Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to counteract violence, anger, and hatred by developing our spiritual discipline and to be able to tap into our inner forces of love and to be able to share that love, express that love, to be that love itself. It also calls upon us to develop our values, our spiritual principles and practices in daily life that we may ultimately live life with loving kindness, compassion, understanding. And this is something that we all must do for violence, hatred, and anger begins within the individual and is made manifest and projected outward. So how a society behaves is ultimately represented by the collective consciousness of the individuals within it. So each person has responsibility to be able to counteract violence, anger, and hatred with love. Love is ultimately what makes life meaningful and makes life worth living.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: Where is hatred from? Mostly it comes from fear. If man is not able to understand the other, if man does now know who the other one is, if man perceives the other one as something mysterious, man begins to ask questions. What kind of complot is going on - among the others, among the minorities, among the neighbour's, among the strangers? This strangeness arouses suspicion, this suspicion stokes fear, fear rakes hatred and hatred leads to violence. So there is only one way to avoid this - education. The one have to get to know the others, they have to know more about others, especially about the direct neighbours. Man should know much about the minorities living in their surroundings. One should not say they are somehow different, I do not even know and I even do not want to know how they are - far from it: One has to know more! The more one is able to understand others, the less one fears him and then there is no hatred and no violence any more. This actually is the core of the whole problem. Of course it deals with education and the problem is that the education is still very different nowadays. Every nation has its own history books. In some cases single clans have their own history, sometimes even families, and the history is not only antagonised against others, but it restricts to itself and this is a way not to appreciate, not to understand others and then suspect the other ones, fear, hate and fight against them. So we are to have education and as far as possible the same education for everyone.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Ohm shanti, shanti, shanti. Opposite of peace -- violence, anger or hatred. These are so, oh man, things happen in our world that make us angry. That then we begin to hate that which makes us angry and we react with violence. These three are a trinity of emotions that you have every right as human being to feel. When they cut down Julia Butterfly Hill, I heard her speak recently, amazing woman, and what she said was that when they cut down the tree, they cut down an ancient redwood tree that’s been growing for 2,000 years. You have every right to be angry. She had every right to be angry. When something happens in our lives that makes us angry, if that’s what is you are feeling, you have every right to be angry. If you suppress that, it becomes a none -- it will build up and come out in a violent way. But, you have every right to feel angry but it’s how you respond. You should not act of that anger. They should come from a place of compassion, of love, of knowing then those that caused these acts that has now made you angry. Most likely, you don’t really know what they‘re doing truly. And if they do, man, it’s really sad. They are coming from a very sad place and it’s that compassion towards them, of them being so disconnected from nature and from the world that they’ll cut down the trees and destroy that which is sacred. It will make us angry but we must act from a good place in our heart, come from a good place.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: Love, tolerance, and understanding. In the context of peace, dialogue, and pluralism of opinions and opportunities can make the difference. We need to move foreword. We need to really create a society where violence is not the way of expressing or communicating among people. We need to talk. We need to dialogue. We cannot continue this monologue where people just really reinforcing this trend or the power against others. We need to re-educate ourself, to listen, to really talk, to really have a better way of interacting or connecting ourself with others. In modern society in these times, people are disconnected. You go home, you wake up in the morning, you go to work, you focus on your computer, you get in your computer cocoon, at work, you get out work, you go for dinner, you go back home, and you have less and less interaction with other people. You don't speak to your neighbors, you don't know who are your neighbors, you don't know the people in the street; just become a lonely person in yourself. And this disconnection is in some way or the other being the spark-fire for some of the violence that we see today. So we need to shift from that paradigm, really trying to link people, to bring people together, to really have better communication, to dialogue, to speak, to listen, and in that way we can really build consensus. We can build real democratic values. We can really build better societies.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: In my own life, raising my children, and they are two years apart and sometimes they fight with each other and they get very angry at each other. And these feelings are very real. So the first thing I have to do is I have to acknowledge the feelings. And sit them down and allow them to talk about it. It’s not easy for them to get past it. And I find that the hardest things to get past are kind of grudges, feelings that something bad has happened and they find it unacceptable and they simply can’t let go. They keep going in their mind back to an incident that’s troubling them and being unable to move on. I think a lot of the anger and violence and hatred in the world is because of slights that people perceive from others and of things that people did to others that leave people feeling they want to get revenge. Many of these things actually did happen but unless we confront the compassion in ourselves to try to move past them, to try to be the peacemaker-- I often tell my kids you guys get in a fight, but one of you has to be the peacemaker, somebody can be the peacemaker, someone can have enough compassion to try to bring the thing to an end and to try to start to work together in a different spirit. I think that that compassion, that dropping repeating the pattern is the key to trying to being to counteract these strong and real but negative feelings.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: Off course we can’t counteract the violence with violence, by doing so we don’t achieve anything. To those who hate we must not show our own hate and to the anger (evil) of others we must not show our own anger (evil). Primarily we should increase our own conciseness, which will help us not to be violent, angry or evil. After that if there is enough of us we can show collective resistance by: peaceful acts, persistent contravention, continues announcing of own opinion, not agreeing upon any negative phenomena, not keeping silent towards evil, getting reed of cowardice which leads to the slavery. So we should primarily be free, strong-willed and doubtless people. Last but not least we shouldn’t make from our opposition towards bad governments a new profession.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: Okay, this is a great question. I’d like to answer this question really from an inner perspective rather than sort of a behavioral perspective. I feel that the core answer to this is by spending time in silence every day, restoring a sense of balance in ourselves. I think we get caught up in the busyness of each day, the stress and strain, the worry, the chasing time, and I think the way to end violence and hatred is, actually, ultimately an inner battle. We do that by spending time in silence, getting back into balance. That’s really what meditation is about. It’s about spending time in nature. Actually, one of the most amazing things to do, if you’ve ever done this, is to just try spending 24 hours sitting on a log out in nature; just with some water, no food, no radio, no iPod, no distractions – just spend time. What you’ll notice is that the mind will come up with all kinds of crazy stuff. Your thoughts will become very weird for a while. Just stay with that and stay through that and everything will settle down. Then, you’ll find a level of restfulness and peace and I think that’s the way to really resolve violence and hatred is to transcend it within one’s self. You’ve got to stay in the place to let it through. So, good luck.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Catherine David: It is not easy to answer this question in an easy way. I believe that there are a 1000 ways and a 1000 situations. If it is a situation of violence, of hatred and indirect anger, one can ignore it, one can be autistic, one can also deconstruct in certain cases, if it deals with physical violence, extremely approached, I believe that one cannot always be [……………] but one should be able to answer to the violence even if it is not a solution. But I think that one should be a little bit reasonable and responsible. From time to time, I think that unfortunately we can only answer to violence by violence.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: I look on my own experience, abused and saw others abused, I had to look back on the lines of my own sins, and try to compare with those who are responsible; try to compare as other sins. Then you kind of have a balance. And also I tried to realize more of what I have today; the freedom I have today, where I live today, how I eat today. And then looking back my anger was going down more, down more, but it also depends on where one lives. I live in Denmark and this was a big, big challenge for me and also meeting Nelson Mandela. It helped me to realize that anger eats you up. It's better to use your energy into doing good than using your energy into being angry and have revenge and hatred. I think I'm more calm, more happy, because I also think that I have no more energy left in me to feed a bad heart, to raise an evil heart. I think I've used most of my energy to go on to survive, to gather my children, to be with my children. But also my suffering have teach me one thing; it have made me know that what I wish for me is the same I should wish for everybody in our world. And I think now I'm more closer to someone's suffering because of my own suffering and I've realized I’m not the only one who's suffering. I'm not the only one who lost people and this have helped me to take away my anger and try to do good. For me, meeting Nelson Mandela was, of course a challenge,...[Video Ende]

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: Hatred and violence are facts of human existence ever since the history of evolution has started. It would probably be utopian to deny these individual, psychological aspects in the hope of being able to abolish them, this would certainly be a fallacy. We have to try by social integration, by political integration, by economic success, by equal rights for the population, by giving people access to technological possibilities to avoid hunger and ethnic-religious conflicts. We have to try to show concern for all these aspects in order to exercise control over the potential of hatred, which is only biologically, only evolutionarily explicable. We will not be able to abolish it, in order to do so we would have to completely modify the human condition. According to human ethology we know that among animals there is also hatred, violence and aggression. Aggression can, of course, also express positive signals in the context of an evolution, of a darwinist evolution. According to ethology we know that these aggressions and the potential of violence cannot be avoided, we can only control them in a form that is politically and socially responsible, that is by education, by schools, by universities, by the integration into the entire social process. Democracies must be able to do this in an exemplary way, because in these archaic cultures there still exist tribal rituals that are not democratically integrated in this form.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Cornel West: Well, hatred is the coward’s revenge against those who intimidate one. To counteract hatred is to counteract cowardness, which is to say, what are the conditions under which we promote courage. What are the conditions under which we generate courage to be compassionate in the face of anger, in the face of violence? It’s so easy to respond to violence by means of violence. It’s so easy to respond to anger by means of anger. It’s so easy to respond to hatred by means of hatred. How do we break this cycle? This is a great question of Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Desmond Tutu and so many others. And, in the end it has everything to do with the courage to love, the courage to empathize, the courage to sympathize, the courage to pay a heavy price for refusing to remain in the gutter of violence and anger and hatred, even as that gutter seems in so many ways to seduce one in one’s low moments. There will never be a world in which violence, anger and hatred are eliminated, but there can be a world where violence, anger and hatred are alleviated or attenuated. It’s only the courage of fellow human beings to empathize and sympathize and to lead a compassionate life; and it’s always a goal very difficult to approximate, but a goal that’s worthwhile nonetheless.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: In our perspective and in the point of view of indigenous peoples, the only way to counter hatred, anger and violence is first inner peace, humility, love. And, these are the things that best counteract violence, anger and hatred for me. In the perspective of indigenous peoples, if you have these values, you will actually counter this negative attitudes and its negative impact of course. We have a lot of cases where a fight between tribes has been solved because of humility, letting leaders be humble enough and not counteracting to any violence actions of one tribe. And for me, this had been proven that the only way to counter violence is inner peace, humility and love.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: Certainly not by using violence, anger and hatred back, although that might feel like it’s natural and it’s the first thing that comes up is reacting to violence with violence. Reacting to anger with anger and reacting to hatred with hatred, but if we really want to counteract these things in a constructive way, we have to ask, be curious and actually see what part do we have in creating that hatred and anger directed in us. It takes two to tango and I think if someone points, is violent towards us, shows hatred and anger towards us, it just doesn’t come out of the blue. Somewhere, somehow, we have been part of creating it and that’s how we can, by just asking, being curious what that is is a step to a constructive counteract, I think.

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: Question #36 I also got confused. In the last question I answered this one, when I talked about closing my eyes and how whe should to face violence, rage and hate. Then, I was talking about tolerance, this one I’ve already answered. Forgive me please. I also ask not to get my answers wrong and please help me to find the right way so I could be able to have answered to all questions, I insist on answering all questions. And if you could help me to separate what I said and put it in the right place, I would be really thankful.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: Clearly, violence, anger and hatred are a part of human nature and will never be eradicated. How do you counteract it, to some extent, is by giving a human face to the other, is by not -– I don’t want to use the word stereotyping, but not generalizing the other into a faceless mask. And I think that, when the other takes on a human face, when it appears to be someone just like us, that the kind of institutionalized violence and anger and hatred is much more difficult to perpetuate.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: This is a great big philosophical question, how do you counteract anger, violence and hatred? I’m reminded of someone who said to me a long time ago, “There are really only two basic emotions or feelings in the universe, love and fear.” If you think about the most hateful, most violent, most angry, nastiest person you know on this planet, if you can imagine that person to be a baby, the first time that baby feels fear, what would you do if you were in its presence? And every one of us instinctively intuitively immediately thinks of holding that baby and comforting it. Now, if we can assume that all violence and anger and hatred comes from the development of unmet needs from babies that are afraid and don’t have anyone to put their arms around them, or from societies that don’t meet people’s needs, then I think you have the clue to most of the deep roots of anger, violence and hatred in our world. Sure, it’s healthy to get angry when there’s injustice in the world and things like that. But if you can learn to separate judgment from discernment. If you can discern the problems of the world without judging them then it’s easier to find solutions to them than if you simply counteract violence with violence, hatred with hatred, which never has worked, and never will work. It doesn’t solve the problem. We have to go much deeper and we have to move toward a human society in which we honestly care for each other and share the resources of the world far more equitably than we do today. I believe we humans are capable of that, that we can really build global family if we all put our minds and hearts into it.

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 12:55:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: The answer to that is surprisingly simple. My understanding and understanding has to begin by dialog with the willingness to listen to others. We do have dialog beginning and understanding follows, there certainly, there will be no need for violence, no need for anger and no justification for hatred.

by Ervin Laszlo