Know your Enemy
The real Enemies of Peace
Enemy # 1 is Nationalized Pathological Narcissism going unrecognized as Social Disease
Social Disease can be psychological as well as physical. Throughout history nationalized pathological narcissism has gone unrecognized as Social Disease. Why is this? Because our main religious beliefs are based on religious pathological grandiose narcissism and that basic influence over our public beliefs and behavior has allowed pathological grandiose narcissists to rise in power without effective counter social intelligence being able to stop it. Look at Moses, at Paul, at Muhammad, at Joseph Smith and a dozen other pathological grandiose narcissist religious founders who's behavior was and is accepted as "normal" for such cultural heroes. But they all said, "Our Way or the highway" and they all caused wars of territorial conquest in which millions have perished for our Abrahamic religion's lack of empathy for non-believers who thus become acceptable targets to persecute and kill.
Whenever a pathological narcissist with grandiose religious or political ambitions succeeds in forming a large cult following one can expect the narcissist to seek the highest office available and from such a position dictate his wishes to power and control to as many people as he can possibly reach through his already established fans, especially the ones with money that can be used to buy political influence. Territorial expansion is the power and fame hungry pathological narcissist's goal so always expect a pathological grandiose narcissistic leader to attempt territorial conquest once in office. Also expect any political rights to be taken away that might prevent succession to political office, such as democratic voting rights with which foes of the narcissist leader might be elected.
Enemy # 2 is testosterone-driven Male Territorial Aggression inherited from our animal past.
For most of humanities existence our species has been dominated by aggressive men seeking territorial expansion. Our human societies have been culturally programmed to enable aggressive men to rise to social power positions by letting them organize first village raiding parties of lesser dominate status men, then as such men figured out how to increase their social power through organizing larger raiding groups that eventually became armies of men with themselves as leaders of the whole community. For thousands of years aggressive leaders used and still use terror as their weapon of choice to dominate their lesser status peers and the whole community subject to their whims and desires. Finally rationality overthrow brute force and humankind started recognizing good leaders had to have more than brute strength to lead a community through all the problems communities of human beings have to face. Wisdom became more important than just brute strength.
But even in our so-called "modern" times the Strong Man is still sought out by community members fearful of social challenges their cultural background never adequately prepared them for. Fearful people look for Authoritarian Figure to tell them what to do, how to think, because they are afraid to trust themselves or anyone who looks too weak to deal with tough decisions. The historical progression to Wise Leadership is still going on in our times as less educated populations still seek the Strong Man leader so they don't have to think or do anything themselves to figure how best to deal with tough social choices.
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is institutionalized male territorial aggression. Women are easily terrorized by physically stronger males in societies where male territorial domination becomes embedded within the legal, political, economic, educational, technological and cultural organization. Such patriarchal societies form hierarchal social organization where men will dominate most every aspect of society including controlling women's traditional roles and their even their bodies. Women become chattel and commodities. Successful women in patriarchal societies must become like men, aggressive and dominating. The softness of femininity is subservient to power politics which require empathy be squashed. Only when the Divine Feminine is restored to the Godhead will Abrahamic, Hindu, Buddhist, most all of the rest of your organized religions are all male dominated. Meanwhile, we would do well to balance every social governing body so women can overthrow the hideous overflow of Yang energy that permeates patriarchal societies and so easily gets out of hand to become violent.
Biological Warfare disguised as Racism
Liberals haven't really been paying attention to the historical fact that racism never seems to go away no matter how "progressive" social education becomes. Some nations have succeeded in reducing overt racist behavior by their citizens but it still lingers underneath and always returns when social crisis reawaken old racist paranoia. The Scandinavian countries were known for their racial tolerance..until Muslim immigrant communities started acting up. Why is this true? Because all species are subject to inherent species survival behavioral patterns that have worked in the past to keep a species from going extinct. Varieties of species have the same kind of inherent species protection behavioral pattern and races of human beings are varieties of the species, homo sapiens. Each race has their build in species protection behavior and this gets challenged when different races are forced by circumstances to live cooperatively with each other instead of fighting each other, competing for dominate or even complete territorial control, i.e., race wars from ethnic cleansing. This is why even in the 21st Century where racial prejudice has been outlawed by most all industrial societies it still continues to reoccur. And this is why we need to have a different strategy than blanket prohibition to deal with racism. The "Melting Pot" ideal is a myth. Affinity grouping is the social reality. People want to live around people they identify with, not strangers. Forcing people to live with people they do not see as part of their community only creates social conflict. It never resolves it.
Enemy #3 is Cultural enabling of pathological grandiose narcissistic leadership.
Pathological grandiose narcissistic leadership has been both a blessing and a curse to human development. The narcissistic personality seems to go with men seeking leadership positions which means each such led community will at some point have to deal with how to get rid of these aggressively ambitious men once they prove their self-obsession inevitably becomes a blockade to community cohesion. But they leave their mark which is exploitation of our inherent social propensity to follow the leader without question. Those that do question must face the power of the entrenched narcissist who lacking empathy naturally goes on the attack to rid competition for control. Overcoming human attraction to Strong Man leadership that can be positive in the initial establishment of order but can so very easily turn negative for the actual well-being of each community is the nut we must conquer before we can establish lasting peaceful coexistence between differing ethnic communities. Since this is an important topic to Peace activism I've addressed it in several places as you will discover.
Enemy #3 is Educational disadvantage and resulting disparity between communities, states and nations.
Non-industrialized societies around the world are still producing people who think medievally, that is they think emotionally instead of rationally. They are highly subject to political manipulation by leaders who will exploit their gullibility to following the leader no matter where they tell you to go. These people aren't looking for truth but for Authority to tell them how to think and act, doing such on their own can be too frightening and confusing when issues are complex. Oddly enough, America has been quietly producing medieval thinking citizens in the rural areas of the U.S. who lack the educational and cultural advantages of big cities. This has produced a Cultural War twice now in American history. The first time was the Civil War where the rural South prized its White Christian Nationalist Way of Life which relied heavily on slave labor to function. The North took a stand against slavery and that set off the Civil War. Things calmed sort of after the South was defeated and White Christian Nationalism simmered but never went away, popping up again and again in the South and throughout the US, being carried on mainly by police agencies in most every American town and city making sure non-White Americans knew their place in the back of the bus. Only education overcomes the rural slide into medieval thinking. Social Media does nothing to help educate people because there are no standards of truth for posting whatever you think on the Internet.
Enemy #4 is Global Economic Inequality giving rise to a 1% minority owning most of the world's wealth. Capitalism is narcissistic at its core and promotes lack of empathy for the victims of capitalist dystopian distribution of society's goods and services.
It's like Science Fiction where feudal system galactic overlords run whole worlds and really, it's quite bizarre for supposedly "advanced" industrial civilization. But that's our world in the early 21st Century on the brink of ecological disaster. How did we let this happen? It was the inevitable outcome of letting economic democracy lag far behind political democracy in industrial nations. The old Feudal aristocracies have morphed into modern capitalist dynasties and their control over the rest of us makes us just like serfs and peasants in a world where they lack any real means to control their own lives. I mean, can you stop telemarketing phone calls that no one likes yet these daily jabs by the corporate kings show you who's The Man and it ain't you, babe.
Enemy #5 is Global Warming and its effects on poor communities unable to combat it and rich communities unwilling to face their global responsibility.
If rationality ruled nations they all would unite together to combat Global Warming. All other conflicts would be set aside to concentrate on international cooperation in working to end Global Warming. But this isn't happening, not yet at least, but inevitably it will because human survival will eventually trump corporate greed and military imperialism, it's just a matter of time.