Japanese sushi (credit: Laitr Keiows, via Wikimedia Commons)

Another bit of evidence supporting the hypothesis that maybe reason can be stronger than prejudice is the vigor evident in pluralistic societies, those that have succeeded in synthesizing several cultures. A community formed by merging many ways of life can work. Britain is a good example. Celts, Iberians, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans, Danes, and more recently people from all countries of Britain’s former colonial empire have blended. People who call themselves Brits these days show genetic features and cultural traits from many different tribes and/or nations.

Furthermore, we can see that after a war, living patterns and values change in major, radical ways not only for the vanquished, but often for the victors as well – ways not anticipated by the planners on either side.

   

                                          German beer (credit: Ich, via Wikimedia Commons)

When I was a boy in the 1950s in Edmonton, Alberta, there were two German delicatessens in my city, and sushi and dojo were just words in a novel. By the time I was a young man, German delicatessens and karate dojos could be found all over my town, a town whose men had just won a war against Germany and Japan.

Today, Germany and Japan are two of the strongest economies in the world, and Edmonton schools contain students from almost every culture on earth. In retrospect, it seems so stupid that fifty-five million people had to die so the Japanese could learn to open up to the ways of the gaijin, and I could learn to love and trust people named “Kobayashi”.

We in the West were the victors in that war, yet today we have embraced many of the technologies and morés of the vanquished. This proves that we can integrate. The trick in the future will be to bring about these changes on both sides of every rivalry by planned interactions in commerce, sport, science, art, and intermarriage. By peaceful coexistence and reason instead of bloodshed, in other words. This will be hard, but not impossible. In this age of the Internet and the global village, it is getting easier by the day.

   

                                  American hamburger (credit: Evan-Amos, via Wikimedia Commons)

One way or another, changes keep happening in every human culture, whether the changes originate from within or without. But changes in ways of living aren’t always accompanied by people hurting and killing each other. And given that in the end we all must answer with our cultural codes and morés to the same physical reality, there is reason to hope that peace-loving people, if they can become wise and motivated enough, may prove fitter for long-term survival than are the warmongers. Peace-mongers just have to get very subtle about how they program kids. Learn to see the principles of right and wrong in the events of physical reality itself. Then, learn to be vigorous and respectful. Finally, practice these principles in all your actions every day.  

   

                                    Russian pelmeni (credit: Eugene Kim, via Wikimedia Commons)

The evidence says very clearly that humans are capable of being open-minded, creative, and adaptable. From within ourselves, we can add will. Commitment. Then, there is real hope for peace. For the memes of decency and sense hitting critical mass in our species. For the survival of our world. And us. 

   

                                          Canadian poutine (credit: Wikimedia Commons)