Everyone wants a good world. But what does that mean?

It’s amazing that people get along at all. We all want different things. Even though, superficially, it seems like we all want the same things. But while we want similar things for ourselves, we don’t always care so much about how things are for others. Especially our enemies.

It’s kind of weird, and unfortunate, that so many people still see life as basically a conflict between enemies. Old enmities tend to last a long time, especially across nations, languages, and cultures. There are many barriers to understanding.

It only takes one side to keep hostilities going. When two peoples have become enemies, there are always a few who will never reconcile.

Some people want peace. Other people want conflict. Some don’t care. This is true in every culture. As time passes, different factions gain and lose influence. When the antagonistic gain power, they will usually take the opportunity to inflame hatred and engage in violence. The cycle repeats, and it seems like things will never get better.

Violence is always an option, and someone always benefits. Some people don’t care who suffers, as long as they prosper. Does anyone know how to change that? Will it ever change?

Some people are naturally distrustful and suspicious. Some are expedient. Some can turn off their empathy. Others don’t have any. Still others are sadistic: others’ suffering gives them satisfaction.

We all have enemies. And we all dehumanize them. So how can we have a good world, if each of us can tolerate misery and suffering in someone else? Either because we don’t know them, or because we know them too well.

The only solution is to transcend our suspicions, our apathy, our prejudice, and our sadism. Many people have presented many arguments for why we should transcend our tendencies to hostility. But that requires a special kind of self-awareness. It is difficult to acquire, and its benefits are not obvious to those who haven’t seen first-hand evidence of why it is good.

Once a person has committed to an antagonistic attitude, it often becomes part of their indentity. People are highly resistent to changing their identity. Some people do, but the preconditions for that are complicated, and difficult to contrive. It tends to happen spontaneously and unexpectedly. It is often obstructed by stagnant social networks that trap us in old ways of thinking and seeing.

It’s horrifying to watch the world struggle with a new outburst of hatred and antagonistic attitudes. But the seeds of hatred always lie dormant. Its choking tendrils wind through our societies and everyday relationships. There are always those individuals who nurse grievances and resentments, whether in their memories or past slights, or freshly born of envy and jealousy.

We may argue that the world is on the cusp of post-scarcity. That lack of food, water, shelter, and the rest are, now, purely artificial. We have vast—incomprehensible—material wealth. There should be—there is—enough for everybody.

Maybe, as far as it goes. But other things are still scarce. Non-material things. Relative things. Like attention, recognition, honour and power. We love to rank and rate people. We habitually appoint a few people to be special. Everyone else become inconsequential and irrelevant. We compete for love, but love—and its various analogues—is distributed very unevenly. All other inequalities stem from that.

Can you imagine a world where people don’t play favourites, and no one is left out, left alone, left without? As long as we have hierarchies of power, prestige, fame, and honour, we will have large numbers of people who feel slighted, unjustly mistreated, and angry about life’s unfairness. Most of the neglected will simply feel bad. But a few will react badly.

Then there are those rare individuals who can transform their grievances and resentments into power and influence. They learn to channel the anger and frustration of all those who feel that life has treated them unfairly. They awaken in them the hope for punishment and revenge. They become a living symbol. And violence becomes almost inevitable.

Perhaps one day, everyone will be loved. They will feel loved. And maybe that will be enough. And when it isn’t; when the can’t feel it—perhaps due to illness or injury—we will have the power to heal them. But that day seems to be far away.