{"id":116465,"date":"2018-08-13T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=116465"},"modified":"2018-08-11T12:14:37","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T11:14:37","slug":"we-can-unilaterally-stop-being-nasty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/08\/we-can-unilaterally-stop-being-nasty\/","title":{"rendered":"We Can Unilaterally Stop Being Nasty"},"content":{"rendered":"

13 Aug 2018 – <\/em>In general, nations should not act unilaterally in foreign affairs. They should instead support international law and the United Nations. But there is one thing that we can and should do on our own: We can unilaterally stop being nasty!<\/p>\n

Interestingly, this principle is at the core of Christian ethics, although our supposedly Christian governments rarely follow it. Here are some quotations from the Sermon on the Mount:<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Ye have heard it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Christians are required to love their enemies, and to do good to those who have wronged them. This seemingly impractical advice is in fact extremely practical. Cycles of revenge and counter-revenge can only be stopped by unilateral acts of kindness.<\/p>\n

Contrast the duty to love and do good to one’s enemies with the doctrine of massive retaliation, which is built into the concept of nuclear deterrence. In a nuclear war, the hundreds of millions, or even billions, of victims in every country of the world, also neutral countries, would include people of every kind: women, men, old people, children and babies, completely irrespective of any degree of guilt that they might have. This type of killing has to be classified as genocide.<\/p>\n

If Christians were true to their beliefs, not only nuclear war, but every kind of war would be forbidden for them.<\/p>\n

The Second World War was the direct consequence of Clemenceau’s insistence on revenge. The impossible-to-pay reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles lead to hyper-inflation, financial chaos, and desperation in Germany, and without these conditions, Hitler’s Nazi Party would never have gained a foothold. By contrast, the unilateral act of kindness implicit in the Marshall Plan has produced the peaceful Germany of today.<\/p>\n

Humanitarian disasters provide us with many opportunities for unilateral acts of kindness. For example, an extremely severe drought that is currently threatening the children of North Korea with starvation. We have the opportunity to help by providing food. Has anyone thought of treating North Korea with kindness? It might be a useful experiment to try.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>John Scales Avery, Ph.D., <\/em>who was part of a group that shared the 1995<\/em><\/strong> Nobel Peace Prize<\/em><\/strong> for their work in organizing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network<\/a> and Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. \u00d8rsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and<\/em> received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles both on scientific topics and on broader social questions. His most recent books are <\/em>Information Theory and Evolution and <\/em>Civilization’s Crisis in the 21st Century<\/a> (pdf).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 Aug 2018 – In general, nations should not act unilaterally in foreign affairs. They should instead support international law and the United Nations. But there is one thing that we can and should do on our own: We can unilaterally stop being nasty! Has anyone thought of treating North Korea with kindness? It might be a useful experiment to try. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}