Look down on people only to help them up

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping them up.
– Rev. Jesse Jackson

Nature provided us with the built-in tools to hurt each other, to discriminate against each other, to climb over each other to reach somewhere we want to go, to ignore or even to kill those among us who are weak.

In the animal kingdom, the system in which these tools of character are used is called the pecking order. The term comes from birds where the strongest or most influential of the flock tends to get the food it wants before the others.

The tools are components of our most important instinct, survival. We humans have proven that we can survive under the harshest and most severe conditions, including the widest possible range of climates of any animal, climate changes and natural tragedy.

We survive. And the ones among us who are most likely to survive when the going is roughest are the ones who can find the best shelter, food and water.

We have also proven that we can use these tools--this instinct--to harm or destroy each other, to keep others of us in slavery, to abuse each other

Some species of animal will eat their weakest in such circumstances. Some will abandon them to be eaten by predators.

Are we that kind of species? Our degree of civilization is marked by how much or how little we fit that description that nature gave us at birth. Are we the brutes that nature designed us to be or are we able to ovrcome that character set to be better?

We either teach our children that we and they are part of a global community and that everyone in that community has a responsibility toward each other or we teach them that some people (like themselves) are better than others.

There are no other choices, no middle ground, no gray areas. Either we believe we should help each other or we believe we shouldn't. To pretend to help others by making charitable contributions for which we receive tax writeoffs is a sham way, a deception to make others believe that we care about those less fortunate. We either help others or we allow others to be hurt.

Either we are brothers and sisters, all, or we are not. Despite the biblical example of Cain killing Abel, brothers do not normally kill each other. They don't allow each other to starve, to contract and die of AIDS, to struggle through drought or earthquakes without help or to sink into depression or addiction where they would remain until they die.

Some of us do those things. Some of us believe it's right. Some of us rise to the top echelons of our spheres and destroy our enemies or defraud our shareholders.

To believe in peace means that we must believe that every other human is our brother or sister. That we are all equal and the differences between us are centred around education.

We must believe that it is our duty as citizens and as humans to help up those who have fallen or who are weak enough they cannot get up by themselves.

If you believe in this kind of peace and want your way to be the way of the majority, then you must teach your way to children. Teach all children, even those who are not your own. Many children accept important life lessons from people who are not their parents or teachers.

If you want a better world, then you must live the life that a citizen of a better world would live. To do otherwise would be hypocrisy.

As the slogan for an important anti-bullying campaign says: Be the change.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the world a more peaceful, healthier and more vibrant place.
Learn more at http://billallin.com Nature provided us with the built-in tools to hurt each other, to discriminate against each other, to climb over each other to reach somewhere we want to go, to ignore or even to kill those among us who are weak.

In the animal kingdom, the system in which these tools of character are used is called the pecking order. The term comes from birds where the strongest or most influential of the flock tends to get the food it wants before the others.

The tools are components of our most important instinct, survival. We humans have proven that we can survive under the harshest and most severe conditions, including the widest possible range of climates of any animal, climate changes and natural tragedy.

We survive. And the ones among us who are most likely to survive when the going is roughest are the ones who can find the best shelter, food and water.

Some species of animal will eat their weakest in such circumstances. Some will abandon them to be eaten by predators.

Are we that kind of species? Our degree of civilization is marked by how much or how little we fit that description that nature gave us at birth.

We either teach our children that we and they are part of a global community and that everyone in that community has a responsibility toward each other or we teach them that some people (like themselves) are better than others.

There are no other choices, no middle ground, no gray areas. Either we believe we should help each other or we believe we shouldn't. To pretend to help others by making charitable contributions for which we receive tax writeoffs is a sham way, a deception to make others believe that we care about those less fortunate.

Either we are brothers and sisters, all, or we are not. Despite the biblical example of Cain killing Abel, brothers do not normally kill each other. They don't allow each other to starve, to contract and die of AIDS, to struggle through drought or earthquakes without help or to sink into depression or addiction where they would remain until they die.

Some of us do those things. Some of us believe it's right. Some of us rise to the top echelons of our spheres and destroy our enemies or defraud our shareholders too.

To believe in peace means that we must believe that every other human is our brother or sister. That we are all equal and the differences between us are differences centred around education.

We must believe that it is our duty as citizens and as humans to help up those who have fallen or who are weak enough they cannot get up by themselves.

If you believe in this kind of peace and want your way to be the way of the majority, then you must teach your way to children. Teach all children, even those who are not your own. Many children accept important life lessons from people who are not their parents or teachers.

If you want a better world, then you must live the life that a citizen of a better world would live. To do otherwise would be hypocrisy.

As the slogan for an important anti-bullying campaign says: Be the change.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the world a more peaceful, healthier and more vibrant place.
Learn more at http://billallin.com