tell you that at their simplest level, politics and government are about a battle to accumulate, control and distribute resources. What will be gained, how will it

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