My thoughts immediately turned to the thread running through violence on all levels-global, peer, community, school, family, and interpersonal. There 'is' a common element, a common cause. There's a violence that lies at the root of them all-it's the violence of the heart. The violence in any heart. In other words, if we are to overcome global hostility, we have got to learn to overcome the aggression in our own, individual hearts.
Every human being is a person-a being with hopes, needs, cares, and fears.
When we regard others' hopes, needs, cares and fears as inferior to, or less legitimate than our own, we see others as less than they are-as objects rather than as people. To see a fellow person as an inferior object is to harbor a violent heart toward that person. No matter our outward behavior, we end up communicating how we feel about others. To see others as objects, then, is to do violence to them-it is to swing at them with our hearts. When others detect violence in our hearts, they tend to become defensive and to see us as objects.