Some more clarification.
6. You are not the center of the universe. In fact, your personal welfare is not even the most important. You do not know everything and you can be wrong. There are countless billions in this world, if your wounded pride leads to a fight then the chances are that the people most likely to be hurt are those who are not even connected with the situation.
Yay for a nice shot at the ego. This may be one of the more contentious aspects of pacifism Many would say that it makes almost no evolutionary sense to think of others first. In fact, this argument is the basis behind the book "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. The argument goes something like this: We, the human race, is evolutionally predisposed to hedonism because evolution is based around the concept of self preservation. Therefore, altruism is biologically non-existant. By this argument there is no reason for us to care for others except for social pressure. So if you have absolutely no biological compulsion toward altruism then why do it? Because altruism is the ultimate form of biological self preservation.
When you choose to think of yourself as the center of the universe you separate yourself from the people around you and, more often then not, gain their ire. People do not appreciate egotism and pure hedonism. When you think of yourself as incapable of being wrong or are prepared to fight with others for the preservation of yourself you cause feelings of anger in others. The current debt ceiling arguments in the US congress are a perfect example of this issue. The two main parties are divided by issues of party politics. The refusal by some in Washington to compromise and drop some of their personal feelings on the subject has made the issue bigger then it needs to be. At this point we risk default and danger of economic struggles because we cannot agree.
When we are altruistic we disarm people. A dangerous situation can be calmed very quickly when we take our personal and self centered beliefs out of the equation. If you disagree with someone you have two possible futures. In one you fight it out until feelings or bodies are hurt. In the other you choose to look at the situation with as few of your personal biases as you can and compromise can be reached. We fight and go to war only when we absolutely refuse to see anything outside of our own ideologies.
When you do not focus on yourself people are very likely to try and use it against you until they realize something. You are someone that they can get along with. People don't like to fight and they love a person who is generally nice to them. Do I personally agree with every single person I know? Of course not. I have my own opinions. In fact, I often have problems with dropping those opinions and I get into arguments. I'm human and working through those situations, but that is the rub of it. I try to see things from other peoples points of view and to not argue. Does it matter if someone I know has different world views then me? Not really. There are few things that I see as truly worth fighting over without compromise. Almost none of those concern my own views on life. If someone argues for injustice, violence, war, or racism then I will argue with that because it is harmful to others. Will I take this out to fighting or violence. Rarely. If I do, if I choose to fight then the people most likely hurt are the ones I'm trying to protect. Take Libya right now. They have gone to civil war to handle the problem and we have stepped in to help the rebels. Do the rebels have a justified reason to be upset? Yes, but by choosing violence the people they want to help are being killed. Look at Egypt and Tunisia* where the people were able to overthrow an oppressive and dangerous regime without war. You can see several instances throughout history of passive resistance leading to change for the better and it starts with a decision to look at others before yourself and to practice altruism.
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*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_revolution, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_revolution
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