There are around two hundred sovereign states in the world and of all those states with so many different kinds of people and cultures, we all have one similarity, our mortality. Because our time here is so relatively short, we strive for glimpses of being, belonging, meaning, and ecstasy. Religion offers us a sense of belonging. It allows us to learn and grow together knowing there is life after death. Religion can also operate as an army, by acting unemotional to those who do not belong but we must learn that every human life is important to our growth as a whole. Religion, among other factors, gives us belonging but we all die alone and to some people, aloneness is a fate worse than death. We are all biologically related as one species living and surviving on this dying planet waiting for our time to come. Nationalism is at its peak when a war is over but it is violence that causes the majority of international disagreements. We see ourselves as individuals inside the State rather than individuals of a species. Certain things are pleasing to the crowd and not to the individual and so we must begin to rediscover the individual if we want a world of peace and prosperity. Living in a world order begins with examining the individual and being genuine and not afraid of death. It is the fear of death that fuels terrorism today. We think progressing a country into the modern world happens through military operations but it should happen with investments in education and healthcare. People in the most desolate parts of the world have no idea about the world around them. Young males being persuaded to fight in ISIS have a right to know what else is out there and that they do not have to fall into killing to have a meaningful life. World order will not occur after a world government takes form but rather with more international cooperation to establish peace and social justice. Psychology is among the youngest of empirical sciences and so if we want a world of economic well-being and ecological stability we must start with the individual and study our core human nature.

From the book of John 11:26, “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die;” the promise of eternal life and glory after death is the oldest trick in human history to persuade the common individual to do insurmountable actions. Today, ISIS is promising its prospects eternal life, the availability to rape any girl they choose and the opportunity to kill and make a name for themselves. We strive for a sense of belonging and meaning in our lives. Religion offers both these elements. Religion offers us the ability to be a part of something greater than ourselves. All humans need a sense of being, belonging, meaning, and ecstasy. The human need to belong is so overwhelming; young people in particular fear aloneness more than anything, exclusion is a fate worse than death. As I am writing this, my iPhone is vibrating with messages and notifications from social media sites, giving me a sense of euphoria each time. It’s exhilarating because machines such as a simple phone make the world seem a bit smaller, but they make the individual tied down to extreme constraints. American society crushes any glimpse of individual thought and we feel more comfortable chanting for a sports team at a game or cheering at a concert rather than in a library reading a book.

Back to religion, the bonds that hold together a Church are no different from those of an army. Any religion, even those that are religions of love, can be harsh and unemotional to those who do not belong. Our craving for membership in the State, the Tribe, or Faith (always, the “one true faith”) will bring about the downfall of individual prosperity. The greatest triumph and the most obvious case of this is Nazi Germany. Freud said it best when he remarked, “Every civilization will need to unite each single human life with all others;” no matter what religion, or race, or geographical position someone may be from we are all individuals and our greatest danger to mankind will be either an environmental catastrophe or blind individuals falling into the crowd.

Juan Manuel Santos, the current president of Colombia quoted Mother Teresa via Twitter on October 2,^, 2014, when he said, “No tenemos paz en el mundo porque nos hemos olvidado que todos somos hermanos,” in English this means, “We don’t have peace in the world because we have forgotten that we are all brothers.” In other words, to produce peace we should not have a “balance of terror” with geo-politics but instead a belief that we are all “brothers” surviving and living with the same basic human needs as a species. To foster this, we must invest in education and enlightenment rather than technologies that create ungodly destruction. Once we conquer our fear of complete aloneness, which is inevitable, we can begin to realize how similar each of us are.

However, some might say the point of view of a single human family is nearly impossible with so many competing sovereign states, but I think those people are wrong. A unified singularity must be accepted and satisfactory to the individual before progress can be made. As Albert Einstein said, “our task must be to free ourselves from this prison [a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness] by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Hope still exists for peace, but it’s quieter than ever before. The idea of Power Politics, or thinking one state is more powerful than another, is agonizing. Americans, for example, have discovered the limits of military power; ISIS has been using medieval tactics to fight the most powerful nation in history and they are winning. No longer in war is there a clear victory, only winning small battles will make a difference in the future. The global battlefield is similar to the human body where a small, barely noticeable pain can make a lasting impact in the future.

The U.S. Constitution, one of the greatest and most impactful documents ever written, is an outlier along with the American Revolution. Most revolutions are brought about by discrimination, war, injustice, or a new idea, and the aftermath of revolutions consist of decades of bloodshed, more fighting, and then another revolution. The U.S. Constitution is not perfect, but perfection in the eighteenth century was difficult with the adamant of slavery, but countries around the world have tweaked that document and written something more compatible for their state. For example, the current Colombian constitution, written in 1991, has over 300 articles of which the majority can be derived from some line in the U.S. Constitution. The problem Americans have is that we think all revolutions, especially those in the Middle East, should happen like ours. Our type of government is not ideal for many countries and our lack of acceptance is a problem. We have killed more Muslims in the past six decades than Muslims have killed Christians. Former Lieutenant General William G. Boykin is the prime example of our lack of acceptance for other cultures, especially other religions. In a 2003 speech in Oregon, Boykin said Islamic extremists hate the United States “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian…And the enemy is a guy named Satan.” He later went on CNN and said “I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.” There are more opinions about what happens after we die than people on Earth, but some think their opinion is more right than others. At first glance, there’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone has a right to an opinion. But as issue arises when that opinion interferes with another person’s well-being. We, as brothers, can no longer protect ourselves by winning battles half-way across the globe. We can, however, protect ourselves by realizing there are greater threats to our existence than religious differences.

I was recently at a professional football game and when the home team sacked the quarterback of the other team, tens of thousands of us jumped and cheered. This comradery doesn’t come easily or without some sense of commonality. We feel most comfortable as individuals when we chant in chorus. No sane individual would want another person to get tackled by someone twice as big to lose a handful of yards, but when we are in the crowd setting, that illusion seems glorifying. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt said it best with, “sports is to war as pornography is to sex.” Sports give us a delusional idea of what war is like the same way pornography acts like what sex should be like. If we are comfortable cheering when another player gets thrown to the ground, then we must be comfortable with the idea of the enemy being targeted thousands of miles away. In May 2011, when Osama bin Laden was assassinated, newspapers like The New York Post headlined bin Laden’s picture with the tagline “WE GOT HIM!” underneath. Someone was murdered in his own home alongside family members and Americans cheered in the streets in a patriotic way. Why are we so comfortable with killing and war? Why does it bring us together as a nation? Unrelenting violence, our most basic habit as humans, is the leading cause of international relations.

Freud, in his book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, said a group “is as intolerant as it is obedient to authority.” Freud said groups hunger for illusions, not truth. To the common individual, a group seems to have unlimited power and insurmountable peril. Not all groups will be evil however, but there are certain ideas and feelings that come about only in a group setting. Tackling a football player is pleasing to a crowd, smashing a guitar on stage is pleasing at a rock concert, and seeing a world-class terrorist shot down in his own home unites a nation. None of these would be good to see through the lens of an individual. But a group, or the “herd,” jumps and shouts at any glimpse of destruction or physical defeat.

We have failed to learn what is most important to global survival; global economies, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and spreading democracy to third world countries is not the answer nor has it ever been. Several parts of the world are worse off now than they were a millennia ago. In the shallow happiness that comes from Facebook notifications and modernization, it may already be the time for the end of new technologies and the need to begin rediscovering individual life. Our human feelings of anxiety, restlessness, and desperation need the most attention right now. Whole geographical areas of humankind are carrying out sacrificial and medieval practices disguised as war, terror, and genocide while other civilizations declare that “life is good”. Before we get on a plane we must take off our shoes in case someone decides to blow everyone up – we have excelled in technology, but we don’t trust each other on an aircraft, at a concert or in a school. When I was at that professional football game recently, a friend of mine had to bring her purse back to her car because it was too big. The security officials at the gate thought her purse was big enough to carry a weapon so it was not allowed inside the stadium. We accept this dilemma and move on. We give up certain freedoms to bring safety to the State, or tribe, or herd. Let’s stop following these restrictions and research the individual to fix our fear of each other.

We are more intersected as a species than ever before. We have traveled across oceans to discover new lands, we have invented new ways of communicating to one another so it doesn’t matter where you are on the planet because face-to-face communication is always possible. I can search any name in Google and all the public information on that person will appear in seconds. I can find information about Pakistan and Israel within minutes by watching the evening news or reading the newspaper. We are so intertwined as a collective group and yet we don’t trust each in certain environments such as an airplane, a concert, or a stadium. Individuals must see themselves as persons rather than members of a herd because we collectively have much more in common than people think.

I once spent a summer in Cartagena, Colombia, a place rotten with corrupt public officials and discrimination and the thing I learned most was that Colombians smile and laugh at the same things Americans do. Family makes people happy; watching children grow and learn makes people smile; taking pictures of a beautiful skyline makes people step back and realize how inspiring and amazing our small planet can be; seeing an older family member recover from an illness brings tears to the eye; sharing embarrassing stories of when someone was younger makes people laugh. We are not that different worldwide. We all share the same feelings and emotions no matter where someone lives. This must be realized by everyone if we want to strive for ecological stability, economic welfare, peace, and justice.

Of course thinking and writing about this is rather simple; but like I said before, hope still exists for world order to be possible, it only takes a moment to listen for it. Woodrow Wilson, from “On Being Human” said “The art of being human begins with the practice of being genuine, and following standards of conduct which the world has tested.” We don’t have much time on this tiny planet, so the best thing to do is to be genuine and make personal relationships. This can be conquered if we look past death and realize our own mortality. “By accepting death, then, each moment of life becomes vastly richer in joy, meaning and potentiality. (Louis René Beres, “Death, the Herd, and Human Survival”)

Of course, we want to escape death as E.M. Cioran, a Romanian philosopher, once wrote: “Nature has been generous to none but those she has dispensed from thinking about death.” The world needs a sustainable future and we must thrive in prosperity but we cannot move forward if we continue to fight against each other. We cannot prepare for peace if we are continually preparing for the next war. Some say today we are on the brink of the next Cold War with Russia but did we not learn the first time how awful that can be? Fear of death fuels terrorism today and it only leads to premature civilizations of corpses, for example, ISIS. Faith-based promises of power over death will lead to our collective destruction through persuasion and fear. Freud wrote, “Our conscious does not believe in its own death; it behaves as if it were immortal.” Our dilemma is a cycle. When we kill our enemy, we believe we have killed death – but it is this fear of death that leads us to killing. “Killing is a way of relieving one’s feelings, of warding off one’s own death.” (Eugene Ionesco, “Journal” 1966) Complete aloneness and death is inevitable. We must learn to live outside the herd, outside the killing, and focus on striving for ecological stability and economic well-being; we must not fear death because if we do, then it will control our lives and lead us to our own dark pits of hell.

The United States is surviving on this dying planet in a fragile network of relationships. Insecurities, poverty, and inequality should allow for an intersection of states but instead it divides us. It has always been a matter of “us” versus “them,” this should no longer be our excuse for poverty and discrimination. We should not be divided by geography or religion, but instead by how we can solve global issues such as global warming, human rights violations, and poverty. The global arms race is increasing exponentially while the national securities of the world are eroding. Countries should spend equal if not more funding on education and health care than military operations. “The egocentric ideal of a future reserved for those who have managed to obtain egoistically the extremity of ‘everyone for himself’ is false and against nature. No element can move and grow except with and by all the others with itself.” (Jesuit philosopher, Pierre Teilhard De Chardin) It’s simple biology that we are multicellular organisms and that one day our species will fall. But we have time, even though it may be little, to make our legacy last a bit longer.

All humans want a sense of being, belonging, meaning, and ecstasy, I would also add dignity to that previously defined list, but what the world order requires is peace, social justice, economic welfare, and ecological stability. ISIS prospects think that the only healthy way to be with Allah is to follow these extremists. America does not have a monopoly on what is deemed right and we respect all religions to a certain point; oppression is never okay even if it is institutionalized. Today, ISIS is promising young male prospects a sense of belonging – to be a part of an organization bigger than themselves – and a sense of being – to make a name for themselves in the most scattered part of the world. According to an NPR article published on October 3, 2014, titled “ISIS Captives Tell of Rapes and Beatings, Plead for Help”, a woman named Ali said everyday ISIS fighters would come to her village and choose a woman to rape. She was chosen multiple times, but she fought off the men and took beatings as her punishment. She was later forced into marriage with an old man. A year later she was able to sneak out during the night with her newborn son and a Muslim man found her and has been protecting her ever since. If these ISIS fighters were given the opportunity to glance at a globe and understand there are more routes to a sense of belonging and righteousness than rape and violence they might not have harassed Ali. Even the opportunity to study the social sciences, history, and literature would give them a basic understanding of peace and justice.

There is a very strong force among men to want to control others – especially women – that will only push us closer and closer to our demise. We have this uncontrollable desire to appear successful. We must examine our core human nature if we want to establish any kind of world order. We must practice being genuine and kind and accepting of other people if we want to survive past this planet. In Western religions, the promise of immortality is absolutely powering; it can persuade a follower to do unimaginable acts. We must move and grow past this idea of fighting for immortality. Mortality is the greatest common factor among us and it will be this realization that will bring us closer together. Our “hunger for immortality,” as Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno put it so perfectly, is our most lethal appetite. We have accomplished virtually nothing in political philosophy in two thousand years and it is because we do not quite understand human behavior like Plato did. We value a person with honors in the military more than someone with a doctorate in political science or psychology. Individuals should be sacred; we should not focus on how quickly we can kill the enemy, but how quickly we can learn about them.

We do not need a world government but we do need more international cooperation if we want any glimpse of peace and social justice. Americans stubbornly confuse wealth with success, which is the cause of our plutocracy – the rich go to college and the poor go to war. One should not have to go to war to pay for college. Education, enlightenment, and personal health are more important than teaching young citizens to risk their lives for freedoms. If we supply alternate views of Islam and educate those who are prospects of ISIS, then we can begin to change their sense of meaning and belonging. Spreading democracy is not always the most appropriate strategy to defeating the enemy, like we’ve seen in Afghanistan, but supplying sufficient amounts of patience and education and removing the caste system within ISIS might be the solution. The fighting in the Middle East will never completely be understood by the Western world but with our resources we can suppress the bloodshed and terror.

The objective for every individual should be to live and grow as an individual, not a member of the herd. “The wrinkles of a nation are as visible as those of an individual.” (E.M. Ciaron) Individuals must strive for prosperity in education and kindness rather than of wealth and it will only be then that we can have a world order consisting of peace and social justice. It should not be brotherhood of war that brings about national cohesion. What should bring us together should be the spreading of human rights to countries who had been ruled by dictators for centuries; bringing enlightenment to the Middle East, not the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Our communal despair is more important than our success. We must begin with the mind and how we can change it to create peace and justice before we begin to establish a world government.

A plain example of why we must start with the mind is when someone shouts “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater. People dash for the nearest exit when a cooperative plan for safety would save more lives. This metaphor for global survival is key in comprehending why we must start with the undiscovered individual. We don’t need a world government but international cooperation is necessary if we want to thrive as a species and all it starts with the individual. Developments in the psyche and psychology are of the youngest of all empirical sciences, but as C.G. Jung wrote in The Undiscovered Self:

“In the same way our misconception of the solar system had to be freed from prejudice by Copernicus, [our psychology must be freed] first from mythological ideas, and then from the prejudice that the psyche is, a mere epiphenomenon of a biochemical process, or a wholly unapproachable matter.”

There is so much we do not know about the human brain and so we must start there to appropriately fight warfare, genocide, and terrorism. World Order is when there is stability among every sovereign state, not a “balance of power” that could shift at any moment, a community where we hold each other accountable for acts of crime in the State level and in the international level, a community where human rights are more important than how large a State’s ICBM is, and lastly where the individual is the most sacred being, it is treasured because of the wondrous mysteries it entails and the limitless potential it has for good.