What The World Needs Now

After listening to the song, I decided that I would write a short essay. It's a very nice song, very catchy, and I suspect I'll be humming the tune for a while now. At first, it seemed like the answer to many of today's problems, but after putting some thought into it, I changed my viewpoint and do not believe more love will solve any of our current problems.

Not that there is anything wrong with love. It would be great if all people could love one another. But this just is not possible. To really love someone, you must be attracted to them in some way. In fact, the more ways we connect to another deepens our love for them. But, just as easily, our differences can destroy that love very quickly, and the greatest thing about humanity is our differences. It has been our differences that have continued to progress us.

Just as love won't solve all our problems, so hatred will multiply them. Therefore, it seems simple, replace hatred with love. Ah, but if it was only that easy. In my experience, it seems to work just the opposite, hatred often replaces love. Therefore, love is not the answer and not what we need more of. Love is beautiful and it does have it's place, it does wonders where it can exist and grow, and it does solve many problems. But there are problems that require more than love.

What I'm talking about is twofold, toleration and respect. First, people need to be more tolerant of other people, especially people who believe things we ourselves do not. We do not have to agree with them, we don't even have to like their beliefs, but we do need to tolerate them and allow them to have them. In today's world, I see so often one person or group insisting on everyone believing in the same as they do. We have become intolerant of anything we ourselves do not like.

Respect goes hand in hand with toleration. We may not be able to love those who are different from us, and we may not be able to agree with them, but we can respect their rights. Isn't that what freedom truly is, the ability to respect another persons freedom to be different? The greatest need is respect for authority, for without it, we have anarchy. Authority is needed to maintain everyone's rights to freedom. Without respect for other people and for authority, people destroy the freedom of others.

A simple example is the right to protest. A group of people come together to protest something they believe is wrong; this is fine, this is their right. But, when they begin to block interstates, they take away the freedom of those who did not join them. They prevent them from getting home to family, from getting to appointments, from getting to work; they destroy the other peoples freedom because they have no respect for them. And, how many times have we seen a group of protesters become a group of rioters who destroy property and even injure other people?

Yes, we need to learn to tolerate our differences, to respect each other, and to respect the authority that has to step in when someone fails to tolerate and respect another. This, applied to each and everyone of us, from the homeless person on the street, to those highest in authority, is what the world needs now.