Let’s talk about my experience that made me consider what peace is.
When to judge more rationally
Sometimes, we want to resolve our feelings of discomfort towards people.
If we have an innate logical sense, irrationality confuses us. One example is the inconsistency between words and actions.
Although we can perceive others’ emotions thanks to our sense of empathy, their broken logic hinders our identifying the reasons.
That forces us to make judgments based solely on emotions. In this state, we try to read the other person’s face. If the other person has negative emotions, we feel like we must calm them no matter what. That causes mental problems, such as unstoppable worries, an inferiority complex, and issues related to the self-boundary.
In other words, we have to cultivate logical sense. Otherwise, it is natural to lose our mental balance.
However, we sometimes cannot notice the inconsistency when we don’t develop enough rationality. We only feel something is wrong and uncomfortable. Although we might feel everyone is a liar, we cannot identify their contradictions.
Today, I will introduce one of my experiences. This perspective might help you understand inconsistency and when to judge more rationally.
My experience
When we encounter a contradiction, we feel discomfort. That indicates to us the time we use our logical sense.
Let’s look at one of my experiences.
By the way, I often use an example of peace advocates when I explain logical breaks. From my perspective, they are not much different from those who start a war. Some of them are just imposing their way of life on others. Although I am not good at conflict and competition, it seems I also cannot be a pacifist.
There is a reason why I came to think that way. There was an event that made me consider what peace is.
What the peace advocates left behind
Until a year ago, I lived next to a U.S. military base in Iwakuni City, which is one of the largest U.S. bases in East Asia. It is located close to Hiroshima, the city famous for being the first place in the world where the atomic bomb was dropped by the U.S.
Naturally, there were sometimes peace demonstrations.
That was several years ago; I remember it was after Israel began attacking the Gaza Strip. Around noon, I heard the loud voices of anti-war demonstrators from outside the window. It is noisy, so my nap is being interrupted. I heard from a neighbor that the demonstration group came from Hiroshima at that time. I heard their claims, such as ‘stop the war in the Gaza Strip’ and ‘the U.S. military should get out of here.’
Around 3 p.m., after the demonstration that day, I went grocery shopping. I went along the route that the demonstration team had taken.
When I saw that road, I was surprised. That road was full of garbage. Normally, it was always a clean and beautiful road. I often walked around that area, so I knew it. However, at that time, that path was cluttered with a lot of trash, such as lunch trash, empty drink cans, and plastic bags filled with scraps of snacks. There was even a leftover piece of bread that had only had one bite taken out of it.
It was easy to deduce that the peace advocates from Hiroshima left that garbage. The neighboring residents had to clean them up.
‘What is peace?’
That made me doubt, ‘What is peace?’
Invasion is the act of entering another region with one’s power and extracting taxes from its residents. These invaders always believe they have justice. They are trying to liberate underdeveloped people by giving them their sacred way of life. The taxes imposed on people are the compensation for their holy purpose. From the perspective of their ideals, such taxes are insignificant. That is why they can invade without a twinge of conscience.
That peace advocates from Hiroshima are no different from the invaders. From their perspective, it would be the duty of people around the U.S. base to clean up their garbage. It would be an insignificant tax compared to their ideal. They have power, status, and social authority. They would believe that those who go against their peace should be destroyed.
Such a group is condemning Israel for invading another area. Their actions and words are inconsistent.
At that time, I could not verbalize why I felt uncomfortable. I just felt something was off and uneasy. That would be one of the feelings when we encounter inconsistency.
Resolving that mental discomfort
I recently became able to describe it logically, and that resolved my mental discomfort.
They are just conflicting over power. Even if they have no military force, they have supporters that are substitutes for it, such as the government.
Their ‘peace’ is logically inconsistent. That often confuses us, especially if we have not cultivated our logical sense yet.
In other words, we have to develop our philosophy of how to understand it as a natural phenomenon.
That would free us from mental exhaustion caused by people’s irrationality.
Conclusion
That is an example of my experience when I faced inconsistency.
When we encounter a contradiction, we feel discomfort.
That indicates to us the time we have to use our logical sense.
This feeling might help you understand inconsistency in the world and when to judge more rationally.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
