Why do people protest for peace when most of them are disturbing it themselves? It is irrational, and it does not solve problems. Our world has become a twisted merry-go-round of violence which seems to be spinning out of control now more than ever. Building bigger guns and stronger nuclear weapons to kill our enemies will inevitably end the human race for that matter. Can we live in harmony, or is violence human nature?

With events such as the anniversary of 9/11 and the controversy with Syria, one can only blissfully daydream about what our world would be like if war and terrorism didn’t exist. 

Of course I know that the whole world will not join hands and sing kumbaya any time soon, but I feel as though our mentality of success is becoming more and more warped. Winning wars based on death tolls is sick. Our country is responsible for the deaths of countless innocent people who did nothing to us and vice versa. 

But the United States has been war crazed for years, beginning with the war that won its independence. The U.S. started 1-0 with the Revolutionary War, sending the confidence level of Americans skyrocketing. The revolutionaries were proud and that was great—we are still proud of them—but pride has brought us into more than a few issues over the years. 

We learn about war on the pages of our textbooks, and  words like “glory” and “war hero” are usually used to describe the situations and the people. Many aspects of U.S. culture have brainwashed citizens into believing that killing people is fun and powerful—just look at our videogames for proof. “Games” is the key word there—we have games such as “Call of Duty,” in which players gain points for killing other players. This teaches players to cheer for death.

Given the current state of the world, we will not know peace any time soon. Countries are consumed with issues rooted deep    v  in their culture, and we are all fighting to be the best. There is room in our world for all of the countries to be great, but not everyone in the world shares the same ideologies. And until we can either agree to follow one set of rules or accept our differences, we will remain in a disjointed state. 

We need to put all our weapons down and use our communication skills instead of our artillery skills. We need to trust that others won’t shoot us while our backs are turned and figure out valid solutions to our problems. My wants for the world are too implausible for our time, but if we continue to nurture a culture of acceptance, I think someday my goals will be close enough for us to reach.