The Peace Imperative

After beginning my study of intercultural communications we began discussing different imperatives in studying intercultural communications. The peace imperative was particularly interesting to me as I have thought about this particular thing many times throughout my life. The basic question is : Can people with different cultures, religious beliefs, races etc.. live peacefully with one another? Obviously not, as there are countless wars and battles between countries, cities, religious groups and so on based upon one group not liking what the other believes. This has always been very hard to understand for me. I was raised to be very open minded and unbiased about anyone who may be "different" from me in any way. This was a hard concept for my mom to instill in me since I grew up in a very small town in northern Wisconsin that was far from diverse. As I grew older and began to pay attention to what these wars and fighting were supposedly about it really bothered me. It seems to always come down to one group fighting another over differences in one thing or another. Why is this? Would the world really be a good place if everyone thought the same way, had the same beliefs, and came from the same cultural background. I don't think so. The world is as awesome as it is because of all of these differences. Even in the United States, the diversity is what makes it a wonderful place. The different foods that are available, the stories you hear from other cultures, the many different choices in merchandise, and countless other things are what make life fun and interesting. I cannot understand why billions of dollars are spent and many, many lives are lost each year over nonsense fighting. That is money that could be spent for the millions of people in poverty in the world and lives that could be spent sharing culture and diversity. The popular question "Why can't we all just get along?" certainly comes into play here. This is certainly a topic that is not going to be solved any time soon if ever at all but hopefully little by little open minds and open communication can help some.