In the early 1970’s a pop/rock band called War released a song called “Why can’t we be friends” .  The song reached number eight on the billboard top 100.

I was reminded of the song during a discussion today about traveling around the world.  A colleague had recently returned from a vacation to Israel and of course this led to questions about personal safety and discussion of the dangers in that part of the world ensued.

It was commented how ideal it would be if we could move from country to country/ region to region without fear.   A noble ideal to be sure.  War’s song title came to my mind and I lamented “Why can’t we be friends”

Why can’t we be friends?

This is a legitimate question.  Personally I fear the answer lives within the very nature of being human.  If you believe the studies of Darwin, we are after all descendants of animals.  Basic survival instincts and  emotions  (admittedly honed through generations of evolution) remain no matter how civilized we become.  These feelings and emotions allow us to overlook the sanctity of life, to become enraged at others and to even harm them.

Our intellects allow us to twist political and religious concepts to justify unfriendly actions and feel good and righteous in doing so.

Civilization is just a man made artifact and there is a strong argument that since man made it, man can break it.   And does.

Is there hope for the human race?

Can we evolve to become peaceful entities that are able to universally and unilaterally answer the simple question about universal friendship in the affirmative, “Yes we can be friends without pause or exception”.  Can we then practice this concept totally and without fail?

All of this is feasible; However, I would postulate a major  change in the underlying nature of humans is needed to bring it about.

We can always dream.